Anyone paying attention on campus lately has noticed the proliferation of Teach for America information. Posters, flyers, and campus representatives abound, insisting that TFA is the cure for the problems of the American educational system. Remedy the education gap, they insist, and you will have done your part to save the world before you enter the corporate sphere. A recent New York Times article describes it as a “unique blend of swagger and idealism;” this is community service that is as competitive, glamorous, and trendy as it gets.
Upon further research, however, it becomes obvious that TFA is not the panacea it is claimed to be. Although it began in 1990, the problems it was addressed to create remain as compelling as ever. It is not my argument that the education gap is not real, tragic, or worth addressing. It is merely that Teach for America is much less effective than it claims to be. Instead of actually solving the problem, it helps to soothe the consciences of students - and improve their resumes - without actually providing a long-term solution.
One of the major problems is that teachers usually remain in the program for two years. This is not enough time to effect serious change, and represents a lack of commitment to the principles TFA claims to cherish. Disadvantaged children need continuity and consistency, not brief periods of youthful enthusiasm. The recent New York Times article succinctly describes it: “In some circles, there is a perception that Teach for America’s corps of teachers do not come back, that many of them view their teaching stint as a résumé-burnishing pit stop before moving on to bigger things — that TFA stands for “Teach for Awhile.”
The TFA website says that 88% of people finish out the contract; the article, however, notes that 30% leave as soon as it is completed. This means that principals must retrain these teachers every two years. To educators already facing the hardest jobs in their profession, the additional responsibility of training people with only five weeks of practical experience seems a bit much. Why invest in a teacher who will only stay to see two classes of students? It makes much more sense for such principals and administrators to hire already qualified teachers who are willing to stay for a career, not an internship.
Another major problem with TFA is its lack of overall effectiveness, even in the short run. A likely reason for this is the lack of training; the summer program, according to the TFA website, lasts five weeks. This is incredibly short compared to the amount of time regular teachers must complete before they enter the classroom: an undergraduate degree in education or a master’s degree, which takes a year at minimum. While some teachers, obviously, perform well, the lack of certification hinders those who do not (or cannot) develop adequate teaching skills in the short training period. According to a 2005 Stanford study mentioned in the New York Times, “Uncertified TFA teachers had negative impacts on student achievement on five of six tests. Tellingly, their effectiveness improved when they gained certification.” It is important to note that this suggests that these children are scoring even worse than before their contact with TFA teachers; these unqualified teachers are actually harming the students they claim to be helping. This is not to say that the people chosen by TFA are not intelligent, hard-working, or determined; they often just aren’t in their element as teachers.
Mastering effective classroom skills takes years, and hiring teachers for such a short commitment implies that investing truly effective teaching skills in them simply isn’t worth the effort. It also insinuates that education isn’t a “real” major - why bother majoring in something, if a little over a month is enough to teach you everything you need to know? By implying that students can make a bigger impact with only 5 weeks of training than students with years of training, TFA is demeaning the very profession it says it is trying to improve. One alumnus is quoted in as saying: “I never was encouraged to stay on as a teacher. It’s almost as if the program perpetuates the idea that if you went to Harvard, a teaching career is below you. As soon as you join TFA, the focus is on being an amazing teacher. Then, all of a sudden, it stops. And you start getting e-mails from Goldman Sachs.”
This also raises the question of TFA’s connections with the corporate firms such as JP Morgan, McKinsey, Morgan Stanley, Google, and GE. Their website emphasizes special advantages for TFA graduates in graduate programs and companies like these. Such an emphasis on your years after the program undermines your time teaching in the program; the focus seems to be on how TFA can make your career, not how to continue giving back after your two years. This implies that once you have served your time in a low-income school, you are now allowed to enter the corporate world, free of guilt.
