Teach for America founder to visit IU

The founder and director of Teach for America will visit IU this week.\nWendy Kopp will speak at 8 p.m. Tuesday in Whittenberger Auditorium at the Indiana Memorial Union about why she created the organization. Teach for America is a program that places college graduates in needy urban and rural public schools for two years. She will also address her own visions for education in the United States.\nKopp rarely speaks at universities, but her decision to speak at IU is based primarily on IU's high recruitment rates, said Caroline Dowd-Higgins, one of the main coordinators for the event.\nIU also has a significant backing of co-sponsors who favor the Teach for America organization and its vision, which is, according to their Web site, "One day, all children in this nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education." \nThe seven sponsors who have dedicated months of time and effort to Tuesday evening's event are the College of Arts and Sciences, the Honors College, the Career Development Center, IU Kelley School of Business, Liberal Arts and Management Program, and Union Board. \nDowd-Higgins, the academic adviser and communications specialist in the Department of Religious Studies, said all corners of the campus have come together to make this event happen. IU's consistent relationship with Teach for America is a combination of its high number of graduate participants, along with faculty and staff like Dowd-Higgins who are committed to the success of the organization. \n"In the past few years the recruitment numbers have gone up exponentially," Dowd-Higgins said about IU graduate participation. "We're still communicating with our students who are now working with Teach for America. We try to support them and help them get better materials for their students." \nDowd-Higgins has recently helped organize a book drive for some of Teach for America's IU graduates and their students.\nAs an undergraduate at Princeton University, Kopp devised her plan for the program, which calls for exceptional college graduates to teach in the nation's neediest urban and rural schools. Soon after Kopp graduated, the organization kicked off in 1989, and since has acquired about 10,000 participants. \nTeach for America appeals to non-education majors because it does not require a degree in education. Rather participants graduate with a wide spectrum of majors, which contributes to the diversity of the organization. \nThey teach for two years while earning a teaching certificate and a full teacher's salary. Some may choose to pursue a master's degree. In the summer before they begin teaching, participants attend a five-week-long training session and then are placed in one of 20 areas, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, South Louisiana, Philadelphia and Miami. \nTeach for America's Web site maintains that more than 60 percent of its alumni remain in education as teachers, principals, school founders and policy advisers. \nDuring the two years that participants teach in their assigned rural or inner-city schools, they work hard to provide underprivileged children an excellent education.\n"What I really appreciate about Teach for America is that they're trying to give students the chance to receive the benefits of a good education," Dowd-Higgins said. "This program makes such a difference and has such an impact on children."\nIU alumnus and Teach for America participant Ron Gubitz is currently in his second year at an urban high school in St. Louis, Mo. Eighty-five percent of his school's students are on free or reduced lunch. Gubitz said the area is so neglected that there is an extreme lack of economic investment, and recently a document was written that stated there would not be additional funding for Gubitz's school.\nDespite the drawbacks, Gubitz maintains the challenge is not the children. Instead, he said the major challenges are being a relevant and fun teacher, and especially hitting academic standards and making improvements. His students read only on a sixth to eighth grade level, but they are now being tested on a high school reading level.\n"No child left behind is really no child left untested," Gubitz said. "Often times as educators we're being given tests that our students are not expected to pass, and it's almost like we're expected to fail."\nGubitz said he has seen so many problems that he now has an overwhelming sense of what he needs to do to help fix them. \n"I am getting an up-close look at the inequities in our country," Gubitz said. "I am seeing all of the ugly things … the people that have been ignored."\nTuesday evening, Kopp will address some of Gubitz's concerns. All seven of the event's co-sponsors are eagerly awaiting and preparing for the presentation. \nFreshman Laura Wallis is a member of Union Board's Debates and Issues Committee and has helped to organize the event. She said she expects the evening to be very successful due to Kopp's status as a national figure and the great amount of interest in Teach for America at IU.\nSome of the students in attendance will be those who will soon interview with Teach for America. \nThe first 100 students to arrive will receive a free copy of Kopp's book One Day, All Children in which she recounts the story and the evolution of Teach for America. \nGubitz said he hopes more people will become concerned with the nation's education problems. \n"On a college campus everyone is focused on the prescriptive remedies, but people need to come out and get an up-close look at these schools," Gubitz said. "If we don't spend the money on (education) now, we are going to spend six times as much money later keeping (disadvantaged students) locked up."\n-- Contact staff writer Jen Gossman at jgossman@indiana.edu.