—Pittsburgh Public Schools today received a grant award of $39.5 million from the U.S. Department of Education’s 2010 Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) program.

 

“The federal government has made it clear that they will support aggressive, innovative education reform. Pittsburgh won this grant because we are on the cutting edge of national efforts to improve educational outcomes for students. This grant will support our work to improve teacher effectiveness,” said Superintendent Mark Roosevelt. “We earned this award because we are doing the hard work necessary to dramatically change the course of an education system that failed our kids for too long.”   

 

 

Added Superintendent Roosevelt, “Today, Pittsburgh is a model for the rest of the nation because of our aggressive work, and also for our collaborative approach to how a district achieves meaningful change. We have been blessed to have great partners in this work, most importantly the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers (PFT). We have also benefitted from tremendous support from our civic and community leaders who recognized that the status quo wasn’t good enough any more.” 

 

 

 

 

According to the U.S. Department of Education, the 62 winning TIF applicants announced today represent rural and urban school districts as well as non-profit groups and state education organizations from 27 states across the country. The five-year $1.2 billion TIF program seeks to strengthen the education profession by rewarding excellence, attracting teachers and principals to high-need and hard to staff areas, and providing all teachers and principals with the feedback and support they need to succeed.   

 

Pittsburgh Public Schools is one of only two TIF recipients from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and is among the 10 largest award recipients in the nation.