Today’s Peace Corps is Teach For America.

            I’m prompted to write about the Peace Corps because of the passing of Sargent Shriver.  Under his leadership, idealistic Americans went to foreign countries to teach in classrooms and everywhere else in the communities where they lived.

            For the last 20 years, idealistic recent college grads have taught in the classrooms of underperforming schools in both urban and rural America.  There are currently 320 in Baltimore City. 

            One TFA alumnus took my Legislation class at the University of Maryland Law School two years ago.  This past summer, Bill Ferguson was elected to the State Senate from South Baltimore. 

            Bill and I decided that his policy knowledge and my political skills could produce some important education reforms.  We asked a group of advocates to offer their ideas.   Despite their years of advocacy, it was the first time they sat around the same table to strategize. 

            We’ve begun to show our bill drafts to the key players on K-12 education in Annapolis.  Better to address their concerns and gain their support now than to offer a host of amendments after our legislation is introduced. 

            I’m sure that Sargent Shriver saw Teach For America as a worthy offspring of the Peace Corps and the War on Poverty, which he also headed. 

            I’d like to think that he’d also find favor with what we’re trying to do on education.

 January 19