Fellowship to send math and science teachers to high-need classrooms

Grand Valley State University signed an agreement Monday that will help put more science and math teachers in high-risk classrooms.
The agreement is part of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation Woodrow Wilson Michigan Teaching Fellowship Program. Six universities in Michigan are participating in the program.
It offers 40 recent grads $30,000 to get their teaching degrees and spend 3 years in high need, urban middle and high school classrooms.
Lee High School is one of those schools. The square-mile Godfrey Lee school district lies just south of Grand Rapids. Superintendent David Britten suspects it will benefit students and other teachers at his high school. "Not only are they going to teach how to teach but they're going to learn how to apply what they're teaching in the real world. It's going to be a great partnership is what I see," Britten said.
Grand Rapids Schools Superintendent Bernard Taylor says math and science can be tough for students to tackle. "I think sometimes we make it more difficult than it actually is and that's why it's so important for people to know the content but know how to make it interesting and make it come alive for a student - so that the student can believe that they can master what may be rigorous content," Taylor said.
Grand Valley is one of 6 Michigan universities chosen to adopt similar programs with struggling schools across the state.
The first class of 20 teachers is expected to be ready to teach in the fall of 2012.