San Antonio Express-News - June 21, 2009
Editorial
The San Antonio Independent School District is scheduled to vote Monday on a partnership with Teach for America, a nonprofit organization that recruits recent college graduates to teach in poor communities with academic achievement gaps.
The program has a proven track record and makes a lot of sense for SAISD.
Teach for America recruits and trains some of the nation's brightest college graduates to go into the country's poorest schools. There is great competition to become a part of the program both as a teacher and a participating school district — and for good reason.
This spring, the organization had 35,000 applicants for 4,100 teaching positions, and it is approached by many school districts each year about coming into their schools. However, it can add only three to six new sites each year.
An Urban Institute analysis of the Teach for America impact in high schools in North Carolina found students taught by the corps members outperformed their peers who were taught by more experienced teachers.
The school board would be wise to enter a partnership with Teach for America and have its teachers in SAISD classrooms starting in 2010.
The organization operated in 29 communities across the country last school year and is expanding to 35 this fall.
Three of the locations are in Texas; they include the Rio Grand Valley, Houston and Dallas.
Teach for America needs to find a local university that can provide teacher certification training for the teachers.
They also need a commitment of funding for three years of operation, in this case $4.9 million. Some of that funding is already in place. Some was appropriated by the Legislature, but about $2 million in private funding is still needed.
Local backers of the program include businessmen Charles Butt, Henry Cisneros, Tom Frost, Bill Greehey and former SAISD board chairman Julian Trevino as well as Mayor Julián Castro and state Rep. Mike Villarreal.
Teachers hired by the district under Teach for America will be on the school district payroll and earn the standard first-year salary from SAISD. The program pays them an additional $5,000 stipend.
Additionally, corps members undergo a five-week summer training program and receive support services through Teach for America offices that will be established locally.
The program wants to bring in 150 corps members to work with 20,000 students within the first three years.
Statistics show only 52 percent of SAISD students make it to graduation. Among those who do earn a high school diploma, only 27 percent are college-ready.
SAISD could use the help and should welcome it.