Swapping the boardroom for the classroom: thousands of adults are chucking corporate careers in favor of teaching. What's driving them to the classroom, and what do they find once they arrive?(BEGINNING TEACHERS)

A few years ago, Jada Overton spent two hours each morning inching her car around the clogged Washington, D.C., beltway with other commuters, heading toward the telecommunications company where she would work a 12-hour day as a direct mail marketing manager.

"Miserable," Overton says of her corporate rat race days, consumed by meetings, mergers, and memos. On a more recent morning, she prepared for another meeting, but this was one she eagerly anticipated. Eight fourth-waders were about to arrive at their school in Lakewood, New Jersey, and they were counting on their new teacher--Overton--to help them practice their vocabulary and comprehension techniques in her reading skills class.

Thoughts of switching to teaching--her mother's profession--had long nagged at Overton. After the 9/11 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, she had had enough.

"I think a lot of people started thinking about what they were doing with their lives," she says. "I know I did."

One 60-percent pay cut and a…