Crusaders in The Classroom

By Susan Tifft

The four rooms in a dormitory at the University of Southern California look like the field office of a political campaign. The hallway is cluttered with ( stacks of paper. Phones ring incessantly. Earnest young workers scurry from room to room.

A campaign it is, but an educational, not a political, one. This is the western headquarters of Teach for America, a radical attempt to woo promising graduates of the nation's top colleges into teaching. Whirlwind Wendy Kopp conceived the idea when she was an undergraduate at Princeton. She developed it in her senior thesis and, since her graduation in 1989, has pursued it with obsessive zeal, organizing recruiters at 100 campuses and raising $2 million in corporate and foundation gifts. The basic notion is that non-education majors, after a crash course of training, will serve two-year stints as teachers in U.S. public schools in a sort of domestic education equivalent of the Peace Corps.

Last week TFA's 505 trainees, selected from more than 2,500 applicants, tried their wings for the first time in the classroom. Under the eye of veteran teachers, they began working with students in 65 Los Angeles schools. The classroom sessions are part of a grueling eight-week training institute, based on the U.S.C. campus, that includes instruction in teaching techniques and workshops on decision making.

"It's overwhelming," says Lisa Robinson, 22, who graduated in June from Columbia University. "This is the first time in my life that what I do -- actually molding kids' views -- could have negative repercussions for years." For others, there have been frustrating surprises. "I couldn't believe that on my first day some kid was winking at me!" says Vanderbilt graduate Melissa Menotti, 21, who taught algebra to tenth- and eleventh- graders.

When the TFA recruits' training ends in August, 233 of them will remain in Los Angeles. The rest will take positions in New York City, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, La., and rural districts in North Carolina and Georgia. These are all districts that permit the hiring of teachers without an education degree. TFA participants will receive salaries from $18,000 to $29,000 and be allowed to defer any federal student-loan repayments until the end of service.

Many educators hope that TFA's unorthodox approach will boost the low status of the profession and help alleviate the growing teacher shortage. According to the American Federation of Teachers, U.S. schools will have to hire 1.8 million new teachers by 1997. The need is especially acute in inner cities and rural communities, precisely the areas TFA serves. "Without programs like ! this," says New York City Schools Chancellor Joseph Fernandez, "we are never going to resolve pipeline issues related to attracting the very best and brightest to our profession."

But some traditionally trained teachers are highly critical of TFA. "They are probably good people," says Jaime Escalante, the East Los Angeles calculus teacher who served as the inspiration for the movie Stand and Deliver. "But the time ((for training)) is not enough." Some are galled that TFA has received widespread publicity while the achievements of most teachers remain unheralded. "It's because the profession is starved for recognition," explains Sandra Feldman, president of New York City's United Federation of Teachers, which supports TFA.

Many trainees are sensitive to charges of arrogance and surprisingly critical of their own colleagues. "Some people are complaining about their area of placement when they should be thinking about the kids they are doing this for," says Michael Yudell, 22, a Tufts graduate. TFA itself has come in for disparaging comments from corps crusaders who feel it has not done enough to recruit minorities -- although 106 of the first crop of trainees are African American, Hispanic or Asian American. "The program needs to be more diverse," insists Richard Rivera, 22, a Syracuse graduate of Puerto Rican descent.

Perhaps the biggest question mark hanging over the program is whether TFA teachers will stay in the profession once their two years are up. Some youngsters clearly see the experience as a way station before graduate school or a higher-paying career. TFA supporters downplay the issue of retention. They point out that TFA alumni will be forceful advocates for education whatever their ultimate profession. "These kids are going to be terrific assets to schools whether they teach or not," says Robin Hogen, senior director of Merck & Co., which gave $100,000 to TFA.

Founder Kopp, for one, does not intend to make TFA her career, although she would like to see the organization become permanent. That appears unlikely without government support. Philanthropies rarely fund causes in perpetuity, and many of the current grants expire this year.

Kopp does not seem worried. After all, she has already achieved what many thought impossible: the recruitment of some of the best college graduates to teach in some of the nation's neediest schools. Whether they live up to the high expectations set for them remains to be seen. But TFA seems to have , proved the enduring allure of teaching -- and of youthful altruism.

With reporting by Dan Cray/Los Angeles