January 2024

Alliance Newsletter

2024: RINGING IN THE NEW YEAR WITH GRATITUDE

Celebrating the Contributions of Pete Shulman, CEO

When the City Teaching Alliance Board met Pete over six years ago – then, as Urban Teachers – we knew we had found the right leader to help us transition from our founding years to our second decade of operations. He brought a rare mix of multi-sector experience and results in business, policy, and education, coupled with a true passion for and understanding of our model and an unwavering focus on its potential for students in our communities.

Over the past six years, Pete has tirelessly put his experience and passion to work alongside a fantastic team, and the results have been extraordinary. We know this work first and foremost by the number of people and communities we’ve reached with Pete at the helm, placing well over 1,500 new teaching residents across 6 cohorts, launching our 4th city, and exponentially growing our cumulative impact to 350+ schools and 350K+ students as of 2023.

We less often take time to step back and celebrate the big lifts, strong partnerships, and courageous moments behind the numbers, and as we reflect on Pete’s legacy, we’re glad to have this space to honor them. Many of you will recall some (or all!) of these milestones from your own journey with us, but it’s humbling to see them in one place – knowing they are far from exhaustive, and many took place during one of the most challenging periods our sector and society have experienced in our lifetimes.

• 2018: Pete led our staff and Board through a mission, vision, and values revision process that explicitly affirmed our commitments to anti-racism and the disruption of systemic inequity – sparking fundamental shifts in how we engage in and hold ourselves accountable to this work.
• 2019: Pete supported and championed the creation, funding, and launch of our landmark Black Educators Initiative, fueled by a vital investment from Ballmer Group and resulting in hundreds of new Black educators entering the profession.
• 2020: Pete collaborated with our senior leadership team to care for our staff and educators as the COVID-19 pandemic hit, seamlessly pivot our core program from largely-in-person to online, and win a major $10M+ U.S. Department of Education grant to deepen and expand our impact – including new innovation in culturally responsive social-emotional learning.
• 2021: Pete authorized a bold investment to offset school partner budget shortfalls in the gap between COVID’s onset and relief funds, enabling us to place our largest-ever residency cohort, and spearheaded the transformation of our financial package for incoming candidates – resulting in higher residency-year living stipends normed to living wage thresholds, more transition and relocation support, and an ongoing organizational focus on access and affordability.
• 2022: Pete sponsored and oversaw the successful launch of our fourth site in Philadelphia and our new higher education partnership with American University, growing our reach and sustainability and furthering our commitment to community-embedded, values-aligned pedagogy.
• 2023: Pete galvanized the organization to land a full rebrand and the launch of our new four-year strategic plan, and partnered with recruitment and admissions leadership to overhaul our operations – leading to remarkable application growth early in our current recruitment cycle.
• And throughout his tenure: Pete gave deeply of his time and expertise to strengthen our financial and business model, resulting in earned revenue improvements, new efficiencies, and reinforced operational foundations that we’ll continue to build on as we steward organizational resources to re-scale recruitment, strengthen program impact, and advance our strategic priorities.

The full force of this legacy can’t be put into words or numbers, but it is felt across our network, and our team is moving forward with full confidence and gratitude that Pete’s leadership has positioned City Teaching Alliance for many, many more successes in the years ahead.

Thank you, Pete, for all you have given to our movement to empower educators and transform futures!

Sekou Biddle
Board Chair, City Teaching Alliance
Vice President, Advocacy and Student Professional Development Programs, UNCF

Have a great memory or kind word to share with Pete? Please feel free to reach out to him directly at peter.shulman@cityteachingalliance.org through the end of this month.

CEO Search is Live – Partner Referrals Encouraged!

We are proud to work with our longtime collaborators at Edgility Consulting to search for the Chief Executive who will lead City Teaching Alliance into our exciting next chapter. As a maturing organization with a powerful and essential mission, a unique approach, a passionate and committed team, proven results, recruitment applications on the rise, and new innovations on the horizon, we’re looking for a catalytic, visionary, values-driven practitioner-leader who will accelerate our impact growth and organizational development and uplift the voices of our Alliance to co-create the future of teaching and learning.

