Twenty-first century service

When Bob Durkee '69 criticized The Washington Monthly's college rankings, he mentioned that eight percent of Princeton graduates apply to work in a program called Teach for America. This organization, created by Wendy Kopp '89, recruits college graduates to work for two years at an underperforming school, earning a regular teacher's starting salary. Last year, 17,000 college graduates applied for 2,200 spots. That is an impressive number for a program that offers comparatively small financial benefits and draws applicants based on their desire to improve society.

I wonder what we could do for America's public education system if our political leaders showed the same commitment to the public good as those 17,000 college graduates demonstrated. Americans do value public service. You can see it every time a Princeton grad signs up to teach poor children or a teenager volunteers to pick up a rifle to defend and die for those same kids.

Unfortunately, our government displays an astounding lack of imagination in improving our school systems and demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of national capabilities. If the United States is serious about repairing public education and keeping America dominant in the global economy, then here's an idea it should consider: a national teachers' academy.

This would apply the idea behind the U.S. Military Academy to a different aspect of public service. At West Point, students receive a college education and an officer's commission in exchange for five years of military service. In a national teachers' academy, students would receive degrees in return for working six years in an underperforming inner city or rural school.

Students at the academy would pursue a double major in education and another subject of their choosing. This would make them experts in the subject they would teach. This is particularly important in math and science, where the need for teachers is greatest but the supply smallest.

A similar idea was raised in part of a bipartisan report on public education released last week by the National Academy of Sciences. The authors of that study demanded that 10,000 merit-based scholarships be given annually in exchange for five years of public school teaching, though I would prefer a four year commitment. Scholarships would be given to people who would teach math or science. The academy would expand on this by training humanities teachers as well and by structuring a curriculum that would best prepare teachers for the toughest schools.

A layered system would better approximate officer training. If the academy could be thought of as West Point, recruiting the top students and those most interested in remaining in the profession, the scholarships could be seen as a teaching ROTC that would entail smaller benefits to the recruits but require a shorter commitment. This would allow people to serve the nation for a time commitment with which they are comfortable.

This would give us a three-layered system. At the initial level of commitment would be programs like Teach for America, recruiting college graduates. Above that would be scholarship programs for students who really want to work in public schools but may not want their career to be limited to teaching. The highest level would be the teachers' academy graduates, those best qualified to teach and most committed to serve.

Questions like where funding would come from, where the graduates would be assigned to work and where the college could be built remain but are solvable. If we can't find enough pork to cut from the transportation bill to fully fund these programs, then we aren't looking hard enough. I also recommend that we give each state a number of teachers in proportion to its population and let the graduates choose from a list of failing schools within their state or a nearby state. Finally, though this is particularly sensitive, building the academy at Ground Zero would best honor the dead by sending a strong message about how our country values education and our future.

Though this is one possible solution, it is by no means the solution. Fixing inherent flaws will require a ground-up reevaluation of every aspect of public education. Though this is difficult, it is certainly possible and would provide a service to our nation in the best traditions of Princeton and America. Barry Caro is a freshman from White Plains, N.Y. He can be reached at bcaro@princeton.edu.