A Navy veteran says his latest mission—high school physics teacher in Prince William County Virginia—is as challenging as the toughest assignments of his 30-year military career. John J. Paulson, 60, has been transformed from “Captain Paulson” to “Mr. P.” through the federal Troops to Teachers program that offers a stipend to military personnel who launch a career in the classroom.
One way the Obama administration aims to draw more men and minorities into schools and fill the demand in the fields of math, science, and special education is through the Troops to Teacher program, which has placed about 11,500 teachers nationwide in 15 years, including 1,985 in 315 school districts in Texas in that same time period. About 82 percent (85 percent in Texas) of the former soldiers, sailors, Marines, and other veterans who sign up are men, compared to 25 percent of the teacher workforce. Nearly 40 percent of Troops to Teacher participants (43 percent in Texas) are members of racial or ethnic minorities. The program has put more than 2,000 black men into classrooms.
In addition, the recruits are producing results. A recent study found that Florida students taught by Troops to Teacher participants made greater gains in reading than peers taught by teachers with similar classroom experience. In math, students in Troops to Teachers classrooms outperformed those in other classes, even when other teachers had more years under their belt.
Many education professors, including William A. Owings, an Old Dominion University education professor and one of the study’s authors, thought a military officer dealing with today’s middle school students was not going to be effective. “We found out that is totally untrue. We have come to believe that you’re looking at life experience . . . that has a lot of crossover into good classroom skills,” Owings said. An additional plus, according to Meryl Kettler, coordinator of the Texas Troops to Teachers program 
, is that after five years, more than 75 percent of the Texas program participants are still teaching, compared to only 70 percent of the entire teacher workforce in the state.
Troops to Teachers, launched in 1994 as the military was downsizing, offers up to $5,000 for courses needed to become a teacher, as well as a bonus of up to $5,000. In return, candidates agree to teach for at least three years in a school district where many students live in poverty. The program receives $14.4 million a year from the Department of Education but is operated by the Department of Defense.
Rep. Tom Petri (R-Wis.), one of the program’s creators, sees it as one option for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. He is leading an effort on Capitol Hill to expand the program to bring Troops to Teachers into more schools in middle-class communities. “Kids really need to get a kind of grounding and a framework, so they have some limits and can develop within them. And I think because of their experience, military people are almost uniformly able to do that.”
—“A Challenging Redeployment/Program Prepares Military Veterans for Tough Mission in Nation’s Classrooms,” by Maria Glod, The Washington Post, June 4, 2009.
