“The level of confidence I gained at Scripps has been one of the foremost assets for me as a teacher,” says Tara Sheram ’06, a first-year corps member of Teach for America. “Being young and inexperienced in this profession, many people have doubted my abilities, but I have never doubted myself. I know that I am a critical thinker, a leader, and a woman of courage – and I can do anything. Scripps cemented those ideas in me.”
As Tara adjusts to her new role as teacher in a bilingual, second-grade classroom in Phoenix, Scripps celebrates the fact that it was the top producing women’s college this year for Teach for America (TFA), a non-profit organization that trains college graduates for two-year teaching positions in disadvantaged schools nationwide. With an applicant pool this year of nearly 19,000, and an acceptance rate of less than 20%, TFA has grown increasingly popular and selective since its inception by Wendy Kopp as a senior thesis project at Princeton in 1989. Modeled after the Peace Corps, Teach for America aims to improve domestic education by forming a national corps of outstanding recent college graduates to infuse failing schools with energetic, enthusiastic, and knowledgeable new teachers.
“Scripps is assuredly one of our superstar colleges nationally,” notes Chris Kaleel, TFA’s recruitment director for the Southwestern Recruitment Team. Scripps had the greatest number of seniors accepted of all women’s colleges, as well as the highest market share of any college’s senior class applying to the program – a whopping 12%. (Schools with comparably high percentages of seniors applying – over 10% – include Notre Dame, Dartmouth, Yale, and Spelman College.)
While Wendy Kopp suggests that today’s college graduates are hungry for meaningful work, the short-term commitment TFA demands and the organizational support system it offers helps sweeten the offer. New corps members go through a summer training program geared toward their future positions in low-performing classrooms; they are assisted every step of the way through the certification process; and they are supported in their teaching by regular evaluations and debriefings by program directors.
Tara Sheram, one of 11 Scripps graduates of the class of 2006 to sign on with TFA, was delighted to be assigned a bilingual, second-grade classroom, where many students are the children of Mexican immigrants and her Spanish-language proficiency proves a daily asset. Ashley Martin ’06 was also able to fulfill a personal goal in her assignment to a third-grade classroom in Houston. A native of New Orleans, Ashley’s senior year was a turbulent one in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and her family’s displacement.
“After Katrina and [Hurricane] Rita, TFA decided not to put any corps members in the city [of New Orleans] because the school system is unstable as of right now,” explains Ashley. “Since many New Orleans residents have relocated to Houston, including many of my family members, and many New Orleans students are now attending Houston public schools, I knew that Houston was where I had to be.”
Like Ashley, whose long-term plans include improving the lives of children, many TFA alumni maintain a commitment to education and/or service to low-income communities. With a goal of promoting educational excellence and equality in general, TFA seeks to create change both in the corps members it recruits and in the specific classrooms it serves. To that end, independent research has shown that students taught by TFA corps members make more annual progress in math and reading than similar students taught by other teachers, both new and veteran, in the same schools and grades.
Through a new targeted recruiting initiative, TFA is seeking to improve math and science education. Because of these efforts nearly 20% of this year’s applicant pool was comprised students with math, science, or engineering degrees. One of these recruits is Lisa Venechuk ’06, a geology major who completed research at the Johnson Space Center while at Scripps and who plans to pursue a Ph.D. in planetary science.
By choosing to work with TFA first, Lisa earned a signing bonus from the Amgen Foundation, a biomedical firm that encourages participation with the corps by graduate-school-bound seniors with math/science/engineering majors.
“I’ve had discussions with my mom [a public school teacher] about the importance of public schools and what’s necessary to make them successful,” says Lisa. “I am passionate about the issue and feel I should get involved rather than just talk about it.”
For many Scripps graduates of the class of 2006, a new twist on the old slogan “Just do it!” might well be “Just teach it!”