Unis joins Teach for America

Having just completed a five-week teaching program in the Bronx while preparing for the start of his educational career in Newark and beginning his first term on the Verona Board of Education, one might classify Michael Unis as an education maven.

"I have a passion for education," Unis said in an interview Monday. To underscore that passion, Unis will also take part in the Teach for America program.

The program requires a two-year-commitment from young teachers to work in rural and urban school districts and a lifelong committee to be advocates for educational equity.

"Every district has its strengths," Unis said and added he hopes one day all children from all backgrounds will have access to a quality education.

Unis, a 2005 Verona High School grad and 2008 graduate of Ithaca College, will join Teach for America's incoming corps of 4,100 teachers, the largest in its 20-year history. With a record 35,000 applications for the 2009 corps, only 15% were accepted. Applicants were judged on leadership abilities and a strong record of achievement. The new batch of teachers earned an average undergraduate GPA of 3.6 and 89 percent held leadership positions as undergraduates. This year, over five percent of senior class members from more than 130 colleges and universities applied, including 11 percent of all seniors at Ivy League schools. Teach for America was the top employer of graduating seniors at more than 20 schools including Georgetown University, Spelman College and the University of North Caroline-Chapel Hill.

Teach for America will send over 7,300 recruits into classrooms throughout the nation for the 2009-2010 school year.

Teach for America corps members fo above and beyond traditional expectations to improve educational outcomes of children in low-income communities. "The most rigorous research finds that Teach For America corps members produce student learning gains as large or larger than other novice or experienced teachers in the same school," said Michael Podgursky, a professor of economics at the University of Missouri who serves on the National Research Council study committee examining teacher preparation in the United States.

Unis should do a lot to uphold those findings. "Everything I do is rooted in student achievement," he said.