KTIP Feeling Budget Squeeze

Back in the day...teachers were thrown into the classroom without much support. Sink or swim. Some sank...but still didn't leave the field. There just wasn't the kind of pressure and scrutiny today's teachers face.

To address that problem Kentucky started the Kentucky Teachers Internship Program. That was followed by the Kentucky Principals Internship Program, established for many of the same reasons.

The last round of budget cuts took out the KPIP program. Now KTIP is feeling the pinch.

This from Toni at C-J:

Ky. mentor program supplies all the right tools for teaching success
Officials worry about more reductions

At Cochrane Elementary School, first-year teacher Molly Thurman spends her days teaching 24 bustling kindergartners the fundamentals of reading, writing and math.

That is, when she isn't working on lesson plans, scheduling parent-teacher conferences and resolving the periodic crises that are part of being a kindergarten teacher.

"It can be a little overwhelming," said Thurman, 23, a recent graduate of Hanover College in Indiana. "But I have a lot of support."

Much of that support comes through the Kentucky Teacher Internship Program -- a state-mandated program that provides mentoring and training to new teachers in both public and private schools to make sure they have the tools they need to succeed in a field where nearly one in three instructors nationally quit after their first year.

But officials say the program -- known as KTIP -- is being jeopardized by $1.5 million in funding cuts. Because of those cuts, 400 new teachers expected to start in January will have to wait until the next school year to get into the mandatory program.

And the prospect of more cuts because of continuing state revenue shortfalls has education officials worried about what will happen next -- and how much it could end up costing Kentucky education in the long run...