Teachers Sought for U.S. Dept. of Education’s Teaching Ambassador Fellowship Program

Since 2008, the Department has employed eighty outstanding teachers on a full- or part-time basis through the Teaching Ambassador Fellowship program. This highly selective program was created because in the belief that teachers should have meaningful opportunities to both contribute to and understand the policies that impact their students and school communities. When families, students and other teachers want information about education, it is most often to teachers that they turn.

The Teaching Ambassador Fellowship supports the Department’s mission by employing a diverse cadre of teachers to gain significant knowledge about the Department information and resources, share this information with other educators across the country and contribute their classroom expertise to the national dialogue.

Teaching Ambassador Fellows are outstanding teachers, with a record of leadership, strong communication skills and insights into educational policy based in classroom expertise. They come with networks of support from their professional communities and have participated in training or development programs that have prepared them to write and speak frequently about teaching, educational leadership and/or policy.

The Washington Fellowship is a full-time appointment based at the Department’s Headquarters in Washington. The Classroom Fellowship enables teachers to participate on a part-time basis for the Department, in addition to their regular school responsibilities, working in collaboration with the Department’s Regional Offices.

All Teaching Ambassador Fellows spend one year learning about key federal programs and policies; sharing their expertise with federal staff members; and providing outreach and communication about federal initiatives to other educators on behalf of the Department in order to help teachers understand and implement these efforts at the federal, state and local levels, to improve the likelihood of their success. For the Fellows, the program adds greater knowledge of educational policy and leadership to their toolkits to contribute to solutions at all levels for long intractable challenges in education.

Applications for the U.S. Department of Education’s fifth cohort of Teaching Ambassador Fellows are now open. The application period will close on January 29, 2013 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time. For more information about the application process, visit the program page at www.ed.gov/programs/teacherfellowship or go directly to the applications for the Washington and Classroom Fellowships on www.usajobs.gov.