About Teach for America
Teach for America is a non-profit organization that places mostly recent college graduates in urban and rural high-poverty schools across the United States, in regions like New York City, Houston, the Mississippi Delta and Hawaii. These teachers-to-be (corps members) undergo an intensive 5 week training institute in the summer before they begin teaching and remain in their positions for at least two years.
During the teaching commitment, corps members take classes part-time to earn their certification and an optional masters degree. In addition, the federally funded program Americorps provides an educational award of $9,500 to go toward past/future education loans or other costs associated with their teaching degree. Meanwhile, the newly minted teachers are provided with extensive support through their regional TFA offices, including a program director (who oversees your performance and offers technical support) and several other mentor-like figures.
After the two year commitment, corps members become TFA Alumni and work toward educational equity in other sectors of business, law, medicine, civic engagement and education. About 1/3 of the original cohort remains in the classroom beyond the two years, and an overall 2/3 remain in education in some way. That means about 1/3 move onto an unrelated field.
The long term vision of Teach for America is not limited to the classroom, or even within education directly. The idea is that the experience of teaching itself will empower alumni to go out into the world and effect change through their chosen careers. It is a lofty vision that is full of optimism and faith in the people they invest in.
I tried my best to be objective in the description above, but I’m sure my affinity for TFA showed through. While a commendable organization, TFA is plagued with faults that many of my peers never fail to point out. The top three I hear most often:
1) There is no way that we can sufficiently prepare 21/22 year olds to teach in high-need classrooms in just 5 weeks.
The “intensive” training program is comprehensive and impressive. I actually loved it and gained a lot that got me ready for day 1. Of course, though, I learned more about how to teach by actually teaching for a full year. In traditional programs, folks get that opportunity through student-teaching, not actually being in charge of a classroom. In this way, a natural flaw of TFA is the sudden transfer of inexperienced, but motivated, people into a classroom that has no patience for failure.
2) Two years is not enough time to effect substantial change in the classroom, or to show teachers what it’s really like to teach
The first year of teaching is hell for nearly everyone. The second year (although better) is often played out like a bad movie with an equally bad sequel…you’ve seen something like it before, but it still sucks. After two years, those that leave teaching for good end up walking away with a bitter taste in their mouths after being exhausted and strained for two of their best years. More than just feeling beaten up, the art of teaching can’t be fine-tuned in 18 months, let alone a lifetime. Some believe TFA should extend its commitment requirement to at least 3 years. According to data, TFA claims that their application pool would shrink and many excellent candidates would vanish.
3) The kids taught by TFA teachers are being treated like guinea pigs
I is true that TFA uses corps members to develop a pedagogy all its own that includes best practices and methods that result in improved student performance. We use our classrooms as laboratories for what works and what doesn’t. In fact, I’m part of a pilot program this year that provides new teachers with a pre-prepared curriculum to ease the stress of creating units and tests on your own. I think it’s a great idea, and will only have good outcomes for our classrooms, but it serves as only one example of how TFA is able to leverage our individual classrooms as places to answer the bigger questions of what makes a good teacher.
All of these complaints/grievances/critiques are valid. In fact, more than just my peers make these arguments. TFA has plenty of critics, particularly those from traditional teacher ed programs. The most vocal critic is Stanford’s Linda Darling-Hammond. She has written on how horrible TFA’s model of training is hurting students and ultimately hurting the teachers themselves. Then there are the unions who claim that TFA is taking jobs and lowering professional standards. In all, TFA is not getting away with anything. And I think the higher-ups are listening.
As is, TFA can’t last forever. It is trying to grow too quickly, and isn’t quite keeping things under control. Just this year, our Philadelphia region (which included about 20 teachers in nearby Camden, New Jersey) added 30 more teachers in Wilmington, Delaware. My region now includes three states and adopted the new region name: the Mid-Atlantic. And if they don’t keep their corpse members happy (which is certainly something to worry about considering some of the things I hear), its popularity among recent grads (over 35,000 grads applied this year for less than 5,000 spots) will wane. That means the positive word-of-mouth needs to stay positive. For now, though, they are thriving. And that’s not going to slow down anytime soon.
The bottom line is this: we need teachers in these schools. we need more dedicated, driven teachers in these schools. And TFA provides a part of that, certainly not an answer to a complicated matter, but part of a solution that has yet to be determined or implemented. My vision for TFA is that it develops its own teacher education wing and is able to actually train and put teachers into schools for the long term. I envision offering applicants two options: 1) Teach for 2 years along the fast-track (like me), or 2) Teach for 5 years with the first year student teaching and then act as a teacher mentor to the fast-track folks. Just an idea for what the organization could be, but regardless it’s clear that TFA has the potential to grow and make some substantial changes to the way people think about teaching as a profession and an agent of change.
It just has to find its groove and grow up, not just grow.
Listed below are some great articles and editorials about the program:
Despite criticism, Teach for America gets positive reviews
Teach for America is not a long term solution
Why big donors back Teach for America
Charisma and Teach for America
Teach for America surges during worse economy
The Evolution of Teach for America
Hey Jeff,
Good article.