Maia Cucchiara (MA, 1997) is quoted in an article entitled "Teacher Attrition Saps Urban Schools in Philadelphia Region, across Nation."  According to a recent report from the National Commission for Teaching and America's Future, 33 percent of new teachers leave the profession within three years, and 46 percent are gone by five years. Maia Cucchiara, 31, spent a year teaching at a Camden charter school and a year at a Philadelphia private school before leaving teaching to get a doctorate in education and sociology.

Cucchiara, who has a master's from Columbia University Teachers' College, had run educational programs for low-income children as a VISTA volunteer before taking the job at the start-up charter, which served low-income children. Even so, it proved too daunting. People tried to do too much too fast, she said. Working at the private school gave her a tantalizing glimpse of what a teacher's life could be like. "We could treat each child as someone who merited a lot of consideration and spend an hour talking about one child's individual needs," she said. KRTBN Knight-Ridder Tribune Business News: Philadelphia Inquirer, March 12, 2003.

Published Thursday, Mar. 20, 2003