Lilly Endowment gives $3.4M more to The Mind Trust

Alternative teacher training programs such as Teach for America will receive two more years of funding, thanks to a $3.42 million gift from the Lilly Endowment to The Mind Trust education reform group.

Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment has now given more than $14 million to Indianapolis-based The Mind Trust to fund programs that recruit and train teachers from outside of traditional schools of education to work in K-12 schools in the city's high-need neighborhoods.

The Mind Trust will give $2 million of the money to the Indianapolis office of New York-based Teach for America to recruit and train 100 teachers per year over the next two years.

Another $1.02 million will go to TNTP, formerly known as The New Teacher Project. It trains mid-career professionals in other fields to become classroom teachers.

And $400,000 will fund the Indianapolis Principal Fellowship, a program created by Teach for America here, which sends local schoolteachers for training at Columbia University’s Teachers College to help them become school administrators and leaders.

The Mind Trust first recruited Teach for America to set up in Indianapolis in 2007. Today, 350 alumni of Teach for America work locally, including 140 as teachers and 55 as school leaders.

“Excellent teachers and school leaders are crucial to student success, and this grant will go a long way toward continuing to bring the best and brightest educators to Indianapolis’ public schools,” said David Harris, founder and CEO of The Mind Trust, in a prepared statement.