English Majors as Math Teachers: In Some Schools, That's How It Has to Be

Last year, Cary Wright graduated with a bachelor's degree in English. This month, the Teach for America corps member starts his second year as a fifth-grade teacher.

But Wright doesn't teach English; he teaches math.

Founded in 1990, Teach for America selects, trains and places recent college graduates as teachers in low-income communities. In an education system struggling to keep pace, the non-profit strives to meet demand, placing its corps members where they're needed, when they're needed -- which means that an English major sometimes ends up teaching math.

It's a program at the mercy of the system it wants to fix.

Wright describes TFA as a "placement agency," filling the voids identified by public school districts with recruits from the nation's top college graduates. Corps members offer preferences about the subject matter, grade level and location of their assignments, but ultimately it's up to TFA and the schools to decide their placement.

"Some people don't even find out until the day before school where they're going to be and what they're going to be teaching," Wright said. "But that's more with the school than Teach for America."

Bree Arsenault, TFA's managing director of national corporate partnerships, said, "We work with districts to figure out what their needs are and how many teachers they need in what subject areas, and then we work to place corps members accordingly."

What is predictable is the demand for teachers in certain subjects. In 2004, TFA started a math and science initiative in partnership with a handful of organizations, including the Amgen Foundation, to intensify the recruitment and training of math and science teachers.

But this hasn't eliminated instances of teachers placed outside their specialties. TFA does not keep track of how many corps members teach subjects in which they didn't major in college, said Carrie James, the program's national communications director. But she said TFA's teachers do meet state qualifications.

Those standards vary by state. In Connecticut, for instance, teachers must have completed a specified amount of coursework in a subject to teach it. Kim Peck, a TFA alum who is an administrator in a Connecticut charter school, said she was disappointed to learn she did not meet the state's requirements to teach art -- despite earning a minor in the subject and devoting free time to ceramics.

Peck believes it's possible an individual could know enough to teach a subject without having a degree in it.

"Most people who have had a liberal arts education could probably functionally teach elementary-level math because until you get up to pre-algebra, there really isn't that much there," she said.

Richelle Patterson, a senior policy analyst at the National Education Association, said the teachers' union does not support placing teachers outside of their specialties, a problem she said was supposed to have been solved by the Bush administration's "No Child Left Behind" reforms.

"But we recognize that not every school is doing what they should be doing," Patterson said.

Before beginning their two-year commitment, TFA corps members complete a five-week summer training program, learning from experienced teachers, peers and their own experiences at the head of a classroom.

Matthew Kennedy, who has a bachelor's degree in law, letters and society, was originally placed as a chemistry teacher, a subject in which he had no experience. When he failed the certification test, TFA offered him a position in special education at a high school in Washington.

Kennedy, who is pursuing a master's degree in special education while he completes his teaching commitment, said he was concerned at first that TFA didn't offer specialized training for special education teachers. But he acknowledged that the summer training is intended to teach skills like classroom management, not content. Such skills are more important than background in a particular subject, he said: "If you can teach effectively, you can learn the content. You can figure out how to deliver that content if you're an excellent teacher."

Wright said the training program has optional content-specific sessions. Unaware he would be teaching fifth-grade math, he focused on literacy, thinking he would be teaching children in kindergarten through third grade.

"Had I known where I'd be placed ahead of time, then I'd be going to those math sessions over the summer," Wright said. But he is philosophical, noting, "Teach for America does their best to place everyone as soon as they can, but the way that the school systems work here . . . it's just impossible for them."

Peck said that like it or not, TFA is raising questions about the education system that need to be answered.

"If it gets down to people improving education in an effort to get rid of TFA, honestly, that's the whole point anyway," she said. "The point of Teach for America isn't how many young people can we get into the school system; it's how many children can get a high quality of education."

To watch a video of an interview with a Teach for America participant, click "play" below: