The Mississippi Teacher Corps released their second Annual Report today.  “We’re very proud of the work our teachers,” said Ben Guest, the Program Manager for MTC.  “The Annual Report is one way to show everyone all of the good work we are doing.”

“Last year’s Annual Report was pretty basic,” said Mr. Guest.  “This year we tried to make it more reader-friendly.  We’ve got a lot of great photos from the past year, including the first ever MTC Reunion, the incoming Class of 2005, and, of course, the kids of the Delta.”

“Some of the highlights of the Annual Report include our list of accomplishments for the past year, our extensive section on recruitment, and an in-depth look at our retention rates,” said Mr. Guest.

(Ben Guest, MTC Program Manager)

“All told, it has been a very successful year for MTC,” said Mr. Guest.  “We have continued to increase the competitiveness of the program.  Indeed, we are now the most competitive teaching program in the entire country.  This hopefully translates into good teachers.  We have also dramatically decreased the attrition rate of our teachers throughout the program.  This was probably the single biggest problem with MTC when I took over as Program Manager.  However, since 2004 our attrition rate is virtually zero, as you can see in one of the graphs in the Annual Report.  I wrote a recent blog entry that goes into more detail about this.  So, it has been a good year for MTC, and, hopefully, we will continue to improve."

The Mississippi Teacher Corps is the most competitive alternate-route teaching program in the country. It is a two-year program that recruits recent college graduates to teach in critical-shortage areas in the Mississippi Delta, in exchange for a full scholarship for a master's degree in curriculum and instruction from the University of Mississippi. The program was founded in 1989 by Amy Gutman, a Harvard University graduate student, and Dr. Andy Mullins, then Special Assistant to the State Superintendent of Education. Since 1989 more than 300 participants, reaching an estimated 60,000 students, have taught in critical-needs school districts as part of the Mississippi Teacher Corps.

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