Posted March 11, 2008

New Pa. Governor's School for Urban Teaching established at Temple University

Temple University’s College of Education and State Rep. James Roebuck, D-Phila., announced the creation of the first Pennsylvania Governor’s School for Urban Teaching at a news conference on March 7.

The five-week training program, which is modeled after the Pennsylvania Governor’s School for Education at Millersville University, will give Pennsylvania’s high school students the chance to see up close the challenges and rewards of teaching in an urban environment.

Pennsylvania Governor's School for Urban Teaching at Temple University

Photo by Joseph V. Labolito/Temple University

(from left) Wanda Brooks, assistant professor of Elementary Education and Reading, State Rep. James Roebuck, chair of the Education Committee for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Dean C. Kent McGuire of the College of Education and Heidi Ramirez, director of the Urban Education Collaborative share a laugh after the news conference announcing the Pennsylvania Governor's School for Urban Education. The school, a five-week program that exposes students to the challenges and wonders of urban education, is a collaboration between Temple and the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

Rep. James Roebuck approached Temple with the idea of creating a Governor’s School with an urban education focus as a way of fostering the next generation of educators with this specialty, said Heidi Ramírez, director of Temple’s Urban Education Collaborative.

“It’s an opportunity to create a pipeline for urban educators, particularly from urban schools and diverse backgrounds,” she said.

Among the ways that this pipeline will be created is by having students experience urban education from both the academic and real-work perspectives, Ramírez said.

Temple’s Urban Education faculty members will showcase their knowledge in custom-designed summer courses and tutoring experiences where Governor’s School students teach younger students from the Temple neighborhood. The high schoolers also will get support in preparing for college, hear from guest speakers and participate in a variety of enrichment activities.

Field trips throughout Philadelphia will allow them to experience parts of the city they may never have seen and learn about ways the city’s many cultural and community resources can enrich the urban educational experience, she said.

Rep. Roebuck, chair of the House Education Committee, secured the $350,000 in funding for the program in hopes of attracting Pennsylvania’s top students to this opportunity to live and learn in Philadelphia this summer.

“I'm pleased to have worked with the Pennsylvania Department of Education and Temple University’s School of Education to establish this summer's five-week training program,” he said. "We're looking for Pennsylvania's best and brightest high school students who will someday be our next generation of urban teachers."

The program will run from June 29 to Aug. 2, and students will be housed at Temple University’s Main Campus in North Philadelphia. They also will receive full tuition and a stipend as part of the program.

This is the ninth Governor’s School for Educational Excellence, and the first devoted to teaching urban education.

Interested students may apply via the program’s web site, www.temple.edu/education/pgsut, via e-mail at pgse@csiu.org or by calling 215-204-1741.

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