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[chronicle_moderator]

Every year Teach for America recruits an army of newly graduated high-achievers to spend two years at the front of the country's most underserved classrooms. But critics say the recruits are unprepared for such challenging work. Should Teach for America model its training more on what education schools are doing? Or otherwise change its practices or policies? Or does the caliber of the teacher matter more than training or experience?
Read more... Elite Company and New Teachers Get a Crash Course

[chronanon]

I sure would like to read some of the studies referenced in the article.  Whether TFA is "good" or "bad" isn't exactly a simple question.  There's short term (2 yrs) and longer term (>2 yrs) impact to consider, and there's the question of what would be the alternative if a TFA teacher wasn't in a particular classroom.  Would it be a "long term substitute" (and what exactly does that mean - is that a glorified babysitter or a retired veteran teacher filling a need or something in between).  Would it be another novice teacher from some other source?  Just comparing outcomes of students in TFA teachers' classes to other classes in general seems to miss the point to me - you need to compare those students to other classes that are a picture of what the class would be without the TFA teacher.  Ignoring the short term outcomes, you could test the hypothesis that TFA is a good long-term teacher recruitment program even if you assume the worst about the 56% who apparently don't continue past the initial two year committment.

[navydad]

Every year I see several students from TFA and from Place Corps (a similar program for Catholic schools) who are simply drowning in their classrooms. These young people fit the profile described in the article: bright, idealistic, and committed. But when you take kids who are entirely inexperienced as teachers and throw them into a poor L.A. school with little support or mentoring from experienced teachers, you have a recipe for disaster. Most TFA teachers handle their experiences well, but many get overwhelmed and feel trapped by their two year commitment. I don't know if there needs to be better selection criteria, or better training, or a better matching between TFA teachers and schools. Or maybe these "washouts" can't be prevented and are an acceptable price to pay for the program's benefits. So in addition to good outcome data, it would be interesting to hear more about the experiences of these young teachers and what, if anything, seems to correlate with success.

[psychout]

    I taught in a public high school for ten years and have taught at a Catholic College Prep school the last two. I have a hard time understanding the criticisms of TFA. It is not intended to be a panacea for the public schools. It places some of our best and brightest in the most challenging schools for a short period of time. All of those TFA graduates take with them new understandings and sensibilities, whether they remain in public education or not. Many of them will go on to become outstanding educators, changing the lives of students whom they touch. A few will become the next generation of problem solvers who will shape educational policies.
     Had we the silver bullet magic formula to improve education for our lowest achievers perhaps it would be debatable whether TFA was an appropriate approach. But our nation continues to be clearly at risk and plugging high achieving scholars into the leakiest parts of the foundation is certainly better than nothing.

[alshealy]

After she graduated from college, my wife taught in an inner city school in New Orleans. She was the only Caucasian in the building. None of the other teachers spoke to her for the first two years she was there. When she went back for the third year, the other teachers began to ask why she was back. They all thought she was a TFA teacher and would be gone after her two-year duty. The message TFA sends to these schools is: You teachers are so incompetent that you need white kids with no experience to fix what you're screwing up. It was a lonely two years with no professional or social support, but after that the other teachers lightened up and became friendly with her once they got to know her.

Al

[dreamman]

Although the Teach for America program has good intentions, I don't think a boot camp approach is good for the students whom these young and inexperienced teachers are teaching.  I see more and more the McDonaldization of the teaching profession with everyone believing that simply because they went to school for 12-16 years they are experts on how best to teach children.  If this were the case then I could technically set up shop as a medical doctor since I've been going to the doctor for many years.  Many would scoff at this idea and rightly so, but not at the idea that anyone can be put in a classroom to teach.

Sadly what many people fail to realize, especially politicians, is that excellent teaching is a skill that not everyone (despite their wishes, desires, etc.) have.  Instead of making it easier to receive a teaching license I feel it would be best to make the training more rigorous with benchmarks at each level to counsel those who cannot teach into another area before they reach student teaching.  As a teacher educator I have seen many preservice teachers go though all of the coursework leading up to student teaching and then when they begin to student teach or after they have completed their student teaching they decide that teaching is not what they want to do.  This is a terrible waste of time and money on their part because many choose teaching for the wrong reasons in the first place (Teaching is family friendly.  I choose teaching because I can spend more time with my children.  I want to teach because I help my boyfriend in the Spanish class we're both taking. I like children., etc.)

As Shulman (1987, p.14) states Those who can do. Those who understand teach.  First and foremost teachers need to be paid more than what they are being paid currently due to the conditions they are faced with in the classroom and the politics that take place in schools. In addition more people of color as well as men need to be recruited to the teaching profession, to serve as role models, so children of color can look to someone else other than or in addition to sports celebrities.  Teacher training needs to be more vigorous and include issues such as being able to work with special needs children and children who are not of the same ethnicity as the teacher as well as classroom management and gifted children.  Preservice teachers need to be believe that all children can learn not just some and their teaching should reflect that fact. 

