Before you read on, I have to warn you. This piece is not a critique of Teach for America. It's merely a question.
The two-year program that places recent college graduates into teaching positions at urban schools was initially started to fix a teaching shortage.
Teach for America is a nonprofit organization whose vision is that "one day, all children in our nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education" (Kopp 2001, 174). Its goal is to provide a corps of excellent teachers for inner-city and rural areas where chronic teacher shortages occur.
It's hard to have any objections to a program like this one. Reasonable class sizes are important to the quality of instruction, which is supported by research. In times of a teaching shortage, the only other option would be to allow class sizes to swell.
I truly do not understand why Teach for America sends recruits to cities like Chicago where 2,000 tenured teachers have been laid off since 2010. It seems that Chicago Public Schools could just fill the gaps with those teachers who have been fired by no fault of their own. Included in these lay offs are highly qualified veteran educators with multiple advanced degrees and many with National Board Certification.
I posed this question on Twitter, where I received responses both from educators who were certified through a University after 12-14 weeks of student teaching and those who received alternative certification through programs like TFA.
It troubles me to think that the teaching profession, which has traditionally been a gateway to the middle class for poor and working class children, is being scrapped to give temporary jobs to college graduates from elite institutions.
I am the first in my family to go to college. I made it through loans and working 2-3 part time jobs at a time. I graduated into a comfortable middle class life. I would hate to see this opportunity taken away from others.
Many responses were that TFA offers "choices" for people looking at programs. However, TFA limits choices for administrators. As districts report massive cutbacks, TFA is an attractive option. These are teachers who tend to leave after two years and never make it to the third year on the salary scale, and never attain the tenure that allows them the voice they need to advocate for their students.
Most of the pro-TFA tweets I received gave very esoteric answers for the need for TFA. Katie Bordner, a Chicago Teaching Fellows member, gave me a concrete answer.
I could definitely see a need for something like that. However, I still don't understand why that kind of support should take the place of pre-service education.
I suggested to Ms. Bordner that "traditional" programs can be fused with the new teacher support for a program that puts fully trained, certified teachers in front of students and nurtures them throughout the first two crucial years.
When I first started my career, I had to find my own mentors. I documented the process in this piece.
Chicago Public Schools had a program called "Golden Teachers," but the program was disorganized. My assigned mentor changed periodically as I tried to navigate the classroom. Eventually, I was assigned to a veteran teacher, Ms. Clay, whose advice was absolutely invaluable. However, it wasn't until months into the school year that I first had a meeting with her.
Where CPS failed, an organization could step in and connect new teachers with experienced vets. I should have been working with Ms. Clay on day one.
To align to its own mission statement, TFA could give support to new teachers who have already been trained and certified after a semester of student teaching.
TFA mentors tend to be TFA graduates themselves with little experience. My mentor lived in the community where we worked and had decades of experience. There are more teachers like her and TFA could connect them with struggling first and second year teachers.
I would hate to think that TFA existed not to improve schools, but to create an unstable workforce of compliant, cheap labor.
Follow Kenzo Shibata on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kenzoshibata
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disguised as a good thing and is really just all about the money! Real Teachers over the last few years have been ousted and real experienced teachers are interviewed but not hired and it is all about the money. Just follow the money!! Tenure is also gone. The Educational system is top heavy. The government keeps stripping public ed and keeps paying more for the war machine. Follow the money!!
I don't understand this comment. What makes you think charter school working conditions are better?
(Oh, wait, maybe I do. Because they kick out the chronic behavior problems who are not kicked out of regular public schools.)
And it exists to set a standard for teachers of 80-hour work weeks for a salary less than 40K.
There really are a number of things that teachers learn in teacher prep programs that are too crucial to trade in for intelligence and passion alone. My two cents.
No profession - especially teaching -- should be a "gateway" for poor and working class people to elevate their class status. Moreover, traditionally this has not been the case. Both my grandmothers were school teachers (1930s & 1940s) and both had degrees from the University of Chicago. (Both taught in Chicago Public Schools.) Both were brilliant and incredibly well educated and erudite in their tastes.
Teaching is not a blue collar job. You seem the think it is. That's why so many teachers are lousy. People with no love of education - who don't read much -- and who really are not well educates themselves see teaching as a ticket out of the lower classes with summers off.
But your contempt for teachers is plain.
This is your opinion of the teaching profession as a 'trained teacher'? If nothing else, I guarantee that TFA teachers have a much higher and respectful opinion of the teaching profession before, during, and after our stint working to "create an unstable workforce of compliant, cheap labor".
But let's be honest, nobody cares about the middle class jobs anymore. We had over 400 applications for one middle school language arts position this summer. 400 in a very low paying district. 400!
Like I stated above, we are now approaching a decades worth of people who have education degrees who have found it difficult to find employment. A decades worth of people who are not paying back student loans or who will never realize a goal. But the 1%ers kids who have no loans and were pampered their entire life are more capable to do a very difficult job after a 12 week training period.
Just more of the same folks. Cheap labor and benefits for the elite class.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/my-year-volunteering-as-a-teacher-helped-educate-a,28803/
Secondly, TFA's marketing department likes to highlight the small number of Latino and African-American members, which is disengenous as still a majority of the participants are not from these backgrounds. They purposefully highlight the exception rather than the rule.
I have no doubt that these young people want to do something good, to "pay forward" their own privileges and opportunites. But doing so in an organization which is actively denying children fully-prepared teachers, purposely exploiting TFA members' youth and passion, while being funded by monied elites with very serious ulterior motives of union-busting, privatizing of public services, and the chance to make massive profits through these neoliberal pushes, is wrong.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/my-year-volunteering-as-a-teacher-helped-educate-a,28803/?ref=auto
By the way, average K-12 teacher SAT is 520 for both Verbal and Maths. Keeping in mind 500 in National average. These are teachers who are teaching our children to take the SAT, which in turn play significant determination in our children's college acceptance. In contrast, average SAT for TFA members are around 650 for Verbal and Maths. And you can make your own conclusion from this.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2007-12-11-teacher-qualifications_N.htm
http://www.tn.gov/thec/Divisions/fttt/account_report/2011reportcard/reports/Teach%20for%20America%20Memphis%202011.pdf
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2007-12-11-teacher-qualifications_N.htm
I have to correct you. All TFA teachers are employed by their districts. For example, my salary was paid by Prince George's County Public Schools. Training and ongoing support are provided by TFA, but not our paychecks.
I don't know if this leads you to adjust your argument...
Thank you for correcting me. I apparently misread the TFA
website section about compensation. In response to your question, I would not
adjust my comment. Who pays the FTA teachers is irrelevant when considering the
issue of Chicago’s tenured teachers. The Windy City, like the Big Apple, is granting
tenure less frequently. Both cities probably would like to do way with it
altogether. In 2010 only 6% of the FTA teachers were employed in the State of Illinois.
I assume that the majority of them (700 or so) taught in Chicago. This is not a
significant number of teachers. The post’s criticism that the FTA teachers are
products of elitist institution is nothing more than an attempt gain political
traction by using class distinction. This is ironic because these elitist
teachers are entering employment in Chicago’s failing schools. These are the
very schools that many experts believe require a new class of teacher and
administrator to turn the school around. I understand tenure for college
professor who are expected to explore all points of intellectuality and publish
papers. Tenure in Chicago’s public education system is synonymous with job
security and nothing else. In my opinion the real issue is the utility and
future of tenure in Chicago’s public schools. FTA teachers do not figure in the
debate of this issue. Is tenure part of the problem or part of the solution?