Demand Grows, Giving Slows: The Teach For America Connundrum

WASHINGTON — When school starts next fall, Teach for America will send an unprecedented number of college graduates to teach in poor communities across the country _ but not as many as the group would like.

Teach for America this year chose 4,100 recruits from more than 35,000 applications, an increase over last year's class of 3,700 recruits. While the group has never accepted every applicant, this was the first time it had to turn down people who met all its rigorous criteria.

"For the last nine years, really the only constraint on our growth has been recruits, just finding enough people who we really believe are ready for this," said Wendy Kopp, the group's founder and chief executive.

"This is the first year when we've had to turn away people who would have met our admission bar in any previous year," Kopp said.

The constraint is the economy. Tighter budgets have forced some school districts to cut back on hiring, though overall 500 more spots for Teach for America are available this year. Also, those who give to nonprofits like Teach for America are either holding the line or cutting back on their charitable giving, which pays for training and professional development for the recruits.

Despite the belt-tightening, some communities expect an influx of new teachers from the program, especially in rural areas. South Louisiana and the Mississippi Delta will have more than double the number of recruits this year.

In Mississippi, state schools chief Hank Bounds asked Teach for America for at least 200 new teachers. Bounds believes the program's high-achieving graduates will play an important role in turning around his state's struggling schools.

Children suffer from poverty in Mississippi at a greater rate than the national average. And fourth-graders there trail the nation and region in reading and math, though they have made gains since 2003, according to the Southern Regional Education Board.

The South holds particular interest for some recruits. Yale graduate David DeAngelis asked specifically for assignment to the Delta, and he spent the past year teaching music in tiny Marianna, Ark., near the west bank of the Mississippi.

"You become part of the community almost immediately, part of the lives of students, of students' families," DeAngelis said. "It's a very rich and powerful experience, from the very beginning."

Urban schools are also asking for more.

In Baltimore, school officials asked Teach for America to send 150 new teachers, twice the number of last year's recruits. However, Teach for America still needs to raise $500,000 to pay for the increase.

In all, more than 7,300 first- and second-year Teach for America recruits will teach in more than 100 school districts in 27 states and the District of Columbia in the coming school year.

Interest in becoming a teacher has soared amid the recession, especially in programs that get people quickly into the classroom.

Teach for America, for example, provides five weeks of intensive summer training before the school year begins and requires a two-year commitment from its recruits.

Other programs help people switch from other careers into teaching. One of the largest is the New Teacher Project, which has seen a surge in applications like that of Teach for America.

Teach for America has endured its share of criticism. Recruits are less likely to stay in the classroom than those who come from traditional colleges of education, although supporters point out that the low-income schools where they work have much higher turnover anyway.

Still, after their two-year commitment, two-thirds of Teach for America alumni are still working in education, according to the organization. About one-third are working as classroom teachers, and others are in administrative jobs such as principal or school superintendent.

Opponents have also questioned the effectiveness of TFA teachers, although a growing body of research suggests they are as effective or more effective than teachers who followed more traditional routes to the classroom.

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On the Net:

Teach for America: http://www.teachforamerica.org/

Comments

[ModernTimes1]

11:58 AM on 05/29/2009

jlf5 posted " TFA participants do not get ANY reduction on their student loans. "

Wrong..

"Teach for America [teachers] receive...$4,725 of federal student loan forgiveness."
http://www.moneyunder30.com/student-loan-forgiveness-guide

"Teach for America places members in schools where they are often eligible to defer or cancel loans."
http://www.ssw.umich.edu/finaid/resources/loanpayment.html

[FreedomsRoad]

10:02 PM on 05/28/2009

TFA has a laudable goal that is sadly undermined by the lack of cultural awareness its recruits too frequently bring to the classroom. Perhaps if they spent as much time recruiting people with backgrounds similar to those of the students they are trying to reach it could become more than just a tourism approach to education. The worst part is that TFA has prevented (actively in some cases) other better-situated and better targeted programs from gaining access to government funding and recognition. I guess it helps to have well-connected parents even in pursuit of servicing our nation's most vulnerable learners.

[Jazz88105]

08:03 AM on 05/29/2009

I am so sick of hearing about TFA what a joke my daughter spent five years becoming a teacher, she has a BA in early child hood education and a Masters in special education and TFA thinks they can turn out a good teacher with six weeks training, what crap. School districts should hire people who actually want to teach as a career not someone who is making a feel good stop over.

[jlf5]

04:26 PM on 05/28/2009

No, Modern Times, TFA participants do not get ANY reduction on their student loans. TFA is hardly a band-aid and it is both viable and vaulable. I can assure you that my son's students have learned from him - about math, self-respect, proper class room behavior and how to be part of a team. He is the teacher that they will always remember. That's a hell of a band-aid.

I know many teachers who would agree with you, shpjohns, and most of them are teachers in nice clean suburban school districts. TFA core members do not see their jobs as "Volunteerism", they feel an obligation to give some of their blessings to others. How can anyone actually be uncomfortable with people who are willing to be caring and PROFESSIONAL, even when the conditions they work in are horrible?

[shpjohns]

10:20 AM on 05/29/2009

First, as someone with considerable experience in education, the binary between urban and suburban schools is not so clear. Many urban schools are difficult places, especially secondary, but I have run into similar situations of poverty, abuse, and neglect in rural and suburban schools. We insult the struggles of students in these areas because of the conventional wisdom that it is apparently great in the suburbs, and it is in many cases, although not all, just as much as not ALL urban schools are terrible and dangerous. Rural areas are often forgotten and rarely make it into the discussion.

Second, I'm sorry that your son felt it was his "obligation" to bestow his "blessings" onto others. For many people in the teaching profession, we do not feel obligated to do anything. It is a job, a profession, like being a doctor, lawyer, or plumber. It is something that we like to do for many reasons, not all of them having to do with children. We come from diverse, both blessed and thoroughly "unblessed" circumstances. There are certain aspects of any job that require sacrifice, and perhaps teaching requires a bit more because of the students. Teaching is not and should not be viewed as the teacher sacrificing all of themselves for the benefit of students and that sharing my blessings as the teacher is somehow a gift to the community. Who am I to state that I have blessings to share? Is it not also the other way around?

[ModernTimes1]

01:57 PM on 05/28/2009

TA is a band aid, a bailout , not a viable solution for improving education in U.S.
Speaking of bailouts, don't TA teachers get a substantial reduction of their student loans?

[shpjohns]

12:04 PM on 05/28/2009

As a former teacher and now education professor, while the efforts of T for A are laudable, I think they do worse for the teaching profession overall because it implies that working in the classroom is a "community service" or akin to "volunteerism." What we should be doing is moving the rhetoric towards teaching being an intellectual AND caring PROFESSION. There are short-term benefits to the program, sure enough, and there are many children suffering. There is just something about this program that does not sit right with me and never will.