Teach For America attracts numerous grads

Author: Sara Black

Remember in Mrs. Richardson's class when you got to dress up as Abraham Lincoln and in seventh grade when you dissected the frog? Or how about that time Mr. Rodriguez took your class to the planetarium?

For many young people in the United States, the reality of the American education system is quite grim. The average nine-year-olds growing up in low-income communities perform, on average, three grade-levels behind their high-income peers on standardized tests. They do not have the same repertoire of shining memories, a tragedy that AmeriCorp's Teach for America (TFA) is seeking to remedy through the ranks of eager college students it recruits each year.

After four years of benefiting from Middlebury's highly involved faculty, many graduates find themselves attracted to Teach for America's mission to bring education to students who are less fortunate.

"I majored in Political Science and for my first couple years at Middlebury I saw myself going into politics or journalism, but after a run of internships in law and journalism, I realized I would be antsy sitting at a desk or working as an intern after college," said Ben Salkowe '07, who is working for TFA as a fifth-grade teacher in Las Vegas, Nev. "I wanted to have responsibility for something I cared about and I wanted to keep learning outside of the classroom."

TFA was the brainchild of Wendy Kopp, the product of her senior thesis - a plan to eliminate the educational achievement gap - while she was a student at Princeton University in 1989. Since its inception as a non-profit organization in 1990, TFA has seen great success due to the work of 17,000 energetic college grads.

"I teach on the West side, three or four blocks from the suburbs," said Jessica Cox '07, who teaches in Chicago. "You can see the disparity from one block to the next - the huge suburban houses with expansive yards just across the way from the small flats where my students' families live. The reality is that our nation provides an inferior education to students in low-income areas."

In the past few years TFA has gained in popularity amongst the students of our country's most prestigious colleges. The number of total applicants is up from 17,350 in 2005 to 18,172 in 2007, with close to 40 percent of those coming from four schools - the University of Chicago, Duke University, Amherst College and Spelman College.

"I think most Middlebury students either have no idea how uniquely qualified they are to be successful teachers, or have no concept of how much they are needed in these communities," Salkowe said. "Maybe it is a failure of the Middlebury curriculum, maybe of the Teach For America recruiting, but it's too easy to not realize the extent of the education problem in this country."

With the increasing emphasis on higher education, many students are unsure what their first post-graduate step should be. TFA provides many students with a career trial run before or while attempting to earn a graduate degree.

"Hearing [the experience of a Middlebury '04 alumnus] really helped me to realize the impact that TFA was having on classrooms around the country," Cox said. "Additionally, my time at Midd and before was marked with a strong sense of service, with a particular passion for working with children. It seemed natural."

TFA accepts students of all majors with a GPA above 2.50 and U.S. citizenship or permanent residence status. While students do not have to have a teaching certificate to apply, the evaluation of TFA applications is certainly thorough, given that the college grads will be faced with challenging situations each day that they work, armed only with their perseverance and patience.

Rachel Dunlap '06, who is stationed in New York, has encountered these difficulties firsthand.

"Even in the best-case placement scenario, a Corps Member would probably be working for hours each evening and on weekends, particularly at the beginning of their first year," Dunlap said. "Because you're so busy, a lot of other things get sacrificed - sometimes I feel like I was out of the country last year, I was so cut off from friends and the world in general - so make sure you're convinced this is something you want to do."

To prepare its new recruits for this challenge, TFA runs a five-week teaching boot camp, called the Summer Institute, which is based out of various cities around the U.S. Here the recent grads are faced with days packed with classes, meetings, workshops, tutorials and hands-on work. Still, most graduates find that they only begin to understand the full TFA experience once they step into the classroom.

"While I felt the Institute did give me a lot of information and some important experiences, you can only absorb so much before you start teaching full-time," Dunlap said. "Your real learning comes from your time in the classroom when you begin your position."

Currently, TFA has its programs in place in 26 regions, ranging from New York City, Chicago and New Orleans to more unexpected locales, including Memphis, Tenn., Hawaii, South Dakota and Las Vegas.

"Honestly, who wouldn't want to live in Las Vegas?" Salkowe jokingly said of his new home. "I can see a gigantic pyramid, faux castle, Eiffel Tower and the Stratosphere all from my morning commute."

As 10th on Businessweek's list of its "Best places to launch a career," TFA upholds its title with innumerable post-TFA partnerships with reputable graduate schools and companies. Colleges such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia University and Stanford University, as well as companies like JP Morgan, Google and Wachovia, all see TFA as a screening process to provide them with only the best and the brightest young leaders of America.

Despite her earlier warning, Dunlap has ultimately found her triumphs in the classroom to be fulfilling.

"I'm not sure I could have found a job right away that is as rewarding. When a kid gets a concept, takes responsibility for his or her progress or goes ice-skating for the first time, you really feel it," Dunlap said.

Cox has felt a similar sense of reward from both her and her students' efforts.

"One of the most frustrating things is when you are teaching a new concept and it just isn't working," said Cox. "At that point, you have to figure out something new on the spot, try it a different way. While it's frustrating, watching the light bulbs go off for students when they do get it is well worth it."

For more information about Teach for America visit its Web site at www.teachforamerica.org.