In this two-part series, the Daily examines Teach for America, a growing but controversial program that sends recent college graduates to teach in low-income school districts. Today, we examine the program itself, its relationship with Tufts and what motivates students to apply.
Last fall, recent graduate Kayt Norris (LA '07) found herself in a house in Shelby, Miss., surrounded by the friends and family of a fourth-grader named Givonte.
Givonte, who struggled with reading and elementary math but somehow had a knack for basic algebra, had forgotten his math notebook that day. Norris, his teacher, brought it to his home. Givonte grabbed her by the hand and pulled her inside, introducing her to members of his family.
"He kept saying, 'Come on Miss Norris! Tell them how good I am at math!'" Norris said.
Givonte is one of 60 students from one of the nation's poorest school districts in which Norris has been assigned to teach a state-mandated fourth-grade math curriculum. Norris is a member of the Teach for America (TFA) corps, a national program that trains recent college graduates to serve two-year terms as teachers in the nation's poorest school districts.
According to the program's Web site, TFA was started in 1990 by a Princeton University graduate who proposed the project in her undergraduate thesis. Today, TFA has amassed an alumni network of roughly 17,000.
The growth of Teach for America over the past 18 years is significant both to the nearly three million students the group claims to have served during this time and to the 5,000 college graduates who teach in the corps every year.
TFA is becoming an increasingly viable and prestigious option for college graduates - a fact that is reflected in an increasing number of applicants, both nationally and on the Tufts campus.
Tufts is no stranger to post-graduation public service. With 17 former students joining the Peace Corps last year, Tufts climbed to 16th on the 2008 list of small colleges and universities that feed alumni into the Peace Corps.
According to Tufts senior Krish Kotru, who coordinates on-campus recruitment for TFA, Tufts also saw a significant increase in its applicants to the TFA program for each of its first two application deadlines this year. Although the number of Tufts students to join the TFA corps has varied from less than 10 to more than 20 students each year, Kotru said that Tufts has significant representation in the program.
"Tufts has been giving members to Teach for America since the early beginning, since the early 1990s," she said. "It was one of the first schools to send students."
Kotru said she believes that Tufts' emphasis on active citizenship may motivate students to apply for TFA. "After being here for four years, my sense of civic service has increased. That's obviously not true for everybody, but people who turn up to [TFA recruitment] meetings have a sense of that."
One distinctive aspect of the Teach for America program is that it embraces students of all disciplines, not only from fields of study that focus on child development and education. Tufts senior Susan Rydz is a peace and justice studies (PJS) major who has been recently accepted into the TFA corps and plans to begin her training this summer.
"TFA takes people from all majors who are interested in having an experience in a school that's in a low-income area," Rydz said.
Although she is a PJS major, Rydz is also interested in education, and she sees her participation in the program as a way to understand more about the problems of the U.S. education system and to give back to it at the same time.
"I feel like education is the root of everything else," Rydz said. "I feel like a lot of social problems come back to education. Because of that, I felt like it would be good to learn about the system."
Like many other members of the corps, Rydz isn't entirely sure that she wants to spend her whole career in the classroom. Nevertheless, she expects the experience to be a valuable one.
"I think the point of the program is to inspire people about what education could be, or needs to be," said Rydz. "While a lot of teachers do remain in the field, I think the hope is that whatever your experience is, you take it with you, and have it be something you care about wherever you work."
Teach for America, Rydz said, can be seen as a stepping-stone for many recent college graduates.
"Some students are looking to go to graduate school [in the future], but are looking for a way to push themselves that they might not get to do in grad school, and give back to the community in a way that they find meaningful," she said.
Shana Hurley is a sophomore who hopes to apply to the program in the future. For her, motivation comes from her conviction that the program would allow her to share the benefits that she has received with others.
"The opportunity to share by investing those without such good fortune - by investing in people, the future and social equality - seems to be the noblest good," Hurley said.
In the second part of this series, The Daily will look at conditions on the ground and examine the controversy surrounding the program.
