By Khadijah Abdullah, Teach for America-Alabama Executive Director
Teach For America recruits and develops recent college graduates and mid-career professionals to make an initial commitment to teach in high-needs schools, become life-long leaders in and outside the classroom, and be a partner in our movement: One day, all children in this nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education.
Teach For America-Alabama was organized here five years ago in the Black Belt to partner with communities believing that we could have a positive impact in expanding educational opportunities for children facing the challenges of poverty.
We started out with 30 teachers, and from the very beginning, not only did our teachers immediately became members of their communities but their students began to achieve significant gains personally and academically.
I would love to briefly share the work of some of these individuals over the past five years:
- By the end of the 2010-11 school year, Patrick Hill’s students in Marengo County showed 33 percent growth on the Alabama Science Assessment. Dan Sheehan’s students scored the highest on the Alabama Science Assessment in the history of Perry County Schools.
- In 2011, Justin Younker, Laurie Brown, Ashley Buckelew (all teachers at Sumter Central High School), Francis Mario and John Essex organized the Higher Academic Summer School (HASS) program for rising high school freshmen from the Black Belt. This program was created to maximize exposure for students during the summer to ensure they were clear on their paths after high school. It has been in existence for the past four years, and this year three of their students graduated and received full scholarships in nursing and occupational therapy to the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Congratulations to Diamond Woodard, Adrianna Jones, Adrianna Thomas on your graduation and acceptance into UAB.
- In 2012, Wyatt Smith – a history teacher from Reform, Ala. – joined TFA and established the Birmingham to Beijing Program, which was created to ensure that Wyatt’s students and the students at George Washington Carver High School not only learned about global citizenship but became global citizens. It implemented a Mandarin exchange program where students across the city and now state have access to learning Mandarin Chinese and spending a summer in Beijing teaching English classes to other students. This program has since expanded to other districts and is in its third year.
- In 2013, seven Teach For America teachers joined the Westlawn Middle school team, a historically low-performing middle school in Huntsville, and in just one year, their students showed higher growth in STAR reading test scores than students at any other school in the district. Superintendent Dr. Wardynski attributed the growth to the partnership and leadership of TFA teachers at the school when he shared: “This is what is possible when students from low-income areas are given the opportunity to excel.”
This year, the 2014-2015 school year and our fifth year as a program, excellent things are still happening for students in classrooms across the state. Three of our students received the Gates Millennium Scholarship, a scholarship given to only 1,000 high school graduates across our country. Two were awarded at Woodlawn High School in Birmingham and one in Selma, and these three scholarships were awarded to students in Teach for America classrooms. Last year, Tre Smith, a Huntsville City Schools student in the STEM Summer Institute program that was created by our teachers, received the only Gates Millennium scholarship awarded in Alabama. Tre just completed his first year at Auburn University this month.
Over the past five years, we have tracked our students’ progress and have seen an average annual 2.5 point growth on the ACT, with a few classrooms achieving nearly 6 points growth. In elementary classrooms students are achieving great things as well – mastering 1.45 years growth in math and reaching 1.5 years of reading in a single year. There have been nine teachers recognized as Teacher of the Year, an award that is voted on by teachers in the schools and districts with whom we partner.
All of the achievements I shared were not solely the achievements of our teachers, but also were our students’, schools’ and respective districts’ successes as well.
In closing, I have never been more optimistic and passionate about the fact that we can – we must – create change that is transformative for all of our students in Alabama.
We are building momentum, and everyone in our communities are key to increasing that momentum and helping our students achieve heights that many once thought were impossible. We know that it is a privilege for us to teach the students of Alabama, and it is a privilege to be a part of such great work that’s already begun in our state.
You may ask me, “What is my role? How can I help?” Get involved. Stay engaged. Donate. Get to know our teachers. Most importantly, love our students – because they are amazing and their success depends on it. Thank you for investing in our students, taking a chance on our teachers, and partnering with us over the past five years.
This post was adapted from Khadijah Abdullah’s speech during Teach for America-Alabama’s fifth anniversary celebration and is Part II of a two-part series. Click here to read Part I.