Educators work to close achievement gap Recruiter demonstrates how teaching can make a difference

Author: Rachael Jennings

When Teach for America (TFA) College Recruitment Director Delano Brissett was a senior at Dartmouth College, TFA seemed like just another organization invading his life with colorful fliers and pesky emails.

Despite his lack of enthusiasm, Brissett did decide to attend an informational meeting, but even as he left, he was not convinced that TFA was the cause to which he wanted to devote the next two years of his life. Still, as he thought more about what he wanted to do after graduation, he realized that TFA might be right for him after all.

"TFA answered two questions that I had," said Brissett. "'How can I make the most direct impact on people?' and 'How can I grow most, personally and professionally?'"

Looking back from his position after serving two years on TFA's recruitment team as the college recruiter for Middlebury, Dartmouth, Skidmore College and Fordham University, Brissett knew that he had made the right choice in living out the answers to his questions.

Brissett was surprised, when he first arrived at Dartmouth, to discover that many of his peers had pondered which college to attend when they were trudging through the application process, because for the N.Y. native and his childhood friends, postsecondary education was never a question of "where" but a question of "if."

TFA's official mission statement declares that "educational inequity is our nation's greatest injustice," and for Brissett, the program offered him the chance to help expand the choices for underprivileged youths - for the students who want to succeed but have been afforded limited educational opportunities.

That the public education system in the United States needs reforming is an indisputable fact. Current statistics show that fourth-graders growing up in low-income communities perform three grade levels below their higher-income peers. 50 percent of these lower-income students fail to graduate from high school before the age 18 and, on average, those who do graduate will perform at the level of an eighth-grade student.

TFA strives to improve these harsh realities by recruiting recent college graduates who work for two years in one of the nation's most needy public schools. In addition to an intensive five-week summer course, the organization's storied training program entails getting teaching experience at local summer schools in teams, working with two mentors and receiving feedback from a personal Program Director for the first two years of teaching.

"You are well trained," said Brissett about the training. "You are well supported. But you will be challenged and you will struggle. At the end of the day, you know you changed lives."

So, what consitutes a typical day for a TFA teacher?

Brissett used to wake up at around 5:30 a.m. to prepare for each day before driving 40 minutes to the public school in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he taught. He usually arrived at around 7:15 a.m., at which point he liked to turn on his music - usually some Kanye West, Radiohead or Norah Jones. This quiet time before Brissett's middle school students arrived at 8 a.m. allowed him to write on the board, make photocopies and tie up any odds and ends in his lesson plans. Brissett stayed at school until 4 or 5 p.m. - grading papers, designing tests, tutoring or helping out with the after-school program that he and his fellow TFA teachers designed - and often used his lunch period to provide extra tutoring to students.

Such a schedule may seem prohibitively exhausting, but Brissett pointed out that those who wear the hours well are usually inclined towards success.

"Over the past 18 years, said Brissett, "we have seen that what separates the best teachers from everybody else is people who make plans toward ambitious goals, people who can motivate others to work toward those goals andpeople who will stop at nothing to make sure that what they know is possible is actually happening,"

The ideal TFA candidates are individuals who possess strong leadership qualities, have accumulated academic, extracurricular or work-related achievements, persevere and maintain good critical thinking skills in the face of challenging circumstances, motivate others effectively, organize efficiently, hold high expectations for the students and families with whom they are working, and wholehearteduly embrace TFA's pronounced mission of bettering education in America.

The lofty ambitions of TFA can be difficult to grasp when faced with the stressers of everyday life. Brissett taught seventh grade, and seeing that they did math like fourth and fifth graders was more than difficult.

"It's hard to continue to have faith in a system that's not meeting your needs," said Brissett. "My kids were not dumb or unmotivated. They just wanted to know that I would be different somehow."

The rest - classroom management, disciplinary problems - are only symptoms derived from that lack of faith in a system that has not worked effectively for them, he explained.

Even after facing the program's challeges, two-thirds of TFA teachers continue to work in education. Some, though, leave the field entirely and step into law, medicine or public policy, which can also generate progress.

Brissett believes that teaching helps people see the flaws in the education system - particularly the enormous problem that is the achievement gap - and that the experience will help change how leaders prioritize and execute their plans.

"I dream about a world where our politicians, doctors and lawyers have all had the experience of teaching for a few years," Brissett said.

However, Brissett understands that TFAcannot provide answers to all of the questions and holes in the fabric of the education system, and that the program has its own flaws.

Brissett wishes that the teachers in the TFA program were more diverse - racially, socioeconomically and in terms of gender. He understands that there exists a real challenge to incorporate more diversity, because the top 400 colleges in America, which breed future TFA teachers, lack diversity within them.

"TFA is not the ideal solution to the problem, but it is the most effective," said Brissett. "The best would be for the best college graduates to look toward education, because right now they are not. We want the people who will be leading our country. Who's getting them now? Investment Banks, top graduate schools, consulting firms."

TFA, then, allows an opportunity to enable real change on a direct, personal level. Brissett encouraged interest students to apply to the program before the upcoming Nov. 7 deadline.

"Our generation has the power to close the achievement gap,"said Brissett.