Teach for America members arrive in Milwaukee for training

Erin Richards:

They are in their 20s, well-educated, ambitious and eager to improve the public schools in Milwaukee.
Welcome, Teach for America members. You have your work cut out for you.
On Friday, the group’s inaugural Milwaukee class completed its first week of training in the program, which recruits high-achieving, recent college graduates to teach in high poverty, low-income schools. The 38 “corps members,” committed to a two-year stint, met at Marquette University.
The group met teachers who already are part of MPS. They learned about the city’s politics, community and educational system. And they worked on essential skills: classroom management; lesson planning; how to control but also empower; how to apologize when they make mistakes.
“Nobody is absolutely going to be the perfect teacher,” Garret Bucks, the executive director for TFA in Milwaukee, told a room full of well-dressed and well-spoken young adults, all with pens at the ready.