Teaching as a profession needs to be reinstated and teaching to fill empty teaching slots in the classroom (assuming that any warm body will do) needs to cease.

[ex_tfa]

I recently finished my two years in the classroom through Teach For America, and would like to share some of my experience along with some responses to the posts that have previously appeared on this topic.

I taught on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota, in a middle school classroom. My primary teaching responsibilities were Reading, Writing, and Social Studies (my students rotated between me and another teacher for their Math and Science classes.) My students faced enormous challenges, many of which were far outside the realm of the classroom - an unemployment rate exceeding 80%, a persons-to-home ratio of approximately 10:1, and an incredibly remote location (nearest Wal-Mart: 100 miles; nearest mall: 180 miles). Within the classroom, my students on average were two to three years behind in terms of their reading level, and were lacking many basic skills in terms of writing.

These daunting conditions certainly did manifest themselves as direct challenges to my teaching, particularly during my first year. Because of the long history of deceit and abuse between the federal government and the Native peoples (particularly in the context of an education system designed to assimilate their children by annihilating their culture) it took a great deal of time to earn the trust of my students and their families. Several students were persistently disruptive, and many were skeptical about why they should eagerly participate in a system that had not traditionally had their best interests at heart.

However, in the face of all these obstacles there was also cause for celebration and great hope. By the end of my first year of teaching, my students had gained an average of 2.1 years on the Developmental Reading Assessment, a test designed to gauge elementary and middle-school students' reading levels. 85% of my students mastered the South Dakota state standards for writing, as compared to 10% the previous year. Every single student was able to write a Shakespearean sonnet as our final writing project, as well as participate in a production of Romeo and Juliet. By the end of my second year, my students again gained 2+ years on the DRA, giving us a two year average of nearly 4.5 years of growth and (far more importantly) 100% of students reading on grade level.

This success was not by any means isolated. One of my colleagues led her class of first graders to read at the fourth grade level by the end of her second year. Another middle-school colleague raised funds to take her students to New York City at the end of her first year and the University of Iowa for a conference on Native American education in her second year. A colleague of mine who taught special education at the high school level also found time to run a speech and debate team that was recognized at the state level. She made such a deep impact at her school that upon the conclusion of her second year her students' families made her a star quilt - an incredible honor in the Lakota community.

Although these successes are in part due to the singular efforts of dedicated individuals, they are also the product of an organization relentlessly focused on measurable results and constant improvement. During TFA's Summer Institute (where corps members are trained) they are constantly assessed in terms of a multifaceted rubric that gauges their skill in terms of ability to set ambitious, standards-driven goals; break those goals down into concrete objectives; plan rigorous lessons to meet those objectives; invest students that they can learn, and inspire them to want to learn; engage relevant stakeholders in their communities; think critically and reflectively about their own teaching; after such reflection, improve and/or adjust course if necessary with a constant focus on student achievement; sustaining the intense energy necessary to persist in the face of challenges, and more. Corps members are rated on a five-point scale ranging from Pre-Novice to Exemplary, and the individuals who train them (generally former corps members themselves) are held strictly accountable for their performance and growth.

Once in their placement sites, corps members have access to the individual mentorship of a Program Director who conducts three formal observations on each corps member per year, as well as running monthly Professional Learning Communities at which attendance is mandatory. Corps members are also required to register for graduate courses during each of their two years (I had to take classes on Indian Education and Human Relations, both of which were invaluable to improving my practice). Additionally, corps members often reach out to one another on a more informal basis to share best practices and collaborate on teaching and management strategies.

Beyond the classroom, our alumni work just as aggressively to effect the sorts of systemic changes that will be necessary to relieve the socioeconomic pressures I mentioned earlier. Some particularly notable alumni include the 2005 National Teacher of the Year, the primary education policy advisor for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and the newly-appointed Chancellor of the Washington, DC Public School District (who is also the same woman who founded the enormously successful New Teacher Project). Many other alumni are leaders in the business, law, medical, and not-for-profit sectors. Strategically, we have a goal of 100 alumni being elected to public office at the local, state, or national level by 2012, and have allocated staff and resources to support those who do run for office.

To be sure, TFA does not have all the answers when it comes to education in general or teacher-training in particular - which is why the organization is constantly looking for ways to improve the service it is providing to our nation's children. We actively seek out partnerships with leaders in the education community to share with us their insight and experience so that we can ensure that all of our students are receiving the best education possible.

In short, TFA is not going to be the lone agent of change that solves all the problems in our nation's public schools - they are too large and too numerous for any one organization to possibly tackle. However, TFA has done two things that are worth cheering about: in the short term, we have provided children with bright and energetic teachers; in the long term, we are building a pipeline of leaders who will take their experience in the classroom as the starting point for a lifetime of relentless work to change the system as a whole for the better.