A Stanford University Professor in the School of Education, Linda Darling-Hammond, remarks, “The principals who are saying ‘I love TFA’ are responding to the fact that teaching standards in schools that hire uncertified teachers are typically low.” Remarking that this “perpetuat(es) a cycle of underprepared teachers,” she delivers the ultimate blow: “If one takes the lowest possible standard and accepts that as a goal, then Teach for America is great.” Such a statement, if true, serves as a blatant condemnation of the program. Instead of truly impacting the American classroom, TFA is encouraging its mediocrity? This is not quite the rosy picture recruiters obviously want to paint.
While the goal of eliminating the education gap in American education is admirable, Teach for America is not the most effective answer. Instead of a respected career, teaching becomes something savvy people do on their way to bigger and better things. By placing under-qualified, short-term teachers in difficult classrooms but focusing on their careers after the program, TFA undermines the very education system it is trying to bolster.
I am a veteran teacher in Houston seeking a dialogue with Teach for America teachers nationally regarding policy positions taken by former Teach for American staffers who have become leaders in school district administrations and on school boards. I first became aware of a pattern when an ex-TFA staffer, now a school board member for Houston ISD, recommended improving student performance by firing teachers whose students did poorly on standardized tests. Then the same board member led opposition to allowing us to select, by majority vote, a single union to represent us.
Having won school board elections in several cities, and securing the Washington D.C Superintendent's job for Michelle Rhee, Wendy Kopp's friends are pursuing an approach to school reform based on a false premise: that teachers, not student habits, nor lack of parent commitment or social inequality, is the main cause of sub-par academic performance. The TFA reform agenda appeals to big corporations who see our public institutions as inefficient leeches. This keeps big money flowing into TFA coffers.
The corporate-TFA nexus began when Union Carbide initially sponsored Wendy Kopp's efforts to create Teach for America. A few years before, Union Carbide's negligence had caused the worst industrial accident in history, in Bhopal, India. The number of casualties was as large as 100,000, and Union Carbide did everything possible to minimize its responsibility at the time it embraced Ms. Kopp. TFA recently started Teach for India. Are Teach for India enrollees aware of the TFA/Union Carbide connection?
When TFA encountered a financial crisis, Ms. Kopp nearly went to work for the Edison Project, and was all but saved by their managerial assistance. The Edison Project sought to replace public schools with for-profit corporate schools funded by our tax money. Ms. Kopp's husband, Richard Barth, was an Edison executive before taking over as CEO of KIPP's national foundation, where he has sought to decertify its New York City unions.
In 2000, two brilliant TFA alumni, the founders of KIPP Academy, joined the Bush's at the Republican National Convention in 2000. This was pivotal cover for Bush, since as Governor he had no genuine educational achievements and needed the education issue to campaign as a moderate and reach out to the female vote. KIPP charter schools provide a quality education, but they are application based, so they start with families committed to education.
D.C. Superintendent Michelle Rhee's school reform recipe includes three ingredients: close schools rather than improve them; fire teachers rather than inspire them; and sprinkle on a lot of hype. On the cover of Time, she sternly gripped a broom, which she presumably was using to sweep away the trash, which presumably represented my urban teacher colleagues. The image insulted people who take the toughest jobs in education.
TFA teachers do great work, but when TFA's leadership argue that schools, and not inequality and bad habits, are the cause of the achievement gap, they are not only wrong, they feed the forces that prevent the social change we need to grow and sustain our middle class.. Our society has failed schools by permitting the middle class to shrink. It's not the other way around. Economic inequality and insecurity produces ineffective public schools. It's not the other way around.
Ms. Kopp claims TFA carries the civil rights torch for today, but Martin Luther King was the voice of unions on strike, not the other way around. His last book, Where do we go from here?, argued for some measure of wealth distribution, because opportunity would never be enough in a survival of the fittest society to allow most of the under-privileged to enter the middle class.
Your hard work as a TFA teacher gives TFA executives credibility. It's not the other way around. Your hard work every day in the classrooms gives them the platform to espouse their peculiar one-sided prescriptions for school improvement. I would like a dialogue about what I have written here with TFA teachers. My e-mail is JesseAlred@yahoo.com.
Posted by: JesseAlred | April 17, 2009 at 09:04 PM