Duncan: A Poison Valentine For Teach For America

It's seemed to me for a while now that Teach For America was, for all its apparent success, no longer being treated like the transformative, go-to solution that it once might have seemed.  The latest example is TFA's exclusion from the President's budget request, about which TFA is complaining publicly.  Earlier data points include the spread of other, better alternative programs, the rise of beefier residency-based programs, and the growing imbalance between TFA's amazing recruiting operation and its good but not amazing impact on schools and school systems.  

Comments

[Marcia]

Alexander: Great, interesting info, but in a report on education you've got to make the distinction between "it's" and "its." You need to write, "Teach for America, for all ITS apparent success."

[Steve]

Well, it's complicated. Isn't TFA the granddaddy of all these other programs you are touting? Doesn't it deserve a reprieve from the carving knife?

When TFA started in 1990, the education profession was in a very different place. Ivy League grads weren't applying in droves to go to the Bronx or the Louisiana Delta to teach fourth grade. It was still, "Those who can't, teach."

To this (full disclosure) alum, TFA deserves a major share of the credit for raising the profile of the teaching profession.

[alexander]

good point, steve -- others might argue that TFA's already gotten a lot of credit and needs some new accomplishments to fill up the credit tank.

thanks, marcia -- good catch. only thing worse than an unnecessary apostrophe'd it's is people overcorrecting for i when they should be using "me"

/ alexander

[RPOA]

I don't really have an opinion on whether TFA "deserves" the money, since I don't know enough about TFA's relative worth compared to other, similar programs.

I wonder though, given how connected TFA is with big charity foundations and the corporate world, if they perhaps the best equipped to handle such a shortfall? If they are the "granddaddy" of these programs, could they reasonably be considered a strong favorite the win the funding anyway?

Finally, when they say "expansion", are they talking about the new regions for 2010, making existing regions bigger, or new regions altogether? I would hate for a teacher to join the program, move to a new city, and then discover that nobody can afford to hire them...which happens sometimes.

[Rita]

TFA is NOT the way to ever go into a teaching career. I am a teacher that have TFA teachers in my school. They are ill prepared for the challenges of being a teacher and many of them (by no surprise) leave the teaching field after their commitment. I hate the fact that people think that being an educator, a teacher, is an easy job that can be taken by anyone who "thinks" they can teach. It's so much more than that. TFA is another foundation that has a sad ideal that they provide these so called "high need schools" some "saving" solution. Thank goodness that the Obama administration is getting rid of this fraud like foundation. It steals jobs from those teachers who actually WANT to do this as a career for the next decade and more.

[Dave]

A few things about TFA:
1. It is not a perfect solution to solving educational inequity. But, it does put highly motivated individuals into the classroom that would otherwise never be there.
2. It does NOT steal jobs from teachers who want to teach for a career. TFA places teachers in districts and positions that would otherwise go unfilled, leading to overcrowding in already full classrooms. Many "teachers who actually WANT to do this as a career for the next decade and more" don't want to do it in schools that have low parent involvement, high truancy, limited resources, and low achievement.
3. No one in a TFA placement would tell you that teaching was an "easy job that can be taken by anyone."
4. Many TFA teachers do continue to teach beyond their 2-year commitment. In some regions, that can be nearly 50% of teachers. Also, many alums continue to contribute to the education reform movement, or work to aid the communities in which they taught.
5. TFA is not a fraud. Fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another. I think you'd be hard pressed to find evidence that TFA works to damage anything, be it a placement region, or another educational organization.

[Liz]

Dave -- Teach For Awhiles DO take the jobs of regularly certified, experienced teachers. Witness Chicago -- hundreds of displaced teachers, CPS hires hundreds of TFAers EACH year because TFA plays into the national and local urban "ed" plan: fire experienced, more expensive teachers and replace with low-wage, high-turnover TFAs who will contribute to the pension for a few years but never vest.
TFA is a union-busting agent. Witness Rhee's work in DC.
Plus, TFA increases the workload of veterans who have to carry new TFA novices each year. Mentoring new career teachers is part of the profession. Carrying new TFAers and their ilk each and every year, only to see them and your hard work walk out the door to "New Leaders" was not what I signed up for.

[rodentface]

1) Re: But, it does put highly motivated individuals into the classroom that would otherwise never be there.

I don't see how decreasing the requirements to become a teacher results in your claim.

2) Re: [TFA] does NOT steal jobs from teachers who want to teach for a career.

TFA grads most certainly do take jobs from career teachers. In Chicago, for example, there are over 1,000 displaced veteran teachers ready to step into the classroom but they are denied the opportunity in favor of hundreds and hundreds of TFA grads who are seen as a cheap, renewable resource. Paul Vallas in New Orleans has admitted that TFA grads, while not the best teachers, are enthusiastic and provide a steady supply of inexpensive labor. [KIPP Ascend in Chicago, for example, replaces 75% of its staff every year - filling those TFA vacancies with more recent grads.]

3) Re: No one in a TFA placement would tell you that teaching was an "easy job that can be taken by anyone."

Actually, I've had multiple TFA grads in my building tell me that teaching will be a piece of cake. In each of those cases the TFA grads flailed in the classroom and were relieved to move on after their 2 year experimental stint. Obviously, my experience is anecdotal, but it doesn't take much to negate a universal claim like the one above.

4) Re: 4. Many TFA teachers do continue to teach beyond their 2-year commitment.

TFA claims that 34% of their grads continue teaching at their school for a 3rd year. The education profession retains 50% of teachers over 5 years, a problem in and of itself, but not nearly as dreary as TFA retention.

5) Re: I think you'd be hard pressed to find evidence that TFA works to damage anything, be it a placement region, or another educational organization.

TFA as a movement is highly problematic and, yes, damaging; it contributes to the deprofessionalization of education. TFA and its supporters advocate the following:

a) that teachers need not be fully trained,
b) that youthful exuberance should be more highly valued than expertise and experience,
c) that volunteerism is the solution to America's education needs,
d) that new teachers are a renewable and easily replaced resource,
e) the displacement of veteran career teachers,
f) that teaching is merely a stepping stone, much like the Peace Corps, to pad one's resume before moving into a more lucrative career,
g) that the problems of education are simplistic (bad teachers) and the solution (a la New Orleans and the "Chicago model") is to make education a scarce resource through the privatization and commoditization of America's most important public service.

[Blake]

I have a couple of responses to the anti-TFA folks...

1) Go into any of the schools that TFA places in and see if ANY teacher (TFA or not) stays more than 2 or 3 years. The turnover rate at many struggling schools is really high among ALL teachers.

2) Furthermore, by bringing non-traditional teachers into terrible schools, it has helped call attention to the horrific injustice that our current education system perpetrates against low income children. But clearly, that's threatening to some people.

3) ALL teachers have to be "new" at some point, so of course you're going to see some new teachers struggling, regardless of whether they are TFA or not.

4) TFA does not "de-professionalize" teaching. If anything, it highlights the piss-poor quality of most teacher training programs. If a new TFA teacher with 5 weeks of training can even compete with a new teacher from a traditional program, that says something.

5) If "regular" teachers were doing such a great job in these districts, why would competition from TFA teachers even be an issue???

[TS]

The views expressed by some of the anti-TFA folks here are Chicago-centric and make no meaningful mention of student learning. A teacher's mission should be to push his/her students to greater gains on an absolute scale, and he/she should be held accountable for those results.

I don't care what program you come from, that should be your priority, not preserving your personal livelihood. Just as in almost all other jobs, if you are building a strong record of results, you have little to worry about.

Talk of unions, "de-professionalizing," etc. is a diversion. Focus on student academic gains. If non-TFA teachers are so much better, than they will be able to demonstrate success by that measure.

[Anonymous]

TFA is more than an augmentation to closing the non-existent achievement gap (in reality it is a socio-economic gap, and widening all the time). It is a process designed to show that there is no need for the professional educator. TFA supports the effort of privatization of education, something arguably unconstitutional if it replaces public education, like Arne Duncan would have throughout America. Privatization, or education for profit, uses the corporate quick and dirty approach that TFA lends itself to so very well. TFA has something to prove. It wants to prove that it has the solution to education through a model of taking recent youthful graduates and placing them into a classroom, yet unprepared for the rigors of the urban classroom, and "expend" their time, energy, and probable will to teach in exchange for the post-two-year greener pasture. In that sense, TFA is truly dangerous. Not only to the young volunteers who flock in times of economic depression to immediate post-graduate opportunity, but to the foundations of the education system of America, that evolved over a couple of hundred years to be influenced by progressives like Dewey and others. For if the TFA model unifies and solidifies with the Arne Duncan model, the role of professional educator is as much a part of American history as the U.S. Constitution before the Patriot Act. Americans should really take a closer look at how Washington endorses educating our children.