Students in low-income communities face daunting obstacles from virtually the moment they are born. Our country’s educational system, ideally the great equalizer that would enable low-income children to compete with their more privileged peers, does very little to improve a child’s odds of success.
Consider the statistics: Nine-year-olds in low-income communities are already three grade levels behind their peers in high income communities and only about half of the 13 million children currently growing up in poverty will graduate from high school.
While these statistics are daunting, they are not insurmountable. Every year Teach For America recruits motivated, committed and idealistic recent college graduates who set out to prove that these children can overcome the odds and compete with any student in the country when provided an excellent education. Closing this achievement gap, the disparity that exists between low-income students and their peers in higher income areas, is the overarching goal for corps members and their pupils.
Accomplished recent college graduates from schools throughout the country pledge to work for two years in some of our country’s most challenging schools. The work is gruelingly – long hours, unruly children, frustration and a first-hand glimpse into the nightmare that is reality in too many of our public schools. Yet every year, more recent college graduates (19,000 applied in 2006; roughly 2,400 were accepted) sign up to address what has certainly become our generation’s civil rights issue: ensuring that all children in our country are afforded an excellent education.
I joined this cadre of idealists in 2002 as a graduate from UO. After an intense and rigorous summer institute, where I learned teaching strategies, classroom management techniques and taught summer school, I moved to Clinton, Louisiana to teach reading, language arts and social studies to 51 sixth grade students – nearly 85 percent of whom were African-American, eligible for free or reduced lunch and were at least three grade levels behind their more economically stable peers.
The two years I spent teaching in a rural community were the most challenging and rewarding I could have ever imagined.
As I slowly gained control over my classroom, I saw my students’ ability, enthusiasm and academic confidence grow. A priority for Teach For America is tracking, evaluating and monitoring the progress of our students to ensure that demonstrable progress is being made.
The results in my classroom were encouraging – my students were making significant academic progress, and while the achievement gap wasn’t going to be closed in that year alone, they were gaining on their peers.
While this was heartening, other barriers would continue to impede the success of many students: poverty, limited employment opportunities, poor healthcare, negligible parental involvement, violent neighborhoods, drug use, poor personal skills and misguided priorities. As my teaching commitment came to an end, I realized that my commitment to my students was only beginning.
The experience changed not only my outlook on society and the problems that consistently lead to cyclical poverty – it also changed what I wanted to do with my life. This is the case with many corps members. While 63 percent of alumni remain in education, 83 percent of alumni working in education report that they are working inside a low-income community, and more than 24 percent are still working in their original school. Others go on to serve the cause in others ways as doctors, entrepreneurs, lawyers, public policy advocates and volunteers. All corps members carry with them the experience of teaching and the desire and commitment to close the achievement gap.
I now work on education policy on Capitol Hill and have a picture of my students hanging prominently on my wall. While I hope the work that I am doing will benefit my students and the students that Teach For America corps members are teaching this very day, I worry that the impact I hope to have will in fact never be greater than when I was a teacher, standing before a classroom of bright, capable, eager eyes.
For those of you looking for an opportunity to truly make an impact, look no further.
Chris Ficke is a 2002 UO graduate and is currently a legislative aide for U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski