By Lauren Copeland

From sleeping in and going to the movies each weekend to dedicating every waking moment to his students, Michael Lemaster was forced to grow up overnight.

Lemaster, a UK graduate, joined the Teach For America program after graduation in 2006 and spent the next two years teaching 11th and 12th graders in Baltimore. What Lemaster discovered wasn’t what he expected.

“One thing that surprised me the most when I first started teaching was how resistant some of my students were to learning,” he said.

Now 18 graduating seniors from UK may have to learn the same lessons. These students were among the 35,000 applicants for TFA, a national program where college graduates commit two years to teaching in disadvantaged urban and rural public schools.

The intensive six week training program is designed to prepare TFA members for what will be a difficult two years of teaching. During this time, they get classroom experience that is intended to prepare them for their own classrooms.

The 2009 TFA corps members will be placed in public schools at the beginning of the Fall semester in one of 35 high-poverty urban and rural regions across the country. All the districts in these areas are classified as “high-need” local education by the federal government and 80 percent of students qualify for free or reduced lunch.

The idea to address such need came in 1989 when TFA founder Wendy Kopp proposed the creation of a national teacher corps in her senior thesis at Princeton University.

“She wanted to address the educational iniquity that persists along socioeconomic and racial lines in our country and was convinced that many accomplished recent college graduates would seek challenging work that makes a real difference in the world,” Lorraine Anderson, the managing director of regional communications at TFA said in an e-mail to the Kernel.

Silvia Timmerding saw these educational inequities firsthand. Timmerding, a 2006 UK graduate, taught students in Littleton, a rural town in North Carolina. She said there was a very steep learning curve for her students.

“However, every day you learn and understand more,” Timmerding said.

Jessica Amburgey, a 2009 history graduate, will be teaching 10th grade English in Helena, Ark. She said she understands the educational inequities in this country and wants to give kids a chance at a better education.

“As a country, we’ve lost sight of youth and we don’t challenge youth enough,” Amburgey said. “If we set higher expectations for kids, they will want to learn.”

Wes Holbrook, also a 2009 history graduate, agreed that the current education system in America is not working. At the start of the school year, Holbrook will teach eighth graders in Chicago, an area where only 6 percent of public high school students graduate from college.

Holbrook wants to make sure that he is giving kids every chance to succeed.

“In this area, eighth graders are working on a third grade level,” he said. “For a lot of these kids, their teacher may be the only one that will help them pass.”

After her first year in the program, Kateland Beals saw more than evidence of an educational iniquity in her students. Beals said her students’ behavior was also a challenge.

“It’s hard to have someone, especially a 14-year-old, cuss you out in the middle of class,” Beals, a 2008 UK graduate said. “But it gets less shocking.”

Despite criticism toward TFA’s effectiveness, recent data shows that teachers in the program have demonstrated a positive impact on students in high-poverty schools. A 2008 Urban Institute study updated this year found that TFA members have a positive effect on student achievement relative to other teachers and those certified in their field.

The program also has a higher second-year return rate of new teachers in low-income communities than teachers who are not in the program, according to the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future.

About two-thirds of TFA alumni are currently working full-time in the field of education.

Patrick Kennison said he never intended to teach after he completed the two-year program. However, the 2006 UK graduate is continuing to teach sixth, seventh and eighth grade science in Philadelphia and works for the TFA training program in the summers.

“Teaching is a very dynamic field,” Kennison said. “It gives me an opportunity to grow and learn in so many different areas.”

Lemaster, now older and wiser, agreed.

“It has opened my eyes to a lot of inequalities that many people face in our country,” Lemaster said. “This experience has truly shaped my future.”