Teach for America, which trains top graduating seniors and places them in high-poverty classrooms for two years of Peace Corps-like service, continues to expand. This fall it will be serving six new regions and adding 1,000 teachers to the 6,200 it placed nationwide last year.
But none will be coming to the Buckeye State.
Some say that Ohio doesn’t need programs like Teach for America because the state has more than two dozen colleges with teacher training programs and actually exports new teachers to other states. Moreover, the number of new teachers who are turned out annually in the state surpasses the open teaching jobs, and this is true even when the economy isn’t in the tank.
Still, these facts aren’t acceptable excuses not to work with the nationally respected program. Many of the grads who go through Teach for America are on their way to successful careers, sometimes in education, sometimes not. Bringing them here gives Ohio a shot at benefiting from their ingenuity and energy, both while they’re teaching and maybe after their commitments are complete.
Consider a couple of examples.
Mark Feinberg and David Levin founded the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) and started their first successful charter school in Houston just after finishing their stints there with Teach for America. KIPP, which has a school in Columbus, is now considered one of the most promising school-reform models and charter school networks in the country.
Ohio-reared Michelle Rhee, another Teach for America grad, who taught in Baltimore’s city schools, founded the New Teacher Project, another Teach for America-style post-graduate program, and now is the widely admired superintendent in Washington, D.C.
Their successors can bring fresh approaches to classrooms here. And who knows — this might be the place where the next generation of new ideas bears fruit.
To get Teach for America here, Ohio needs:
• Changes to its teacher certification rules.
Generally, Teach for America’s teachers majored in something other than education. Ohio needs a process that either speeds program participants through to a quick or temporary certificate or creates an exemption for them.
• Collaboration among school districts.
Teach for America generally requires a commitment to take 100 teachers. That is too many, for instance, for Springfield schools. But districts could make the commitment in partnership. Springfield could participate, say, with Dayton or other nearby, needy districts.
• Buy-in from unions.
Where unions view Teach for America grads as a threat, their road can be bumpy. But generally the program puts its participants in the highest poverty, lowest achieving schools, which veteran teachers often try to avoid anyway.
• Funding.
To recruit, train and support 100 Teach for America teachers costs about $5 million to $6 million, according to Teach for America. Usually about 70 percent of that cost is raised by the state, school districts and philanthropies where they’re placed. Even in an era of tight budgets, those figures aren’t insurmountable.
This year Teach for America had 35,000 applicants, including 11 percent of all graduating seniors from Ivy League colleges. The program hopes to add three to five more sites per year.
Ohio should be jumping to be on the list.
— Cox News Service