In May 2009, Kalyn Gigot was sitting in the audience at Marquette University\u2019s commencement ceremony as a no-doubt proud graduate. But it was a year later, at Marquette\u2019s commencement Sunday, when Gigot was individually singled out for attention and praise in the graduation address.<\/p>\n
What did she do in between? She joined Teach for America, the nationwide organization that puts thousands of high-caliber college graduates into high-needs classrooms for the first two years after graduation. Gigot has been teaching this year at Northwest Secondary School, a Milwaukee Public Schools middle and high school program near North 72nd Street and West Silver Spring Drive.<\/p>\n
Wendy Kopp, the founder and CEO of Teach for America, received an honorary degree at the commencement and, in her strongly localized speech, described how much Gigot had accomplished in her year teaching math to sixth and seventh graders. \u00a0Students who were generally three years behind in their math skills have made substantial progress, the learning atmosphere in Gigot\u2019s classroom has improved sharply as the year has gone on, and Gigot has gone to lengths to get to know her students and their families, including home visits of\u00a0seventy-two of them, Kopp said.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\u201cShe holds office hours at McDonald\u2019s every Saturday morning,\u201d Kopp said, and Gigot works regularly with dozens of students after school. Now, \u201cvisitors would wonder if it was the same set of students as she had at the beginning of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kopp said\u00a0seventy-five Marquette graduates have joined Teach for America in recent years, including\u00a0fifteen from this year\u2019s class who are set to begin teaching in the fall.<\/p>\n
Kopp praised Milwaukee College Prep, a kindergarten through eighth grade charter school on North 36th Street\u00a0north of North Avenue, which has recorded test scores above the state average year after year with students who are almost all from low-income homes.<\/p>\n
Kopp said recent test results showed Milwaukee Public Schools students scoring near the bottom among\u00a0eighteen urban districts that took part\u00a0in a federal testing program. The Milwaukee scores were so low that some experts wondered whether eighth graders in MPS had been in school in the previous four years. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the face of what Milwaukee College Prep shows is possible, this is unconscionable,\u201d Kopp said. \u201cMilwaukee College Prep shows us it doesn\u2019t have to be that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kopp said the prevailing view among policy makers nationwide has changed for the better in the light of the success of schools such as Milwaukee College Prep. Five years ago, Baltimore, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C., were each regarded as among the worst school districts in the U.S., and each is now making major progress, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe question is no longer whether it is possible to put children growing up in poverty on a level playing field, but rather how to achieve such success on a significant scale, and that is a very different question,\u201d Kopp said. She said there is increasing evidence that the answer to the latter question is yes.<\/p>\n
Kopp challenged the graduates to do things in their first years out of college that aim to make differences in improving the problems that the world faces. That\u2019s what she did by launching Teach for America two decades ago as a graduate from Princeton.\u00a0 Next year, there will 7,500 TFA teachers at work in urban and rural schools from coast to coast.<\/p>\n
But Kopp\u2019s second challenge was also important: If Kalyn Gigot can progress, if Milwaukee College Prep can make progress, why can\u2019t progress be more widespread in Milwaukee?<\/p>\n