Teach for America on-campus today

The well-funded campus of Princeton University might not be the best example of educational inequality. But it was there that Wendy Kopp first became aware of the disparity in achievement between students who grow up in poorer urban areas and those in other regions.\n"Where you're born has a lot to do with your educational prospects as well as your life prospects," Kopp said. "That doesn't seem right."\nKopp decided to do something about the problem she saw by founding Teach For America, a nonprofit organization that recruits recent college graduates to teach in low-income areas for two years.\nBy fourth grade, many students in urban and rural areas are already three years behind where they should be and only have a 50 percent chance of graduating high school, Kopp said.\nSince 1990 more than 17,000 people have participated in the program, which now encompasses 25 regions, according to the group's Web site.\nCorps members do not need to be certified teachers, but they can instead receive alternative certification if accepted into the program. There are several characteristics the group looks for in new recruits, however.\n"It's a combination of a commitment to ensuring kids have the opportunities they deserve as well as perseverance in the face of challenges," Kopp said.\nSenior Brittany Cohen will begin working at an elementary school in New York City for Teach For America in the fall.\n"I was attracted to Teach for America because of their motto," Cohen said in an e-mail. "I believe in what the organization stands for and I want to be part of the movement to help educational inequality.\nCohen is an education major, but feels she can contribute much more to teaching as a corps member.\n"I have always wanted to teach and I am actually an elementary-special education major but I feel Teach For America is so much more," she said. "I will always have the opportunity to teach but I will not always have the opportunity to help reduce educational inequality."\nThere has been some debate as to just how effective Teach For America teachers are, however. A June 2004 study by Mathematica Policy Research found that while students of corps members score higher in math on average than those receiving instruction by other teachers, there is no significant difference in reading scores.\nKopp said that internal studies have shown Teach For America has a greater impact, however, and because of changes in training corps members she expects future studies will show greater achievement in students.\nKwame Griffith, director of Diversity Initiatives at Teach For America, will be on campus today to discuss the achievement gap and why the number of black, Hispanic and Asian students drops sharply in the transition from K-12 to college and what IU students can do to help.\nThe lecture will be at 12:30 p.m. in the Dogwood Room of the Indiana Memorial Union.