RIC and Teach For America offer certificate program

RHODE ISLAND COLLEGE and Teach For America are partnering to offer a teacher certificate program. / COURTESY RHODE ISLAND COLLEGE
RHODE ISLAND COLLEGE and Teach For America are partnering to offer a teacher certificate program. / COURTESY RHODE ISLAND COLLEGE

PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island College and Teach For America, a program that places teachers in urban and rural educational systems, are partnering to offer a teacher certificate program in elementary education that could lead to a master’s degree in education.

The program will be available to Teach For America’s Rhode Island teachers.

“Helping new elementary teachers to grow and mature is an exciting new venture, consistent with our mission,” Sasha Sidorkin, dean of RIC’s Feinstein School of Education and Human Development, which will run the program, said in a statement.

“As we continue to revitalize our many existing programs, the partnership with Teach For America is helping us to learn more about non-traditional ways of preparing excellent teachers,” added Sidorkin.

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The certificate will be earned in one year while participants teach full time in public schools serving low-income communities.

The teachers then will have the option of continuing for an additional year to earn a master’s degree in education.

Ten teachers are expected to join the program this fall.

“We are thrilled to partner with Rhode Island College to provide corps members teaching at the elementary level the opportunity to earn their certification at one of our state’s leading trainers of new teachers,” said Heather Tow-Yick, executive director of Teach For America in Rhode Island, in a statement.

Teach For America recruits a corps of recent college graduates of various academic disciplines to commit to two years of teaching in high-needs schools.

Founded in 1990, this fall the program will place more than 10,000 corps members in 46 regions across the country.

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  1. This is such a betrayal of those who go to RIC to become career teachers. Students who incur large debt to go RIC and now compete with TFA 6 week wonders. RIC is the college for working class Rhode Islanders to get an education and enter professions like nursing, teaching and social work. Collaborating with TFA an organization, created & funded by Wall St. elites who seek to privatize and profit from public education, betrays those working class students.