The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation's Indiana Teaching Fellowship

Meeting Indiana's Education Needs

Like most states, Indiana must prepare more and better teachers to fill shortages and build a workforce that can compete with the rest of the world. The Woodrow Wilson Foundation's new teaching fellowship program meets these challenges head on. Participating universities have pledged to take bold steps to improve teacher education. They will re-evaluate and change curriculum, study new leadership models, expand partnerships and mentoring in high-need schools, and evaluate their graduates. The fellowships will help Indiana attract talented college graduates who often seek jobs in higher-paying and more prestigious fields. Top graduates will be offered one-year graduate teaching fellowships and other benefits that, when combined, will help Indiana meet the pressing educational need outlined here.

What are some of the challenges that Indiana faces that the Teacher Fellowship will help address?

* Indiana will need to replace a significant proportion of its teacher workforce. One-third of Indiana teachers will be eligible to retire in five years. Moreover, 41 percent of Indiana's 73,000 K-12 teachers and administrators are age 50 or older, meaning that the need to replace these retiring educators will continue to grow.

* Indiana, like most states, suffers from high teacher attrition and mobility rates that better teacher training, mentoring and support will address. An analysis by the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy (formerly the Indiana Education Policy Center) of Indiana teachers who began their career during the 1994-95 school year found that five years later, 44 percent had left their original school district, with 16 percent having moved to different districts. Meanwhile, 28 percent left teaching.

* At time when the state's economy requires more students completing postsecondary education, improved teaching will help boost the state's high school graduation and college-attendance and completion rates. Today, the percentage of adults ages 25-64 in Indiana who have a college degree (31.2 percent) ranks 15 percentage points behind the national average (46.2 percent), Jobs for the Future and the National Center on Higher Education Management Systems report. The problem is partly a matter of getting more students who graduate from high school to pursue college. Today, nearly three-fourths (73 percent) of Indiana high schoolers graduate, but fewer than half (45 percent) of these graduates enter college. Equally troubling, the percentage of 18- to 24-year-olds who enroll in college has risen only 1 percent from 1992-2006, according to the annual Measuring Up report by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. Finally, 31 percent of Indiana residents have college degrees. According to the 2005 American Community Survey, Indiana ranks 42nd nationally in the proportion of its residents with an associate degree or higher (31.2 percent).

Teachers are needed to help students meet rigorous new state graduation requirements. This fall, Indiana's Core 40 became the required high school curriculum, providing all of the state's students the opportunity to receive and complete high-level courses. But more talented teachers are needed to provide students - particularly those in urban areas where shortages are most acute - with the subject knowledge and instructional skills needed to meet these new and rigorous demands.

CONTACT: Beverly Sanford - Director of Communications, sanford@woodrow.org, 1-609-452-7007 x181