Ten teachers from nationwide program will begin two-year
commitment, with district contributing $1,500 per teacher
Gilroy – Sure, Gilroy’s issues don’t mirror those of Oakland’s inner city schools but there is one glaring similarity: a significant achievement gap between the haves and have nots.
In October, locals learned that 11 of Gilroy Unified School District’s 12 schools increased their Academic Performance Index Scores but when Hispanics and the poor were factored in only half met the targets set by the state for the 2004-2005 school year.
That’s the reason Teach for America, a nationwide company that recruits recent college graduates to teach for a minimum of two years at underserved public schools, has had its eye on Gilroy for quite some time.
On Thursday, the 15-year-old business was granted its wish when the GUSD board unanimously approved its implementation during their regular board meeting.
The board’s approval means 10 Teach for America educators will begin their two-year commitment in Gilroy this fall.
Teach for America Bay Area Executive Director Hunter Pierson, who staged the presentation at Thursday’s meeting, said Gilroy is quite a different environment than the rest of the schools the organization works with in the Bay Area, but not on nationwide level.
The reality is that Teach for America educators are in a variety of institutions throughout the United States from the Bronx to the Rio Grande, Pierson said.
“We want to be essentially where we are needed,” he said. “(Gilroy was) really seen as district that had an achievement gap but was working aggressively to close it,” he said.
As a former Teach for America member Pierson has first hand knowledge of the power of the program. After college the Louisiana native spent two years teaching at Oakland’s Frick Middle School.
“It was a life-changing experience,” he said. “It’s a cliche, but I learned more from my students than they learned from me. It’s the type of job that leaves you completely exhausted and inspired at the same time.”
During the presentation district Assistant Superintendent Linda Piceno pointed out that Teach for America recruits are immediately prepared for the harsh reality of teaching.
“One of the things they tell their teachers is ‘this is the hardest job you’ll ever have,'” she said.
In 2004, Teach for America drew from a nationwide application pool of 13,378 and a total of 1,661 were selected. This year 17,000 applied and 2,000 were chosen.
Currently there are about 140 Teach for America members working at schools throughout the Bay Area.
A portion of the applicants are asked to interview for the position and the finalists are selected from that group. After their senior year the Teach for America educators spend five-weeks of their summer in an intensive seminar in Los Angeles.
Once they reach the site of their new job, the teachers attend a week-long orientation becoming familiar with the community and possibly the new state, since many are from outside of the area. Members are hired as intern teachers and must pass the California Basic Skills Educational Test and be enrolled in a credentialing program, as specified by the federally mandated No Child Left Behind act.
The majority of teachers are fully credentialed within the first year, Pierson said.
The 10 teachers who will be placed in Gilroy have not been selected yet. The district will contribute $1,500 per teacher, or $15,000 a year to offset the Teach for America’s recruitment costs. Teachers will earn about $40,000 the same salary as other GUSD first-year educators without master’s degrees.
Gilroy should expect to help grow the educator pool since 63 percent of Teach for America alumni have remained in full-time in the education profession since the program’s inception in 1990.
Although Teach for America does have its critics, such as some college officials who claim that Teach for America teachers are less qualified because they don’t go through a graduate school program, Pierson said he found that teachers were welcoming and happy to have inspired dedicated individuals on their campus.
Teachers graduating from the program have proven to be more effective than other new teachers and often out-perform both new and veteran educators, he said. There are three main components of the organization that make it work: the caliber of their recruits, the intensive training process and a thorough support program.
Still, given those statistics, Pierson said it was actually the veteran teacher in the classroom next door to him that helped him excel as an educator.
Heather Bremner covers education for the Dispatch. Reach her at hb******@************ch.com or 847-7097.
