Kaela King had doubts. How would she do it? How would she confront poverty and a culture of gangs, which dominated a large portion of her students’ after-school lives? She was an English and philosophy major, fresh out of Ohio State standing in a tough urban school in Brooklyn, N.Y., about to teach eighth-grade students for the first time, many of whom were reading on a fourth-grade level.

Eight months after beginning her first year teaching as a member of Teach For America, King’s students have, on average, made two-and-a-half years of reading growth. No student has read fewer than 40 books; they now groan when she announces the end of their independent reading period.

King is part of a growing trend of recent college graduates who are fed up with the inequality of education in low-income communities and are signing up in record numbers to fight it.

“The more I learned about the achievement gap and how huge it is, and how many students aren’t getting the education they deserve, the more outrage that I had,” said Sandy Abraham, a senior in chemical engineering and campus campaign coordinator for TFA at OSU. Some students coming in to the Chicago high school she will teach at have no or little reading ability, she said.

Teach For America, a non-profit organization established in 1990 dedicated to placing committed teachers in under performing schools, announced today it will place more than 3,700 new teachers this fall in low-income communities across the country.

The numbers are the largest in the organization’s history. The 2008 corps was selected from a record 24,718 applicants. The organization is in the midst of an ambitious growth plan, which calls for an expansion from its current 5,000 corps members in 26 sites to 8,000 across more than 33 regions by 2010.

TFA has had 78 corps members from OSU, with 19 entering this year.

The new members have a large task in front of them. For example, nine-year-olds growing up in low-income communities are three grade levels behind their peers in high-income communities, according to the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Troubled communities in Ohio, however, are not in Teach For America’s plans, as the state’s rules for certification does not allow alternative licensure, which is how most recruits are licensed. There is a desire to move TFA into as many troubled areas as possible, but it is not always possible, said Patrick Vassel, a Teach For America representative, in an e-mail.

State laws vary on alternative certification requirements, but in Illinois Abraham will need to take night classes and has taken two exams, which will certify her for three years, in addition to a five-week training course and five weeks of teaching summer school.

The growing number of applicants indicates the increasing knowledge of the achievement gap between low-income minority students and their affluent white peers, Abraham said.

“The more awareness there is, the more people start to realize, ‘Hey, maybe it’s not fair that where somebody is born has limited a significant portion of their life prospects,'” she said.

TFA recruits teach for only two years because members often make a significant impact, Vassel said. The experience gained in those two years is vital.

“Whatever they might do after those two years (including the 67 percent who remain in education), they will be life-long advocates for education reform and for closing the achievement gap,” he said.

Corps members often have little teaching experience, but studies have shown that TFA teachers often outperform their more experienced peers.

A study by The Urban Institute in March found TFA teachers’ effect on student achievement in core classroom subjects was nearly three times the effect of teachers with three or more years experience.

“Our corps members have sort of a basic set of leadership skills, drive and outrage” that they don’t lose, Abraham said.

Former OSU student and current TFA recruitment director for Ohio, Jennifer Howard, said she taught sixth-grade language arts in Atlanta from 2003 to 2005 and used her drive and leadership to overcome challenges. It was very difficult, she said, but very rewarding.

Her average student was reading at a third- or fourth-grade level, but after both years they made considerable academic progress, with close to 80 percent passing the state exam, she said. Howard said she let her students know she cared by telling them, “We’re going to overcome this together.”

Tom Knox can be reached at [email protected].