Sustaining Educators for a Brighter Future

As one of the nation’s leading education schools, NYU Steinhardt is committed to preparing outstanding teachers with expertise in their fields and a wealth of classroom experience in complex schools. We particularly seek teachers from diverse backgrounds who are committed to making a difference in some of New York City’s hardest-to-staff schools. In partnership with NYC public schools, emerging teachers at NYU complete extensive fieldwork under the close guidance of experienced teachers and faculty members. 

The Sustaining Educators for a Brighter Future Fund is designed to ease the growing external financial demands our emerging teachers face. To teach in New York City public schools, emerging teachers must complete several costly steps and pay for travel expenses that their non-teaching peers do not face. With this important and highly impactful fund, we hope to lessen the financial burden associated with becoming a teacher and make teacher education more accessible to diverse future educators, whatever their financial means. Donations will help fund MetroCards, certification exams, fingerprinting, and other required costs of learning to teach in NYC’s diverse schools.

Our Students: The Department of Teaching & Learning currently enrolls approximately 600 undergraduate and graduate students pursuing certification in Early Childhood, Childhood, Secondary, and K-12 Multilingual Education. As a part of their programs, our students get hands-on experience by teaching in New York City classrooms. A central value of NYU is our commitment to providing excellent teachers for the diverse schools in the city, including those that are historically underfunded and have been hard to staff.

Your Support: Teacher students must undergo expensive fingerprinting and pay for travel expenses in order to teach underserved communities in Title I schools. They also need to complete costly certification exams. In 2023, the costs of these necessary steps are:  

– EAS Certification exam 

– $80. – CST Certification exam

– $122. – Fingerprinting 

– $101.75. – MetroCards 

– $127 per month

With your donation, we hope to support our diverse cohort of emerging teachers to afford these necessary teaching-related costs. Every dollar raised will help ensure inclusivity in teacher education and high-quality instruction for New York City’s public school students. 

– A donation of $10 can allow an emerging teacher to purchase a needed book for their classroom. 

– A donation of $25 helps cover transportation costs.

– A donation of $100 covers one student’s fingerprinting and background check. 

– A Donation of $125 covers one mandatory certification exam for one student.