If you know someone you think we should be talking to – whether as a candidate or a potential connector – please share the job posting with them and/or send your referrals directly to Jonathan Howard at jhoward@edgilityconsulting.com.

THANK YOU!

As we turn the page to a new year, we’re immensely grateful to all of you who so generously gave your voice, time, talents, and financial and other resources to empower educators and transform futures. Your 2023 gifts to City Teaching Alliance created a powerful spark that ignited the potential of hundreds of new and aspiring educators collectively nurturing thousands of future change agents in our communities.

Your contributions fuel our mission to improve educational and life outcomes for the students in our communities and disrupt systems of racial and socioeconomic inequity.  Thank you for sharing this journey with us. 

SPOTLIGHT: Texas Instruments

​​​​​Texas Instruments Foundation has been an early and ongoing supporter of our work in Dallas, and this powerful partnership helps City Teaching Alliance meet a growing demand for highly effective teachers in STEM subjects. As a result, students in the Dallas area are receiving top-notch instruction that not only improves their academic performance, but also prepares them for real-world careers in emerging, high-demand industries.

“The TI Foundation is proud to support the important work [of City Teaching Alliance] and its mission to attract, train and retain more effective teachers,” said Andy Smith, Executive Director of the TI Foundation. “We know that teachers have a significant influence on students, and that having high-quality math and science teachers in the classroom is crucial for students to succeed. When students succeed, the region succeeds, and this is why STEM teacher effectiveness is our highest giving priority.”

JOIN THE ALLIANCE!

City Teaching Alliance is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization built on community collaboration, and there are so many ways you can help us achieve our mission!

CALLING ALL CORPORATE PARTNERS!

Do you or your partners serve and support teachers, college students, or young adults entering the workforce? Are you committed to ensuring all children have access to a quality education and being a part of creating a more equitable society? If so, let’s talk today!
We have numerous sponsorship opportunities that provide necessary funding for our program, and we offer exciting opportunities for collaborative promotion of your business or brand.
EMAIL US

OUR 2024 COHORT ARRIVES IN 5 MONTHS!

Do you know an aspiring teacher? They can apply here TODAY!
Our next deadline for this application year is February 12th.

City Teaching Alliance is more than a teacher preparation program – we’re a comprehensive preparation and development pathway with more coursework and personalized support than any other teacher preparation program in operation today. Our teachers complete a full-year in-classroom residency prior to leading their own classrooms, earn a master’s degree from American University School of Education, and become dually certified to teach in a core subject area (elementary education, secondary English, or secondary math) and special education*. Additionally, we facilitate 85+ hours of coaching support over the first three years in the classroom, provide a growing suite of wraparound services and resources to facilitate whole-educator well-being, and nurture a vibrant learning community of lifelong practitioners.

*Our Dallas site also offers certification in English as a Second Language

DID YOU KNOW?

• 9 out of 10 consumers will travel an additional 20 miles to support a business that is known to support important causes like education and equity.
• More than 85% of US consumers say if a business or brand wants their loyalty, that business or brand MUST support changemaking non-profits.
• How important is it for a business or organization to support the community where it operates? MORE than 9 out of 10 consumers will walk swiftly past businesses that do not support community causes in favor of patronizing those that do — even if the business is offering discounts or promotions.

We hope you will stay connected with us, our students, our educators, and our schools as we – and our growing network of powerful practitioners – continue to learn, innovate, and co-create the future of teaching and learning in our communities.

We will never share our mailing lists with outside organizations.

Please help us grow our City Teaching Alliance (formerly dba Urban Teachers) family by sharing this newsletter with your friends, business partners, and community thought leaders. City Teaching Alliance is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization (EIN 27-0989006). To learn more about us, visit our website at CityTeachingAlliance.org or Click Here to donate.

Donations can also be mailed to:
City Teaching Alliance
8 Market Place
Suite 410
Baltimore, MD 21202

Text-to-Give: INSPIRECHILDREN to 44-321

Contact Lyn Rumage at 410-417-9429 or Lyn.Rumage@cityteachingalliance.org for planned giving, Donor Advised Funds, trusts, or legacy gifts.

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