Alex Cohen is the Director of Learning and Evaluation for the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. Can a young, 20-something who just walked off the stage, college diploma in hand, step into a classroom and, with relatively little training, effectively teach in one of our nation’s more challenging K-12 environments? Finding talented teachers for high-need schools is a perennial issue. While there are plenty of organizations working to address this problem, perhaps the most well known—and hotly debated—is Teach For America. Teach For America, or TFA, selectively recruits recent college graduates to teach in high-need public schools. TFA generally attracts graduates who did not major in education and provides several weeks […]

Here’s how the new Charitable Grants program works. Each year, the Foundation identifies funding themes based on pressing needs in Indianapolis. These themes guide the selection of six Indianapolis organizations that are addressing these needs in our city. Organizations cannot apply to the Charitable Grants program, and the grants are awarded on a one-time basis.