News: Amani Floyd Wins Award

Nice article about Class of 2008 participant Amani Floyd.  Excerpt:

OXFORD, Miss. – Students at Jackson’s Bailey Magnet School saw their state exam scores in American history increase by more than 10 percent this year, with 95 percent of those students passing the state exam.

This achievement at the inner-city high school of some 350 students marks the highest percentage of students passing this test in four years, thanks in part to their teacher, Amani Floyd, a student in the Mississippi Teacher Corps program at the University of Mississippi.

“To be honest, this is not unexpected,” said Ben Guest, program coordinator for MTC, a two-year alternate route teacher certification program that recruits college graduates and places them as teachers in the state’s most poverty-stricken areas while they complete a master’s degree in education.

The 30 students selected annually to participate in the program are well-organized, intelligent and hardworking individuals, Guest said.

“We feel if they possess these three core qualities, then we can train them to be successful teachers,” he said. “I was happy to receive the news about Amani, but I wasn’t surprised. She’s extremely dedicated.”