Jackson Free Press

Teach for America, a program that trains college students to teach in under-served, poor communities, is seeing record numbers of graduates applying. Mississippi State Superintendent of Education, has asked the organization for 200 of those recruits to teach in the Delta, doubling the numbers from previous years, according to an Associated Press story.

Bounds believes the program's high-achieving graduates will play an important role in turning around his state's struggling schools.

Children suffer from poverty in Mississippi at a greater rate than the national average. And fourth-graders there trail the nation and region in reading and math, though they have made gains since 2003, according to the Southern Regional Education Board.

The South holds particular interest for some recruits. Yale graduate David DeAngelis asked specifically for assignment to the Delta, and he spent the past year teaching music in tiny Marianna, Ark., near the west bank of the Mississippi.

"You become part of the community almost immediately, part of the lives of students, of students' families," DeAngelis said. "It's a very rich and powerful experience, from the very beginning."

The program provides recruits with five weeks of training prior to schools opening in the fall, and requires a two year commitment. This year, the organization is placing 4,100 recruits out of 35,000 applicants. For more information, see the Teach for America Web site.