'Peace Corps of teaching' coming

DPS could receive 50 educators in city schools next fall

Nancy Mitchell, Rocky Mountain News

Thursday, December 7, 2006

A program that puts some of the nation's top college graduates in front of classrooms in its poorest urban and rural schools for two-year teaching stints is planning to come to Denver.

Denver Public Schools is working with Teach for America, the New York City-based nonprofit often called the Peace Corps of teaching, on plans that could place up to 50 teachers in city schools next fall.

"In a world where it's becoming harder and harder to recruit teachers, they do a tremendous job," said DPS Superintendent Michael Bennet, who spoke as he left a middle school still searching for a math teacher. "We think the partnership is one that's going to help us in our recruiting efforts."

Bennet and Kevin Huffman, senior vice president of growth, strategy and development for Teach for America, also called TFA, began talking a couple months ago after TFA founder Wendy Kopp contacted Bennet.

"We're working out the details," Huffman said. "We need to formalize an agreement with DPS and we need to formalize how TFA can feed into the alternative (teacher) certification structure in Colorado."

DPS officials and Huffman will present their plan next week to the State Board of Education, which will be asked to approve an alternative teaching pathway for the city school district and TFA. A formal vote on the plan is likely in January.

"I can't tell you how excited I am about this," KIPP Sunshine Peak Academy Principal Richard Barrett said of the news, "because Teach for America can bring in a group of people dedicated to making a difference in our schools and we can definitely use the help."

Seven of the 20 staff members at the KIPP charter school - formally the Knowledge Is Power Program - in southwest Denver are TFA alums, including Barrett.

This week, the school, which has a poverty rate of 92 percent, was rated "high" by the state.

Barrett said he hires TFA alums because "they believe in the work ethic we're looking for - to do whatever it takes necessary so that children can learn."

TFA now has 4,400 "corps" members, as Huffman and others call them, in 25 communities across the country. The DPS program would be the first site in Colorado, but others are located as close as Phoenix and New Mexico.

Perhaps because Kopp was a Prince-ton University student when she created TFA, the program tends to attract grads from top schools. More than 10 percent of Yale University's Class of 2006 applied to TFA this fall, for example. More than four in five of this year's nearly 19,000 applicants were turned down.

Not everyone is thrilled about the program. Kim Ursetta, president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, said TFA has merits but it also raises concerns because it puts inexperienced teachers in high-poverty, high-minority schools.

"We're concerned about making sure we have the most qualified, highest quality teachers in our most needy schools," she said. "We're concerned Teach for America in a way acts against that."

She's also worried that its structure - two-year commitments from its teachers - may mean higher turnover in those schools.

But TFA officials say their alumni surveys show about two-thirds of their members remain in education after their two years are up, either in the classroom or in roles such as school principals, like Barrett.

"Our partner school districts view this not just as a way of bringing in great teachers but of building a pipeline of people who become school leaders," Huffman said. "Our partner school districts view this as a way of bringing in talented people from a completely different pool."

He said the DPS program is part of TFA's larger growth plan to add eight new sites in the next four years. Already, Denver is listed as a possible site on TFA applications and it's proven popular. Teachers picked for the DPS program would be trained next summer in one of TFA's five training sites, probably Los Angeles.

In addition to state board approval, the district and TFA also must raise about $700,000 to support the program in its first year, Bennet said. TFA members would be paid as DPS teachers.

About Teach for America

What is it? Applicants commit to teaching for two years in high-poverty schools.

Genesis: Wendy Kopp was a senior at Princeton University when she outlined in her undergraduate thesis the idea for a national teaching corps made up of recent college graduates. In its first year in fall 1990, 500 graduates began teaching in six communities.

Evolution: This fall, the nonprofit placed 4,400 teachers in 25 areas across the country. The growth plan calls for 7,500 corps members in 33 communities by 2010.

Who joins: Applicants must have a grade point average of 2.5 or above, but the average GPA of those selected this year was 3.5. About 2,400 of this year's nearly 19,000 applicants were accepted. Applicants included 10 percent of this past spring's graduating classes at Yale University and at Dartmouth and Spelman colleges.

Results: A 2004 study by Mathematica Policy Research Inc. found that students taught by TFA teachers made greater gains in math than those taught by other teachers, including certified and veteran teachers.

For more info: www.teachfor america.org

Profile of a TFA alumnus

Kurt Pusch, 26, is a Chicago native who majored in political science at the private and pricey Colgate University in upstate New York. When he graduated, he joined Teach for America, which some have likened to the Peace Corps of teaching, and spent two years in a poor rural school in North Carolina. Pusch now averages 11-hour days as director of instruction at KIPP Sunshine Peak Academy, a charter school in southwest Denver with one of the city's highest poverty rates - and some of its best test scores.

What were you planning to do when you went to college?

I went with an open mind. I thought about law school. I did some teaching on campus through an outdoor education program. That really hooked me into teaching. As a junior, I decided I wanted to teach.

What was your first hour of your first class like?

I was overwhelmed. You really get a slap in the face your first year teaching. I went in expecting to teach U.S. history in high school and I wound up teaching fourth-graders. I was told, this is where we need you. That's when I realized it's not about me at all.

So how did it go?

I evolved into more of a structured, disciplined teacher. My big thing was, I'm going to establish a classroom culture of achievement. If there's anything these kids are going to take away from my class, it's a desire to achieve. My second year, every student in my class was proficient in reading and math on state tests.

What does TFA mean to you now?

Opportunity. Equal opportunity, mainly for children, regardless of socio-economics or race.

mitchelln@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5245