Letters to the Editor : Graduates can help reform education

At President Catharine Bond Hill’s inauguration ceremony last Sunday, almost every speaker talked about access and affordability in higher education, and especially Vassar’s role in both the Poughkeepsie and educational community. In examining the privilege of accessibility to institutions such as Vassar, we must ask the most pressing question of all: Who is getting left out?

Around the country, the education children receive is directly linked to where they grow up and how much money their parents make. In New York State, for example, the lowest-income children are two grade levels behind their higher-income peers in math and three grade levels behind in reading. In 1989, a Princeton senior identified this glaring inequality within the nation’s education system and upon graduation, began an organization called Teach For America.

With Teach For America, graduates from colleges around the country commit to teaching for two years in their choice of one of 25 urban and rural areas around the country. They receive a teacher’s salary and benefits while covering at least a year and a half of material in one academic year with students that have fallen behind. Over the past decade, over 60 Vassar graduates have joined Teach For America, effecting change in places such as New Orleans, Saint Louis, and New York City.

As students and future leaders, our commitment to social justice and equality doesn’t have to stop after college—by joining a national movement, we can apply our education to make sure that one day all students in this nation, regardless of income and race, attain an excellent education. With programs such as Teach For America, New York City Teaching Fellows, Jump Start and The New Teacher Project, we can become a powerful force for effecting the change necessary for a truly just society, because of the insight, conviction and personal strength gained through such an experience. We can impact the priorities and practices of our nation and we have the opportunity to do so as soon as we graduate, bringing passion and imagination into sustaining new ventures that can renew this nation’s promise.

—Haniya Mir ’07