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The foundation that runs Charlotte's PGA Tour stop is donating $800,000 to the local Teach for America organization, paving the way for the recruitment and training of 150 new teachers next year for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.
“Our Teach for America teachers have an outstanding record, and we would like to put even more of them in our schools,” CMS Superintendent Peter Gorman said Wednesday, during a news conference announcing the gift. “This will help us reach that goal.”
A $1 million donation from Champions for Education, which operates the annual Quail Hollow Championship, launched a Teach for America program in the Charlotte area five years ago.
Teach for America is a national organization which recruits top students who previously had not been pursuing teaching careers. Teachers complete condensed training and teaching jobs – and in return, they promise to work for two years in high-poverty schools.
In recent years, Champions for Education had split its gifts among local and national chapters of Teach for America. This year, foundation chairman Mac Everett said, the board decided to keep the money in the Charlotte area.
“This community has really embraced the golf tournament,” Everett said. “We think this is an outstanding way of giving back.”
This school year, 230 Teach for America teachers are working in 60 CMS high-poverty schools. The school system has used 350 Teach for America educators since the program started locally in 2004.
Gorman said the results have been outstanding.
“In mathematics, our Teach for America teachers hace achieved more student growth than our regular teachers,” he said. “Principals have expressed a very high level of satisfaction with teachers' performance.”
Tim Hurley, executive director of the Teach for America chapter in Charlotte, said educators in the program have won first-year teaching awards in all five years of the local program. He cited two Teach for America teachers at Berry Academy whose students achieved a 97 percent passing rate on the state end-of-course Algebra test last year – higher than at any other CMS high school, he said.
Erica Jordan Thomas, a Teach for America educator who works at the Renaissance school at Olympic High School, said she was majoring in Textiles and Clothing at Ohio State University when she heard of the program. She decided to give teaching a try, and she said she is hooked.
“I plan to remain in education,” she said Wednesday.
Thomas, in her second year with CMS, said she has taken a no-nonsense approach with students. She allowed no excuses for missed homework or assignments.
“I had students who thought I was mean or unfair,” she said.
But she said 78 percent of her Geometry students passed the state end-of-course test last spring – compared to a 27 percent passage rate the previous year at Olympic-Renaissance.
Gorman acknowledged criticism from some people who would like CMS to get more than a two-year commitment from the Teach for America teachers, but he said, “We think the uncertainty (of whether the teachers will stay with CMS beyond two years) is outweighed by the quality of work we get from those teachers in their two years with us.”
The $800,000 will be used to recruit, train and provide support for the teachers, Hurley said. Teachers' salaries are paid by CMS.
