Education Exchange Corps
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1Recruiting college students to serve in urban school districts as teaching assistants in elementary school classrooms and as administrative interns
Vote: 6
Team Leader:
Elad Gross
Team Information:
The Education Exchange Corps (EEC) was founded by Elad Gross and Lauren Lee-Houghton. Elad is a Duke senior majoring in Economics and Political Science. He has extensive experience working with children and is primarily in charge of Community Relations, Media, and Finances for the EEC. Lauren is a Duke senior majoring in Public Policy and minoring in both Spanish and Italian. She is currently working as a research assistant at the Research Network on Racial and Ethnic Inequality at Duke and is in charge of Volunteer/Intern Scheduling, Social Event Planning, and Research for the EEC.
The Idea:
Education Exchange Corps
By the third grade, the academic achievement gap between poor and wealthy Americans is already measurable and significant. School districts all across this country are struggling to educate the next generation of leaders, and millions of students drop out of high school every year. We owe it to every child to do better.
And we believe that we can.
We focus on urban school districts because of the unique resources available in such areas. We provide assistance in elementary classrooms in order to engender a culture of academic achievement at a young age and to prevent the achievement gap from opening at such an early stage. We make most of our placements during the summer because research has shown the importance, and the relative neglect, of student summer activity. We recruit college students to expose our newest professionals to the field of teaching and to show elementary school students that college is a possibility.
The Education Exchange Corps works throughout the year because we know we can make a difference.
Every child should be given the opportunity to enjoy a quality education. We believe that more community involvement can turn this idea into a reality. The Education Exchange Corps places college students into internship positions with urban school districts. 1) Teaching Assistantships: College participants are placed in elementary summer school classrooms for the duration of summer school. Participants work with the class as a whole, small groups of students, and 1-on-1 with individual children needing the extra attention. Summer school lasts 6 weeks. We also piloted a similar fall program in 2009. 2) Administrative Internships: College participants are placed in internship positions at district headquarters under various departments. Past participants have helped revise the district science curriculum, publish press releases, and conduct research. These placements run alongside the teaching assistantships and can be extended for a longer period over the summer. We encourage all administrative interns to serve as teaching assistants as well. We also offer part-time placements to allow as many participants as possible to help better their community through the education system. To date, we have placed more than 100 college students to work with over 1000 children in the city of St. Louis, Missouri. Eventually, we will spread to other urban areas as our organization grows. We also encourage participants to take their experiences back to the classroom, and in the future we will be supporting further collaboration among past participants who are dedicated to improving our education system.