Big Return in Teaching for Ex-CEO of H&R; Block

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — When Tom Bloch quit the family business to pursue a new career, some people told him he’d lost his mind.

Who would give up the pay, perks and prestige enjoyed by the chief executive officer of the world’s biggest tax preparation company to begin--at age 41 and from below the ground floor--a career teaching math?

But there were many more people, Bloch said, whose comments and letters suggest the former CEO of H&R; Block Inc. is living an American dream for the ‘90s, in which one’s work provides lots of immediate rewards as well as time to watch one’s own children grow up.

“I’ve had so many people come up to me, and write to me, that I don’t even know and say, ‘I would love to do what you’re doing,’ ” Bloch said, seated in a student desk in his classroom at St. Francis Xavier School.

Bloch--who took a 98% pay cut from his $618,000 salary to teach--doesn’t mind talking about his career change, but only does so in the hope it will inspire other people to consider teaching, especially in poor urban areas. St. Francis Xavier is on the fringe of the inner city, a few miles from H&R; Block’s gleaming world headquarters.

“The people who really deserve the spotlight, and who are the real heroes out there, are the teachers who have made the financial sacrifice and are doing great things to create the future of America,” he said.

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Bloch, now 43, teaches three math classes a day at the Roman Catholic school while pursuing his Missouri teaching certificate at nearby Rockhurst College. The diocesan school was one of the few where he could work without the certificate.

The 10 members of his eighth-grade algebra and geometry class don’t seem to care about his credentials. As they set to work on the problems he has scrawled on the blackboard, it becomes clear they’re at ease with their youthful, affable teacher, who is quick with a smile.

“Mr. B! Mr. B!” call out several youngsters, uniformed in white shirts and blue pants or skirts. “Can I do the next one?”

They rush to correct each other’s mistakes, turn to each other for help and instruction and gently josh their teacher about a two-part homework assignment.

“Oh, Mr. Bloch,” Ashley says, “you’re too good to us.”

This little Catholic school is not where Bloch--son of Henry, nephew of Richard, the founders of H&R; Block--envisioned himself at mid-career. But he is among thousands of adults nationwide who have bolted from other careers in recent years and become teachers via nontraditional routes.

Forty-two states have now adopted some variation of an “alternative certification” program pioneered in New Jersey in the 1980s to credit professionals for their nonteaching experience, said Emily Feistritzer, director of the National Center for Education Information in Washington, D.C.

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Feistritzer estimates that 60,000 to 70,000 teachers in the United States went through alternative certification--which in some states lets the participant receive a teaching salary while still in training.

An attitude distinguishes this group’s reason for choosing to teach, according to a 1992 study by Feistritzer’s research organization.

“The people who were interested in coming into teaching from other careers were very altruistic in their motivation,” Feistritzer said. “Their No. 1 reason for wanting it was the value and significance of education in society.”

Bloch, who aspires eventually to move from the classroom to helping improve poor children’s schooling in Kansas City, is a case in point.

He had taxes in his blood as a youngster, sometimes traveling with his father on business trips.

“As a kid, I knew exactly what I wanted to do, where I wanted to end up,” Bloch said. “And I had a very clear road map.”

That map took him to the presidency of H&R; Block’s tax division at age 28 and to the position of CEO at age 39 to succeed his father, who remains chairman. Earnings rose every year during Tom Bloch’s time as CEO, from $162.2 million in 1992 to $200.5 million in 1994.

“My memories of H&R; Block are so positive, and I’m very grateful I had the opportunity to be there,” Bloch said. “It’s truly a wonderful company, and I worked with great people. At the top of my list, of course, would be my father, who not only is a great father but was a great mentor.”

But teaching was in his heart. While at Claremont McKenna College in California, he taught elementary school French “just for fun” and found it enjoyable. One of his early jobs at H&R; Block was teaching tax preparation.

“I loved it. I loved being a teacher,” he said. “And as I read and heard so much about problems in education, particularly in an urban environment, I thought, ‘What a great place to be,’ because there are so many opportunities for improvement.”

And from time to time while at H&R; Block, “I would visit a school in Kansas City, just to see what was going on.”

By early 1995, the lure of a career change was irresistible. He was seeing less and less of his two sons, now 9 and 12, and of his wife, Mary, an attorney. Long hours of thought and conversation with his family culminated in the April 1995 announcement of his resignation.

“The hardest part of it was going to my father,” he said, noting that his departure in August 1995 left the company without a Bloch as chief executive for the first time. “But he was so supportive of my decision, it was great.”

He did some part-time volunteer teaching at St. Francis Xavier and at another diocesan school in language arts and in math--his favorite subject as a student “and the easiest for me.” Eventually, he landed permanently at St. Francis Xavier, which he prizes for its high standards and the close involvement with students and their parents.

His face still lights up when he talks about tax preparation and the pleasure he felt in making a taxpayer’s day with some savings. It’s a reward akin to that which he derives from teaching.

“I would feel so good, that I really accomplished something for that person,” he said. “And that’s the kind of satisfaction I get here.”