Ballmer Group Gifts More than $10 Million to TFA

A middle school and high school math teacher at New York’s Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School, Nina Gribetz leverages more than 10 years of math experience to create and execute standards-based math curriculum. Dedicated to giving back to her community, Nina Gribetz spent three years serving as a math teacher for Teach for America (TFA).

At the beginning of 2018, TFA, an organization dedicated to developing and supporting a network of classroom leaders in an effort to end educational inequality, announced that it had been given a $10 million grant from the Ballmer Group. This philanthropic organization established by Steve and Connie Ballmer will distribute its grant to TFA over the course of five years. TFA plans to use this money for training, recruiting, and further developing teachers who are committed to ridding every country of educational injustice.

In addition to this large grant from the Ballmer Group, two additional gifts will be made to TFA to support a growing corps member and alumni base in specific regions. TFA’s operations in Washington will receive a $1.5 million grant through 2020 to supports its growth. A matching grant in the amount of $2.25 million was also given to TFA - Los Angeles.

An Introduction to Number Talks

Nina Gribetz is an experienced mathematics educator and department head at Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School, where she introduces innovative pedagogical tools. Nina Gribetz has presented a master class on number talks at the EL Education National Conference.

Number talks are a way of getting students to think flexibly about numbers and to perform mental calculations. The teacher presents a basic problem and challenges the students to think of as many ways of solving the problem as possible. A strong thinking process and clear communication of ideas, rather than speed and correct answers, are the primary goals of the exercise.

Initially, a number talk involves an individual exercise. Each student thinks about the question presented and subtly shows, using fingers against the chest, how many ways he or she has found to solve the problem. This allows all students to think carefully and prevents them from feeling pressure to keep up with the fastest students.

Once everyone or almost everyone has come up with at least one solution, the teacher asks students to share their ideas. The teacher writes down all solutions and then invites students to share how they got their answer. Students then discuss the different approaches and determine the correct answer as a group.