First Class of Osborne Fellowship Teachers Completes Grad Work


May 11, 2005
By Beverly A. Carroll, Staff Writer
Chattanooga Times Free Press

Like a coach giving a pep talk before the game, literacy consultant Ellin Keene prepared Hillcrest Elementary School students for their reading lesson Tuesday.

The first-graders weren't the only students in the classroom.

Seated on tiny chairs in the small classroom were some of the first Hamilton County teachers to earn master's degrees in a program funded by the Osborne Foundation.

"This is going to be hard work," Ms. Keene, a Denver-based consultant, told the students and teachers. "But it's going to be better than the best video game you ever played or the best dinner your mom ever cooked."

The graduates were among 14 local educators who earned master's degrees in literacy instruction and urban teaching from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

Ms. Keene's lesson demonstrated the kind of work done by the graduates in the master's program.

As Ms. Keene wrote "synthesis" on the board, the students worked at sounding out the word. She defined the word for the first-graders as how readers change their minds about a book as they read it. As she read "The Other Side," she talked about how her idea of the story changed, and she asked the students about their thoughts.

Graduate Julie Wann, a second-grade teacher at Clifton Hills Elementary School, said the work expanded her reading instruction.

"I've learned that it's possible for young students to think at higher levels than people thought," Ms. Wann said. "If you can teach a child to think, beyond just recalling facts and memorizing, you are teaching them for life."

Since the Osborne Fellowship program started two years ago, 24 teachers have enrolled. In addition to the 14 graduates, five teachers completed their first year, and 15 teachers will begin classes this summer. The program, funded by a $1.5 million grant from the Weldon F. Osborne Foundation and a matching $500,000 grant from the Public Education Foundation, is designed to provide opportunities for 100 educators over five years.

The Osborne donation followed a grant from the local Benwood Foundation to nine urban elementary schools, said Leslie Graitcer, a senior consultant for the Public Education Foundation and coordinator for the Osborne Fellowship program. Benwood officials gave the schools a $5 million, five-year grant to focus on reading instruction.

Most of the schools have reported varying degrees of success, including Hardy Elementary, which moved off the state's academic probation list last year.

The Osborne program at first was limited to teachers in the Benwood Schools. This year the program expanded to include teachers at the five middle schools that will be part of a reform effort funded by a grant from the National Education Association, Ms. Graitcer said.