This report was published in Newsweek at August 2008, and was written by Donna Foote, former Newsweek correspondent, author of ¨Relentless Pursuit, a year in the trenches with Teach for America¨, published by Knop in April 2008. This is a summary and the title is above.
TFA is not only the postgrad destinations of choice for many of America`s top college seniors, it`s also a magnet for reform-minded philanthropists. Despite a battered economy, TFA is on target to raise $110 million in 2008, a 40% hike over the previous year. The number of applicants has spiked to a record high, now 25,000 college senior compete for the privilege of taking one of the toughest jobs on earth.
This summer 3,700 corps members who were carefully culled for their leadership skills, underwent an intensive five-week crash course in teaching. In a few weeks, they will begin their two-year classroom commitments. They will be assigned to school like Locke high school in Watts, LA, where I spent my year as an embed. At Locke, a school hemmed in by competing gangs, 2% of ninth graders are proficient in algebra, 11% read at grade level. Too many can`t read at all. I learned that when a friend asked me to visit the school months earlier. As I sat in her classroom , she enunciated the word ¨cat¨. Her embarrassed ninth graders reluctantly repeated the exercise. It was excruciating to watch. When I realized that Locke would be a training site for TFA, I wondered: What could be learned about how we educate our most impoverished students. Lessons emerged on a daily basis. Some of the most important: The American system of education is broken. America has been wrestling with the problem of declining student achievement ever since 1983, when the government issued the report ¨A nation at risk¨, which warned of a rising tide of mediocrity, that threatened our country`s future. Twenty-five years on, the tide is in. At Locke, 1,000 ninth graders were enrolled in 2001, only 30 were eligible to apply to a California state campus. The impact an uneducated populace has on the integrity of the country`s social fabric and the health of the economy can not be underestimated.
We have not effective system to attract, train, retain and promote high-caliber candidates for our schools. Today`s teachers score in the lowest quartile of college grads. But the truth is, up to half of all the country`s teachers bail within five years. Low pay, low status, low satisfaction undoubtelly drive many out. The transformation of teaching into a financially rewarding profession with high standards of admission and accountability, would go a long way toward establishing staff stability.
