Adam Percy did not have much support from his family when he applied for the Teach For America program.
Percy’s parents were skeptical of the legitimacy of the program, which since 1990 has provided recent college graduates the opportunity to teach for two years at schools that have difficulty finding teachers.
They wondered why he, with a bachelor’s degree in business, would want to spend two years teaching at a low-income school. He ended up swaying his parents when he told them how graduate schools value Teach For America participants.
“Teach For America is the ticket for a really good grad school,” Percy, 24, said.
Percy currently teaches eighth-grade math and science at Curtis O. Greenfield Middle School.
Teach For America has seen a recent influx in applicants, a trend that Percy believes is due to the recession and the fact that people initially were unsure whether it was a good program.
The majority of college graduates who apply for Teach For America have rarely grown up with a lot of struggle and don’t tend to stay in teaching, he said.
Teach For America currently has about 6,200 teachers in its program. The program began after Princeton University senior, Wendy Kopp, proposed the concept in her undergraduate thesis. She raised $2.5 million in funding and began the non-profit program. Since then, Teach For America has become the largest provider of teachers to low-income schools, according to its Web site.
“Actually, it’s kind of the model, you teach for two years, and then you leave,” Percy said.
Patrick Clark, Teach For America teacher at Gateway Elementary School, said that the program skews toward more affluent participants because of the level of financial comfort from their parents.
The financial comfort helps, since teachers make so little [money] in comparison to regular professional fields, Clark, 24, said.
“I have the freedom to make choices based on my value system,” he said.
Clark is currently working on his master’s degree at ASU.
Teachers in the program in Phoenix must either attend graduate school at ASU or get their teaching certificate at Rio Salado College, as required by Teach For America.
Percy, who came from the working class, felt like a little bit of an outcast, he said. Many of the other teachers come from affluent families or are still supported by their parents, he said.
“I felt the presence of all the privilege[d] within Teach For America,” he said.
Percy thought the big question being asked of Teach For America was, “Are these kids actually making a positive impact?” he said.
It is important to have a deep understanding of the subject being taught, he said, such as, the nuances of explaining math.
“If we as a nation are pumping math and science, then we ought to know math and science really well,” he said.
Secondary math and science Teach For America teachers are now out-performing newly hired teachers, he said.
“[The teachers] are pretty diverse in what we’ve studied,” he said.
Reach the reporter at jlutjeme@asu.edu.
