For the past 25 years, TC’s Elliot and Roslyn Jaffe Peace Corps Fellows Program has been fast-tracking returning Peace Corps volunteers into public schools in the highest-poverty concentration areas in New York City. Fellows complete a summer intensive training program, then serve in full-time teaching positions and work toward their master’s degrees in education. • Fellows receive aid through a scholarship fund set up by TC Trustee Elliot Jaffe, and their positions are supported by an AmeriCorps grant. • To date, the program has placed more than 700 fellows in public schools, reaching more than 120,000 students in the highest-needs schools. • Presently, there are more than 300 fellows actively teaching across the city. • A dozen alumni have become principals, school directors and assistant principals. • The program boasts a high teacher retention rate: in 2006, 76 percent of former fellows entered their fourth year of teaching. In contrast, it is estimated that up to 45 percent of all new teachers leave the city system within three years. • More than 40 universities now offer Fellows programs modeled after TC’s, which was the first of its kind in the country.

Published Wednesday, May. 19, 2010