Golden Apple

Cause Area

  • Education & Literacy

Location

901 W JacksonSuite 205Chicago, IL 60607 United States
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Organization Information

Mission Statement

Golden Apple is committed to making a material difference in resolving the teacher shortage through its Scholars and Accelerators programs by expanding the state’s pipeline of highly effective, diverse educators by inspiring, developing, and supporting teacher and school leader excellence in Illinois, especially in schools-of-need.

Description

The Golden Apple Scholars of Illinois Program is focused on recruiting high school seniors through sophomores in college, from communities in which they will likely return to serve, as highly effective teachers in schools of need. Our Scholars are largely first-generation in their families to attend and persist in college, reflect the communities' diversity in which they will teach, and are high-achieving. Scholars receive social-emotional support, academic support, help to find a right-fit teaching placement, and mentoring in their first years of teaching. They are well-prepared to enter their classroom in some of Illinois’ most challenging and historically underserved schools; and, they remain in teaching longer than those prepared by any other program. And, while more than 50% of Illinois students are of color, only 18% of Illinois teachers are people of color; Golden Apple is working to address this inequity, with 53% of its Scholars being teachers of color.

Despite dwindling enrollment in colleges of education at many universities, each year interest from highly-qualified applicants to our program far outpaces the funding necessary to support expansion of our capacity to prepare more Golden Apple Scholars.

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