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MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A partner in a new undergraduate teacher training residency at the University of Memphis has filed an application with the state to offer 11 master's degree programs.
The Commercial Appeal reports (http://bit.ly/1yck7eU) that it has obtained Relay Graduate School of Education's 448-page application through the Freedom of Information Act.
The university has offered Relay free classroom and office space. Instruction would be provided by a program dean whom Relay intends to hire, plus four or five adjunct professors. Relay is seeking to begin offering the master's degree programs starting next summer.
Relay's approval is central to the university's plan to offer an alternative certification program geared to undergraduates entering their junior year. The plan is to attract students from other majors on campus and from schools around the nation who would be interested in teaching in the city's high-need schools.
"We have the foundation of an agreement in place, and it's very comparable with our study-abroad programs, which allow a student to spend a year somewhere else," university president David Rudd says. "The nice thing about this is it's targeted specifically to a unique Memphis problem — improving the educational quality and experience in priority schools in Shelby County."
The university's Faculty Senate is scheduled to discuss the program on Tuesday.
Rudd says the university's goal is to help solve a complex staffing problem in the 59 schools in Shelby County performing in the bottom 5 percent.
"Right now, we only provide 10-15 percent of the teachers in Shelby County Schools, and we need to do more," he said.
Relay was chartered by the New York State Board of Regents in February 2011. It is a by-product of a master's program started in 2008 at City University of New York by the founders of Uncommon Schools, the Knowledge is Power Program and Achievement First charter schools.
The idea was to build a curriculum around the skills found most effective in helping poor, urban students make large gains on test scores. Relay now has 850 master's students in separate studies for school leaders in branches in New York, Newark, Houston, New Orleans and Chicago. Memphis would be the sixth satellite.
According to Relay's application, up to 40 percent of the 450 hours of instruction in the master's program would be completed online. Cost of the 36-credit program would be $35,000. As a condition of enrollment, students must be teachers in a high-priority school in Shelby County.
Undergraduates who complete the residency would commit to teaching three years or more in a high-priority school. The expectation is that each would choose to complete their degree on campus and would spend time forming relationships at the school where they had received a job offer.
Rudd said no decision has been made about whether tuition would be covered by philanthropists. To date, unnamed groups have pledged $24 million.
The credits earned in the residency would automatically transfer to Relay's master's program, Rudd said.
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Information from: The Commercial Appeal, http://www.commercialappeal.com
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