The Walton Family Foundation of Bentonville on Tuesday announced its award of $4.3 million to Teach for America-Mississippi Delta region to support expansion of the organization’s teaching corps in Arkansas and Mississippi.
Teach for America is a national organization that recruits and trains recent outstanding college graduates in all academic fields to teach for two years in parts of the country where there are large concentrations of children from low-income families and a high demand for teachers. That includes the Mississippi River Delta region of Arkansas and Mississippi.
The grant, which builds on the work done with previous Walton Family Foundation grants, will enable the Delta program to expand from the 550 teacher corps members who worked in 125 schools and served 45,000 students this past school year, to 582 teachers this coming school year and 610 the next year.
The $4.3 million WaltonFamily Foundation grant for the coming two school years raises to nearly $15 million the total that the Walton Family Foundation has contributed to the Teach for America-Mississippi Delta region since 1993, according to Tuesday’s announcement.
Ron Nurnberg, executive director of Teach for America-Delta, welcomed the gift that he said will result in “a significant win for local children” in the two states.
“Each year we have to turn away qualified, dynamic applicants due to the lack of funding,” he said in a statement. “With this grant we will be able to deepen our relationship with Delta schools by placing hardworking, transformative leaders in many more local classrooms.”
The grant will be used to offset the costs of recruiting and selecting corps members, as well as providing five weeks of summer training at Delta State University in Cleveland, Miss., plus professional training throughout the teachers’ two-year commitment, Nurnberg said.
In Arkansas, there were214 Teach for America teachers this past year. Mississippi had 340. The difference is largely because of state financial support, Nurnberg said. Mississippi’s government contributes $6 million annually, and Arkansas contributes $800,000 annually.
As result of the grant, each state’s total will grow by about 15 in each of the next two years. In Arkansas, the Teach for America teachers serve in 28 school districts, including Pine Bluff, El Dorado, Lee County, Blytheville, Osceola, Clarendon and Marked Tree.
The KIPP Delta Charter School system, based in Helena West-Helena, relies heavily on Teach for America teachers and former Teach for America teachers for its teaching staff, as well as for its leadership team, said Scott Shirey, executive director of the charter system, himself a former Teach for America teacher.
Lakeside School District based in Lake Village also relies on the corps for as many as 20 percent of its teaching staff, superintendent JoyceVaught said.
The Walton Family Foundation is the philanthropic arm of the family of the late Sam and Helen Walton, the founders of Wal-Mart.
The foundation contributes hundreds of millions of dollars annually to domestic and international projects and programs. Included in that is an emphasis on improving the quality of life in the family’s “home region,” which covers Northwest Arkansas, Arkansas as a whole and the Mississippi River delta region.
“Teach for America is one of our most strategic partners in the effort to ensure all children in the delta region have access to a quality education,” said Kathy Smith, senior program officer for the foundation.
“Over the past 20 years, we have witnessed the unprecedented success corps members have had in educating children in the delta,” Smith added. “We believe a high-quality education is a critical condition of economic progress and community development.”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 11 on 06/26/2013