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October 30, 2002

UMBC Partners with Baltimore City Schools for History Education New!

UMBC's Center for History Education (CHE) is joining forces with teachers in Baltimore City Public Schools in an innovative teacher-training program designed to increase student achievement in U.S. history. A $950,000 award to the Baltimore City Public School System by the U.S. Department of Education will be used to improve the history teaching skills of approximately 100 city educators from high-need elementary, middle and high schools over the next three years.

"We are very excited to be able to work with the Baltimore City school system," says Dan Ritschel, director of the CHE and associate professor of history. "This funding allows us to bring together the full range of skills and resources of the historical profession to support the work of teachers in a way that hasn't been tried before."

Each participating teacher will be enrolled in the Teaching American History in Maryland Program for one year. During that time, the teachers will attend graduate-level courses and institutes at UMBC. Instruction in content and history teaching methods will be given by UMBC historians and Baltimore City master teachers. Ongoing assistance will be provided during the school year by a history resource teacher, as well as a host of historical institutions and organizations, including the National Council for History Education, Maryland State Archives, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Martha Ross Center for Oral History at UMBC and Maryland Public Television.

The grant enables the CHE to extend to Baltimore City teachers an expanding professional development initiative that in the past year reached teachers from 30 public schools in Baltimore, Anne Arundel and Harford Counties, impacting 3,300 young people. The inclusion of Baltimore City Public Schools in the Teaching American History in Maryland Program nearly doubles the number of teachers served by the CHE, which currently runs a similar grant-funded program with Baltimore County Public Schools.

Posted by dwinds1 at October 30, 2002 12:00 AM