At 50, Paula Lopez Crespin doesn't fit the Teach for America demographic of high-achieving college senior. The program rarely draws adults eligible for AARP membership. In fact, just 2 percent of recruits are over 30.
But what Ms. Crespin lacks in youth, she makes up for in optimism, idealism and what those in Teach for America call "relentless pursuit of results." Ms. Crespin beat out tens of thousands of applicants to get where she is: fresh off her first year teaching math and science at Cole Arts and Science Academy in a gang-riddled section of Denver.
Many friends thought she was crazy to give up a career in banking for a $32,000 pay cut teaching in an urban elementary school. But the real insanity, Ms. Crespin insists, would have been remaining in a job she "just couldn't stomach anymore," and surrendering a dream of doing "something meaningful with my life."
These days, crazy never looked so normal. Teaching has always been a top choice for a second career. Of the 60,000 new teachers hired last year, more than half came from another line of work, according to the National Center for Education Information. Most bypassed traditional teacher education (for career changers, a two-year master's degree) for fast-track programs like Teach for America. But unemployment, actual or feared, is now causing professionals who dismissed teaching early on to think better of its security, flexibility (summers off, the chance to be home with children) and pension. Four of Ms. Crespin's colleagues at Cole are career changers, ages 46 to 54, including a former information technology executive and a psychologist.
Teach for America, the teacher-training program that has evolved into a Peace Corps alternative for a generation bred on public service, is highly competitive and becoming more so: this year, a record 35,178 applied -- a 42 percent increase over 2008 -- to fill 4,100 slots. Eleven percent of all new Ivy League graduates applied.
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