DaytonDailyNews.com

By Russell Carollo and Irina Vermolenko
Dayton Daily News

Reports that Peace Corps volunteers were being expelled from Russia for spying made sensational headlines around the world.

After Russia announced last December that it was expelling 27 volunteers, a top Russian security official said the real reason was that two volunteers had been detected spying and that other volunteers were asking too many questions about the government.

Lost in the controversy was the substance of the other allegations made by the Russians: That the young American volunteers were not qualified for the jobs they were assigned and that the agency had become an anachronism in a developed country such as Russia.

As the agency defended itself against the assertions by the Russians, its own inspector general released a report echoing many of the reasons the Russians gave for asking volunteers to leave the country.

"We found a lack of substantive work assignments," says a May 13, 2002, report from the Peace Corps inspector general, who is assigned to root out waste, fraud and abuse in the agency. "Of the 32 volunteers we interviewed, we found only two who had regular work assignments."

The Dayton Daily News found similar problems worldwide: Volunteers in their early- to mid-20s and straight out of college had little or no experience in complex subjects they were expected to teach others. Volunteers with no farming background were sent to train experienced farmers. Volunteers with no business experience were asked to be business consultants. Volunteers who couldn’t speak the language and had little or no teaching experience were made teachers.

"Can you imagine us going to the USA to teach them how to build their educational system?" said Sergei Y. Gatilov, Russia's deputy education minister. "Unfortunately, Peace Corps remained stuck in the ’60s (and) ’70s of the last century. We tried to explain that our problems were different from those of Senegal or Southeast Asia."

The Peace Corps, in a written response to the Dayton Daily News, says only volunteers who have "a real job to do" and who are qualified for their assignments are sent abroad. The Peace Corps withdrew from Russia, the response says, "based on that government's determination that many changes had occurred in Russia since 1992."

The inspector general noted a number of problems. Though volunteers were expected to learn to become teachers there, they arrived at their sites two months after the start of the school year.

In one region, the number of volunteers tripled, the report said, but the time program managers spent visiting volunteers "essentially did not change."

Peace Corps managers did not routinely observe volunteers teaching, and 22 percent of the volunteers who were visited by managers called the visits "useless," the report said.

During an interview at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, Peace Corps Country Director Jeffrey Hay said volunteers assigned to be teacher trainers must have "a number of years" of teaching experience, and volunteers assigned to teach at secondary schools must have "some" teaching experience.

Tonya Peterson of Oklahoma City, who has had minimal teaching experience, was one of the volunteers criticized by the Russians.

Peterson went to Russia in 1999 after graduating from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in psychology. After college, she drove a tractor-trailer and spent about nine months working as a substitute teacher for kindergarten through 12th grade.

As a Peace Corps volunteer in Russia, Peterson was assigned to teach English and also taught American literature and phonetics.

Peterson said she spoke no Russian before joining the Peace Corps and spent her first year struggling with the language.

"It was extremely difficult learning Russian," she said. "The first year was pretty tough because it took so long just to even get the basics down. But after that, you get over the hump."

Asked if she had any background in American literature, Peterson said, "No. Most of the things we taught we didn't (have experience in), because, you know, to get specialists into the Peace Corps is not an easy thing," she said.

[From the Dayton Daily News: 10.31.2003]