The City on a Hill Foundation, Inc.

City on a Hill seeks to close the achievement gap by providing low-income and minority students with a key resource that they are currently lacking: high quality, experienced teachers. Through its Urban Teaching Fellowship, CoaH effectively trains, mentors, and educates both current and aspiring teachers, giving them the tools they need to have an impact in urban public schools. The program certifies inexperienced teachers who are currently in the field conveniently and affordably as part of Boston University's program and gives both aspiring and current teachers an added edge to bring into their classroom and positively affect student achievement. Fellows bring fresh content knowledge they learn at Boston University back to their schools, challenging teachers and administrators who may be removed from research. They also bring fresh urban field experiences back to Boston University, challenging professors who may be removed from the classroom and/or classmates placed in very different schools.

After an extremely thorough hiring process, Fellows start the program in August, two weeks before students arrive, and end the licensure portion of the program the next August, after teaching summer school for their department. This means Fellows spend more than 1,600 hours in schools—far more than the state’s minimum requirement of 300 hours. This additional practice helps Fellows enter their first year of teaching fully prepared for its demands. Some alternative programs meet the same number of hours by having candidates enter directly into full-time teaching (usually after a summer of coursework). City on a Hill believes the Fellowship’s supportive ramp up to a half-load (two classes) is key. This allows Fellows to perform frequent observations of their mentor and others; regularly meet with their mentor, the Director, and their department; work on graduate school coursework; and take over classes only after a safe incline of increasingly longer blocks of instruction, several observations by the Director and the mentor, and two formal three-way meetings on their progress. This half-load design also allows Fellows to contribute to the school community in ways full-time teachers cannot, such as helping with meal duties, leading various clubs and extracurricular activities, and subbing for teachers who are out.