Teacher recruitment program deserves funding

I’m a Clark County School District kindergarten teacher who moved to Las Vegas in 2010 to begin my career as an educator through Teach For America.

Earlier this week, I was dismayed to read that some legislators who represent my community are opposed to Senate Bill 517, which would provide $2 million in state funding for this excellent program, and I felt compelled to speak up as one of many Teach For America alumni who have chosen to make education our profession and Las Vegas our home.

In the three years since I moved here, I have gained experience through continuous professional development — a UNLV master’s degree, a Teaching English as a Second Language endorsement, district training and hours of coaching with Teach For America staff. But more important, I have gained experience by working with students and their families each day — a bright girl sobbing that her mom was in jail, a mother grateful for our weekly “Family Book Buddies” sessions, and a precocious boy complaining that his “feet fingers” hurt because, as an English Language Learner, he didn’t know the word for toes.

Most recently, I have worked with Clark County Education Association leadership as a union member to found the Young Teachers’ Network, a group in which young educators — regardless of how they made their way to the district’s classrooms — can build relationships with each other and district leaders, share best practices and shape the future of education in our city. These types of new teacher networks are important in retaining teachers from both traditional and alternative pathways. A 2004 study by Richard Ingersoll (“Why Do High-Poverty Schools Have Difficulty Staffing Their Classrooms with Qualified Teachers?”) indicates that high-poverty urban schools lose 22 percent of their teachers each year, and 40 to 50 percent leave the profession altogether within five years. This is a nationwide crisis. Yet despite these odds, two-thirds of Teach For America teachers in Las Vegas remain in education beyond their two-year commitment.

In fact, I believe the leadership and energy demonstrated by our teachers and alumni are critical parts of the solution to this crisis. For instance, just within my personal alumni network, I have met a dean at a middle school, the co-creator of the district’s online curriculum engine, the founders of a before- and after-school program so successful that parents are literally begging for its expansion, and a founder of a college readiness program. Another TFA instructor was chosen to teach pre-K through a special school district grant, and two others were chosen to be coaches and trainers through the federal Striving Readers literacy program. And more than 100 of our alumni continue to provide invaluable service to children and the larger community as classroom teachers.

Teach For America provides two additional benefits to our children that our state and district do not. The first is a cadre of highly qualified teachers willing and able to teach in the most challenging and chronically understaffed schools. The second is ongoing coaching and professional development from a standpoint that recognizes a teacher’s first years are the most critical in setting the instructor on a path of long-term professional growth and service (Leap Year: Assessing and Supporting First-Year Teachers, The New Teacher Project). Recognizing these benefits, the School Board has built a strong partnership with Teach For America, unanimously approving our contract for three years running.

So when you invest in Teach For America, as I now implore our legislators to do, you are not investing in some abstract program or pet project. You are investing in me. You are investing in my colleagues. You are investing in teachers.

Ryan Korn is a teacher at Myrtle Tate Elementary School in Las Vegas.