An alumnus is helping to bridge the education gap between rich and poor schools.

Will Keim ’04 EP could be making a bundle; instead, he’s making a difference. As a graduate of the nation’s top-ranked engineering physics program, Keim could have had a high starting salary, or acceptance into a graduate program at one of the country’s leading research institutions. What he chose, however, was a two-year commitment to teach science to high school students in Oakland, Calif., with Teach For America.

Both of Keim’s parents are teachers, his mother in elementary school and his father at a community college, so Keim has teaching in his blood, but he was also drawn to Teach for America’s mission to eliminate educational inequality. “I’ve always wanted to do something where I felt I was making a difference and having an immediate impact,” says Keim, now a Teach For America alumnus in his third year teaching at Oakland Technical High School.

Keim teaching in his Oakland classroom.  Provided.

Keim is not alone. Teach for America has been one of the top 10 employers of Cornell graduates for the past several years. The organization is very selective, targeting top-ranked schools like Cornell, Yale, and Duke. They want the best and it takes more than smarts to break through to the students they are trying to reach. The organization looks for recruits who won’t give up when the going gets tough. Of 19,000 applicants in 2006, Teach For America accepted 2,400, making it one of the top employers of new graduates nationally.

Professor Frank Wise, with whom Keim had done undergraduate research, was surprised when Keim told him that he was joining Teach for America. “There’s not much money in it. No prestige. His friends are all going to law school, medical school, graduate programs,” he says. “They go through a lot and sacrifice a lot of earning potential, so these kids deserve a lot of credit.”

During the two years Keim was a Teach for America member, he made trips back to Cornell to tell students in Wise’s classes and others about the program. Members are paid directly by the school districts for which they work and generally receive the same salaries and health benefits as other beginning teachers, ranging from $25,000 to $44,000. Because TFA is a member of AmeriCorps, members can also get a break on their student loans during their two years of service, plus a stipend of $4,725 each year.

Like many members, Keim used his stipend to enroll in teacher certification courses, a requirement for all uncertified teachers. He had considered staying at Cornell to earn his certification, but found Teach for America’s guarantee of a teaching position and express ticket to the classroom preferable to paying for a fifth year of tuition. But he did have to endure a kind of teacher boot camp—five weeks of intense training over the summer, including supervised teaching.

Oakland Tech Assistant Principal Tobi Page has worked with several Teach for America members and found them all to be excellent teachers. She says it depends a lot on the individual and how hard they want to work. Keim regularly works 12- and 14-hour days, picking up one student who does not have transportation to school in the morning and working into the evening and on weekends as the school’s staff professional development chair, assistant baseball coach, and Saturday school teacher. “He’s an exceptional person and a wonderful teacher,” says Page. “He makes science come alive. The students love his class.”

Keim says some friends have had a hard time understanding his choice to continue teaching. “Even now, people are like, ‘You’re teaching? What?’ But I’m very happy with what I’m doing,” he says. “I’m not stuck here. I’m choosing to stay here.”

Keim doesn’t plan on spending his entire career as a teacher, but he does plan on remaining in education, perhaps as an administrator or as a staff member for Teach for America. “I enjoy it and believe very strongly in what I’m doing and want to find a way to just broaden the effect that I can have,” he says. 

—Robert Emro