Lawmakers to Seek Funds for Troop to Teacher Effort

Scrambling to rescue a program that turns soldiers into schoolteachers, federal lawmakers are set this week to introduce a bill that would extend the life of a campaign to help would-be educators trade military service for careers in the classroom.

Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) said Tuesday he will join his congressional colleagues in introducing legislation to save the Troops to Teachers program, launched in 1994 to funnel downsized military personnel into public schools.

While the program has helped curb a growing teacher shortage--launching more than 3,000 service members into teaching careers, including nearly 300 in California--it is due to phase out Oct. 1 when the original legislation expires.

That’s where Gallegly and other lawmakers come in. Their bill seeks to funnel $20 million a year into the program over the next five years, extending a recruitment campaign that has enabled school districts nationwide to recruit older and generally more committed teachers to the classroom.

“There is no question that this legislation is extremely valuable because of the tremendous shortage we have in educators,” said Gallegly, who will be one of the co-sponsors of the bill, which is expected to be introduced Thursday. “If there was ever a time when this program made a tremendous amount of sense, that time is now.”

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The move represents the latest salvo in a growing effort to save the program, which has placed teachers at schools in nearly every state in the nation.

In January, President Clinton announced that he would ask Congress to include $20 million for an expanded Troops to Teachers program that would provide a $2,000 stipend to train and place more than 3,000 retired military personnel in public schools.

Heeding that call, three U.S. senators last month introduced a bill seeking to funnel $25 million to the program until 2004.

Now members of the House are following suit, proposing a $20-million level of funding over the same period and pushing for the program to transfer from the Department of Defense to the Department of Education in an effort to better market it to school districts.

It was Troops to Teachers that made a kindergarten teacher out of former Navy pilot Jim Palkie.

After 20 years in the military and thousands of hours behind the controls of some of the world’s mightiest aircraft, he took advantage of the program to earn his teaching credential and launch a second career as a teacher at Saticoy School in east Ventura.

Palkie, 47, said Tuesday he was glad to hear that lawmakers were rallying around the program, noting that military personnel have plenty to offer schoolchildren across the nation.

“People don’t realize how much education you get in the military,” said Palkie, his kindergarten students getting down to work just after the morning bell. “I just think it’s super they are trying to do this. Schools are getting well-rounded people, well-traveled people and people who come from all walks of life.”

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Indeed, that has been one of the program’s primary selling points.

Across the nation, educators and others extol the virtues of the program, saying it has allowed school districts to help meet chronic teacher shortages, especially at hard-to-staff rural and inner-city schools.

A report released last year by the National Center for Education Information found that ex-service people not only become effective educators but also good role models in their schools.

The program has been particularly good at supplying teachers with backgrounds in math, science and special education, the report concluded. And it has helped offset a gender imbalance in the classroom; more than 90% of the former military personnel entering the teaching profession are male, while three-quarters of the overall teaching force is female.

“Best I can tell, it has worked beyond our wildest dreams and we want to continue that,” said Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colorado), who is co-sponsoring the bill with Rep. Chet Edwards, a Democrat from Texas. “The government does so many things that don’t work that when you find something that does work, you want to get behind it and go with it.”

When the Department of Defense launched the program in 1994, it offered stipends of up to $5,000 to prospective teachers and grants of up to $50,000 to school districts as an incentive to hire former military personnel.

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The grants were phased out in 1995, after which Troops to Teacher largely became a placement program, providing a nationwide database and referral service to school districts in need of teachers.

The proposed legislation in the House and the Senate seeks to reestablish the stipend and to place a special emphasis on moving teachers into hard-to-fill subject areas such as math, science, foreign languages and special education.

“One of the things we need to do a better job of is advertising this program and marketing this program to school districts around the country,” said Edwards, whose home state of Texas has tapped the program more than any other.

“The teacher shortage today is going to look minor compared to the challenges we will be facing over the next several years,” Edwards said. “What this ultimately gets around to is that this program will continue to provide quality teachers at a time when we really need them.”