The USC Rossier School of Education has announced local partnerships with the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and three major K-12 school organizations: The Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, KIPP: LA Schools and Green Dot Public Schools. These partnerships will provide a broad range of benefits, including scholarships and professional development opportunities for their schools’ teachers, as well as greater access to top teaching talent for the partners.

USC Rossier continually seeks innovative and collaborative solutions to improve education outcomes. In 2009, the school began delivering its academically rigorous graduate teaching programs online, providing aspiring and practicing teachers with a unique blend of live Web-based class sessions, online self-paced coursework and hands-on, field-based teaching experiences.

To date, USC Rossier has established similar partnerships with 14 districts and groups across the nation.

USC Rossier provides the teachers and staff from its partner schools with a minimum $5,000 scholarship if they are accepted and enrolled in USC Rossier online programs. Partner schools also benefit from the following:

• ability to observe potential job candidates: USC Rossier master’s candidates will complete their student teaching, also known as guided practice, at a Southern California area USC Rossier partner school. This provides these schools the benefit of observing and evaluating teacher candidates in action to help them effectively identify the best potential future hires.
• USC Rossier commitment: The school has made a pledge to ensure the success of all of its graduates by supporting their continuous improvement and professional needs for the span of their teaching careers. Any alumnus facing a professional challenge who reaches out to USC Rossier will receive a plan for improvement from the school’s Rapid Response team of faculty.
• teacher recruitment: Partner school districts and organizations will have access to USC Rossier teacher online portfolios and can tap into this network to recruit highly qualified teachers.
• access to USC Rossier educational seminars: USC Rossier holds educational and topical seminars on the web led by its expert faculty. These webinars cover such topics as Common Core Standards, gifted education and arts integration.

“We believe that our teacher graduates are among the world’s best,” said USC Rossier Dean Karen Symms Gallagher. “We have always worked collaboratively with schools here in Los Angeles, but these new formalized partnerships will help ensure that the best teachers are working with local students to make sure they learn and succeed.”

LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy added: “This unique partnership affords LAUSD a wonderful opportunity to work closely with USC pre-service educators and the Rossier School on teacher preparation and teacher quality. It will provide tremendous benefits to our youth for many years to come.”

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