This is Steve Ember with the VOA Special English EducationReport.

Teach for America is a program that has provided more than tenthousand teachers to schools across the country. They have taughtmore than a million children from poor families.

Teach for America trains recent college graduates to work inlow-economic schools in different areas of the country. They areexpected to teach for at least two years.

A student at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey, hadthe idea for Teach for America in nineteen-eighty-nine. Wendy Koppwrote a paper in which she proposed a national teachingorganization.

People supported her idea. Money from major companies helpedlaunch the program. The program has also received money from thefederal government. And money comes from people and businesses inareas where the teachers work. Wendy Kopp still leads Teach forAmerica.

Some education experts have criticized the lack of experiencethat the young teachers have before they begin work. But now theMathematica Policy Research organization in Princeton has examinedthe effects of Teach for America.

The Mathematica study took placein six areas around the country between two-thousand-two andtwo-thousand-three. It involved nearly two-thousand children inseventeen schools. Researchers tested the students at the beginningand end of the school year. They compared the results of studentswho had Teach for America teachers with those who did not.

The study found that both groups did equally well on average inreading. The Teach for America group scored higher in mathematics.

But two times as many of the Teach for America teachers reportedthat physical conflicts among students were a serious problem. Evenso, the study found that the two groups of teachers had similarrates of student expulsions and suspensions.

The researchers had praise for the Teach for America teachers.They say the new educators had more success than teachers with anaverage of six years of classroom experience.

Most of the Teach for America teachers said they planned to teachfor just a few years. About ten percent said they expected to teachuntil retirement. By comparison, that was true of sixty percent ofteachers outside the program.

This VOA Special English Education Report was written by NancySteinbach. This is Steve Ember.