In support of the Black Lives Matter movement, and in recognition of the urgent need to recruit and empower educators of color, Penguin Random House Education (PRHE) and the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) reimagined their annual Teacher Awards program, which they began co-sponsoring and administering last year, for 2020.
In lieu of distributing grants in the organizations’ two competitions, the National Teacher Award for Lifelong Readers and the Maya Angelou Teacher Award for Poetry, PRHE and NCTE will make a dual $25,000 donation to the Early Career Education of Color Leadership Award Program (EC-EOC). The program supports early-career teachers of color as they build accomplished teaching careers in literary education, and this donation will double the number of teachers who can be accepted into the award program next year.
Additionally, to recognize the efforts of those teachers who applied to either of the prior PRHE-NCTE award programs, each qualified applicant will receive an all-expenses-paid virtual-access ticket to the NCTE Annual Conference in November, along with free ebook access to up to ten Penguin Random House books of their choice for one year.
Our ongoing partnership with the NCTE recognizes the nation’s most dynamic and resourceful teachers who creatively inspire and instill a lifelong love of reading and poetry in students. The annual awards are open to full- and part-time teachers in public schools, and winners are awarded both cash grants and book donations.
Penguin Random House Education and NCTE are committed to recognizing and supporting educators doing innovative literacy work within their schools and local communities, and are honored to support emerging educators of color as they embark on their careers to inspire a love of reading in the next generation of students and readers.