At Temple University, the Temple Teacher Residency (TTR) provides tuition awards and stipends to students in the university's intensive one-year MEd program, which prepares veterans and others who have STEM undergraduate degrees to become middle school STEM teachers. Although the residency is open to all students with an undergraduate degree in science or math, each of the program's three cohorts has included one veteran as a result of active recruitment by Temple through Troops to Teachers.

TTR is hands-on, with participants working with a teacher-mentor in a school throughout the academic year. "Their … learning begins with observations and understanding the principles of pedagogy and classroom management to slowly work into a co-teaching model," explains Michele Lee, director of TTR. "This prepares students, especially veterans or other career changers who do not have an undergraduate degree [in education], to teach middle school."

Lee believes that one benefit K-12 schools gain from hiring veterans is that they bring a sense of mission to their career change. "They tend to commit long term to teaching, which compares to statistics that show 50 percent of all new teachers leave the profession within five years," she says. "Schools, especially the underserved [ones] in the Philadelphia school system in which TTR graduates are placed, need [this] long-term commitment to provide continuity for their students."

Additionally, because 86 percent of the students in the Philadelphia school system are minority, the experience with diversity that veterans bring is valuable, says Lee. "The military is a diverse organization, so veterans are accustomed to working with people of all ages, genders, races, and social backgrounds," she explains. "This translates well to an underserved or minority population in a middle school."

Read the full story via Insight Into Diversity.