Teach for America: A Ray of Light in Public Schools' Dark Hour?

At regular intervals, America focuses on the state of public education -- usually to point out deficiencies and propose a new set of solutions.

Any ideas would be welcome right about now. Cities across the country are closing schools and cutting programs and staff as they devise strategies to raise academic standards.

Because of budget problems and declining enrollment, Detroit on Wednesday announced plans to close 44 of the stressed district's 172 schools. The Kansas City school board has voted to shut down 26 schools, leaving 33 operated by the district. Boston school officials are suggesting budget trims to head off school closings and staff reduction.

When President Barack Obama called the plan to fire all 93 high school instructors and staff in Central Falls, R.I., an example of holding failing schools accountable, he was hung in effigy there. In his weekly address March 13, the president said: "There are few issues that speak more directly to our long-term success as a nation than issues concerning the education we provide to our children." On Monday, he followed up with a "Blueprint for Reform," a proposed overhaul of No Child Left Behind.

The effect is being felt here in Charlotte, N.C. On Tuesday at a budget workshop with school-board members, Superintendent of Schools Peter Gorman warned that – though the numbers are preliminary -- the estimated Mecklenburg County budget would require cuts even deeper than the more than 800 layoffs he had been considering. (Schools are funded by the county and the state.) Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) would have to trim $80 million and return $6.3 million from the current budget. In the Charlotte Observer, Gorman said that might mean eliminating middle-school athletics and increasing the class size for kindergarten through third grades at low-performing schools.

Gorman must navigate these changes while trying to narrow an achievement gap based on race and family income. "We're making progress in math and we're stagnant in reading."

Later that night, Gorman was more optimistic, about one thing at least. He introduced Wendy Kopp, founder and CEO of Teach for America, which for 20 years has been recruiting top college graduates to teach in the neediest communities across the country. Since its inception in 1990, the Teach For America network has grown to include 24,000 individuals, affecting more than three million students, according to the group. In the 2009-2010 school year, Teach for America placed about 7,300 teachers. Kopp was keynote speaker at the 11^th annual A Woman's Place, at Spirit Square, sponsored by the Levine Museum of the New South and Charlotte Woman of the Year.

Gorman said that 230 of about 10,000 teachers in the CMS system are from Teach for America. "They have been outstanding," Gorman said to me at a reception at the museum before Kopp's speech. "They will take any assignment and do it with smiles on their faces." Gorman said he is not concerned that these teachers didn't necessarily study education in college, or that they only commit to a two-year stint. "They are committed to the belief that all children can learn." Gorman said he'd rather have that passion, "than someone with 30 years' experience and a PhD."

A criticism of Teach for America has been friction between its recruits and veteran teachers -- exemplified by charges flying back and forth in the nation's capital at Washington's public schools, Teach for America alumna Michelle Rhee, head of the Washington system, and teachers and principals she has laid off or fired, are in a scrum. Gorman said that only some veteran teachers in CMS have been taken aback by the recruits, "who haven't walked the path the veterans have walked."

Interestingly enough, Kopp listed Washington, D.C., as a Teach for America success story that is "nothing short of stunning" because "a courageous mayor [Adrian Fenty] said, 'I'm going to take over the school system.'"

In the question-and-answer session, Kopp said that the core of what Teach for America recruiters look for is "a value of respect and humility" in graduates who realize how much they still have to learn. It comes down to their approach, she said. "Some of our greatest champions" are teachers with years in the classroom.

Later, Kopp told me that she believes Rhee "is grappling with a communications challenge" as she tries to "move quickly and do the right thing." As a Teach for America recruit in Baltimore, Rhee advanced most of her students from the 13^th percentile to the 90^th or better. She has conviction "that it's not the kids and their parents," who present roadblocks, Kopp said.
In her speech, Kopp offered the example of a Charlotte teacher who had similar results. "It's not about the kids not being capable." She knows it takes more than teachers who are "super-heroes," she said. "That's "not the realistic path," particularly when the schools must deal with economics, as well as health and social services. "It's hard to do this work and feel true satisfaction."
But she is optimistic as college graduates continue to sign up for Teach for America, and two-thirds of the alumni remain in the education field after their two years are up. The gains that Teach for America recruits have made is evidence of both "the magnitude and the solvability" of the problem when kids get the chances that they deserve. The more than 17,000 alumni remain motivators and leaders in and outside the education field.

"That's what keeps me going."

But neither Kopp nor Gorman had an easy solution for the budget crises that many cities and states face, and the pressure that public schools face to overcome and prosper.