Eighteen months ago, I clicked a little button on the Internet that would forever change me. When I clicked that button, all my previous formative experiences took a backseat. When I clicked that button, the lives of two hundred students became, for better or worse, the beneficiaries of my $160,000 liberal arts education. When I clicked that button, my psyche was fated to never forget the time I spent living five miles from the Mexico border but deep in the heart of our nation’s problems. When I clicked that button, I postponed my thoughts of serving in the Peace Corps, of getting a well-paying advertising job on the East coast, and of freelancing in Central America.
You want to know a little secret? When I clicked that button, I really didn’t believe I could succeed.
Now, I have a challenge for you.
Nine year-olds in low-income communities read three grade levels below their peers in high-income communities. In Connecticut, which has the largest achievement gap in the nation, this disparity is just as wide in the eighth grade, and the low-income students are now 3.7 grade levels behind in math, also. Follow the trend another half-decade, and you discover that at America’s top colleges, ninety percent of the students come from the top half of the economic spectrum. Follow the trend for generations, and you arrive at the sickening reality that the academic achievement gap between high-income and low-income areas in the United States is larger than in all but three of the top industrialized nations with established education systems.
I bet you’ve heard those facts before, though. With free copies of the Times lying around, these numbers are so ubiquitous that it’s almost unbelievable they could still be true. Try these:
Teach for America corps member commit two years to schools in communities where missing teachers aren’t replaced by substitutes; they are replaced by larger classes. Last year, 46 percent of these space-fillers made significant academic gains in their classes. Likewise, the average TFA classroom consistently outperforms the average non-TFA classroom. Every one of these students, by the way, has a name. To me, these numbers mean Manuel, Marco, and Patricia passed the state exams when they otherwise might not have. They mean that Tristan learned to multiply, and Gabrielle learned to nurture her passion for science.
Sad, isn’t it, that we leave after two years? Here’s the reality: Two years is longer than the average teacher stays in a low-income community. We’re not taking jobs from other qualified people, nor are we a band-aid; we’re the beginning of the long-term solution.
In my first year of teaching, my students outperformed the district average by 15 percent. Still, part of me thinks I actually benefited more from our time together. At a blinding pace, I sharpened the reflective and leadership skills I learned at Wesleyan and gained the insight and credibility to discuss and recommend solutions to our nation’s public schools crisis. I put my students in sight of academic success, and I put myself in sight of the top universities, many of which provide deferrals and grants to Teach For America corps members, and the top consulting firms and investments banks, many of which actively recruit us.
So what’s my challenge?
Don’t be the commentator, hiding behind the bulletproof veil of intellectualism; be the person who chooses to make a difference. Be the person who catches a never-to-be-known number of students from falling through the canyons of the education system and helps all students in our country attain an excellent education.
Will it be hard? Of course. You’ll learn the definition of “hard.” You’ll learn to succeed in a job where if you give up on yourself, you give up on two hundred students, their families, and your country. But you’re just as well-trained to do this as you are to analyze mergers and acquisitions on Wall Street or to lead discussions on public health in Honduras. You will succeed in Teach for America. Far more important, however, is this: Your students will succeed.
I know you want to change things. Wesleyan has taught you how. I challenge you to start with Teach for America.
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