Students Volunteer to Teach America After Graduation
February 9, 2009 • By Rosie Grant, Contributing Writer
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CORRECTION: Students applying for the 2009 year need to complete their application — including an interview, recommendations, resumé and essay— by February 13.
HARRISONBURG, Va. — Students can make a difference as teachers without actually getting a degree in education. Through the Teach For America program, new doors have been opened to any college graduate who wants to make a difference.
Erin Peacock, a 2007 graduate from JMU, was accepted into the Teach For America corps that year and went to work in South Bronx, N.Y.
“I love working with children,” Peacock said, “The mission of TFA really spoke to me [due to the] educational disparity that exists in the United States and being a part of closing the achievement gap.”
This disparity could be seen by Peacock, who started off having second-grade students performing at 25 percent of their grade level. After a few months, she had brought them up to having 90 percent of her class performing at their proper grade level. Peacock admitted that she needed a lot of “creative skills and patience” to get through it.
“I am so proud that I stuck through the hard first months to see the end results,” she said. “I may not be changing the world, but I know I’m changing the lives of my 20 second-graders.”
Peacock, who is in her second year in the program, has also found the experience to be a positive one.
“I absolutely love what I am doing. It has been a challenge but a challenge that has definitely been worth it,” she said. “I have learned a lot about myself and about life in general.”
Teresa Gleisner, James Madison University’s liaison to education with the Career and Academic Department, said that, “each year JMU has several students who express interest in Teach for America… students can end up teaching in any one of 29 urban and rural locations across the country, which are identified by Teach for America.”
The closest area to James Madison University using the aid from Teach For America is the Washington D.C. region. In the 2008-09 school year the region had 1,000 members made up of college graduates and student teachers from around the country, working for this cause.
The beginning salary for this area is anywhere from $30,000 to $47,000. Corps members in this region will primarily teach in the D.C. public schools and Prince George’s County public schools (in Maryland). According to Emily Barton, executive director of TFA, this region continues to be “in need of qualified elementary and secondary teachers, particularly in special education.”
All majors can apply to join in the group, which in 2008 received almost 25,000 applicants from across the country and accepted around 3,700 of them. Members were chosen from more than 500 universities, in all 50 states and Washington D.C. and from close to 1,800 cities from across the nation.
According to the Teach For America Web site, of the students’ majors, 35 percent come from the social sciences, 14 percent from language and literature and 13 percent from math, science and engineering. The remaining cluster includes smaller groups of majors, including government and public policy at 12 percent, business and economics at 10 percent, communications and journalism at 6 percent, education at 3 percent and other at 7 percent.
In order to compete for a position, students must meet the basic criteria for being accepted into the program. The TFA site states that a bachelor’s degree, at least a 2.5 GPA and U.S. citizenship are required, as well as having “demonstrated past achievement: achieving ambitious, measurable results in academics, extracurriculars and/or work leadership.”
Usually the Teach For America corps will receive the same benefits and salaries as other new teachers. According to Gleisner, “generally, students are paidby the school district in which they are assigned and received the same salary and benefits as any beginning teacher.” This is only slightly less than the average salary for college graduates, which is between $45,000 and $75,000.
But it is not for money that students join this program. Gleisner also said that “students are interested in Teach for America because they want to help close the achievement gap in communities across the country.”
On top of giving valuable aid to communities, this program has also been recognized as a tool to help start students’ professions. In 2008 Business Week ranked the program No. 11 in one of the “50 Best Places to Launch a Career,” and collegegrad.com said it was sixth in the “Top 10 Employers of Recent College Grads.” The Princeton Review even identified it as something college graduates should join for getting the “Best Entry-Level Jobs.”
Students applying for the 2009 year need to complete their application — including an interview, recommendations, resumé and essay— by February 13. The entire process will take more than five months before the applicant is notified of their admission.
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Thank you for providing such great information about Teach For America. However, seniors actually have until February 13, 2009 to apply for the 2009 Corps!