Detroit: Home to the First Teaching Residency Program

Excitement and hope were palpable on September 13 as reporters and TV crews joined community members and friends of partner organizations who had gathered for a big announcement on the Marygrove College campus in northwest Detroit. Clues had been emerging in the two weeks prior to the event, as public board meetings of the Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) included discussions about a potential new school in the district. Seated on the stage were leaders from DPSCD, The Kresge Foundation, the city of Detroit, Marygrove College, Marygrove Conservancy, Starfish Family Services, and the University of Michigan. 

One by one, the speakers introduced new elements of a preschool through college community partnership—one of the first in the nation—that will be housed on the spacious Marygrove campus. A $50 million investment to build a new state-of-the-art early childhood education center, and to renovate a K-12 school building by The Kresge Foundation places education at the center of community revitalization efforts in the Livernois-McNichols district in Detroit.
In addition to a preschool, community services, and new public schools for grades K-12, the campus will be the site of the SOE’s new Teaching School, featuring the first teaching residency program in the country. As Dean Elizabeth Birr Moje stated, “Together we will build a respectful, sustainable, and ever-growing partnership driven by neighborhood and community needs. We will achieve DPSCD’s vision to create exceptional learning experiences for Detroit youth. We will work together to teach children using evidence-based and state standards-aligned instructional practices carried out by exceptional teachers and leaders. And we will build a school and a city staffed with teachers who are prepared to serve their students in any and every learning environment.”

U-M President Mark Schlissel added, “Modeled after the concept of a teaching hospital, student teachers and teachers in residence will practice their profession while learning the theories and pedagogical skills that are essential to the effective practice of teaching. There’s a symmetry in this because the University of Michigan was the first university to own and operate its own teaching hospital. Now we’re the first, in partnership with the Detroit Public Schools, to operate a teaching school.”

 

After being part of the school community for one to two years as teaching interns, newly certified teachers will work alongside veteran educators in the primary and secondary schools for three additional years to continue their training while also helping newer student teachers learn the profession. The SOE will continue to support these resident teachers’ development at no cost to the residents. At the conclusion of the residency, professionally certified teachers will be prepared to teach and lead in any school. Their level of preparation will make them more likely to stay in the teaching profession.  This model is one that other universities can also enact in the service of professionalizing teaching. 

Other U-M schools and colleges will join the collaboration to offer wrap-around services that support both children and their teachers. Early partners include the College of Engineering, Stephen M. Ross School of Business, A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, School of Social Work, School of Nursing, and School of Dentistry. “We are all stepping into an innovative space, and the potential is hard to overstate,” said Moje. 

The first phase of the campus will include a ninth-grade pilot program to open in 2019, followed by the opening of the early childhood education center and kindergarten in fall 2020. Successive grades will be added each year, and by no later than 2029, all grades will be offered, alongside undergraduate and graduate studies and professional development courses and certifications.

At full capacity, the new early childhood education center (operated by Starfish, with curricula developed by SOE Professor Nell K. Duke) and the primary and secondary schools (operated by DPSCD in collaboration with the University of Michigan SOE) is projected to serve more than 1,000 Detroit children and their families, primarily focused on the surrounding neighborhoods in the Livernois-McNichols district.

DPSCD and the U-M SOE are jointly developing the K-12 curriculum for the schools. Place-based and project-based curricula will support the school’s aspiration to produce “leaders engineering change.” “The P-20 model is directly tied to our five-year vision for the Detroit Public Schools Community District,” said Nikolai Vitti, DPSCD Superintendent. “The magnitude of this partnership is priceless in that it will impact teacher training and create high-quality programs for students at every level of their educational career.”

Mike Duggan, Mayor of Detroit, praised the partnership for providing outstanding educational options for Detroit families: “Not long ago, we were faced with the prospect of this incredible campus going dark, which would have been a terrible setback to the revitalization that is taking place in this area of our city,” said Duggan. “Instead, today we are celebrating a new beginning and bright future at Marygrove, thanks to The Kresge Foundation, DPSCD, the University of Michigan, and all the partners in this effort. We owe them all a great deal of appreciation for recognizing the importance this campus has to our city and to the community.”