Teach for America comes up short

Proponents of Teach for America like to point to a few studies all with methodological issues, all with small sample sizes and all using self serving data as proof that it is a good program. I don’t know if they are trying to convince themselves or us. Don’t be fooled friends; the truth is Teach for America has a small role to play as a supplement to education but not the bell-of-the-ball first in line position it has been given.

Teach for America tells the world experience and training doesn’t matter as it takes non-teachers puts them through a brief summer class and then places them in the nation’s most struggling schools. What the program ignores is teachers don’t usually hit the ground running, it takes years of experience and training before they hit their stride but before that happens the vast majority of Teach for America alumni have left the classroom. Look at Jacksonville, in 2008, 51 arrived and only four remain, and only 10 out of 41 from the 2009 class continue to teach.

Jacksonville’s own independent audit criticized the district for having to many rookie teachers in our struggling schools, well friends Teach for America’s business model is to take non-college of education rookie teachers and put them in our struggling schools. TFA does the antithesis of what we know to be best for our children but for some reason, the district has contracted with them to bring in 100 more for the next three years.

If that doesn’t convince you think about it as an economic issue. First the district pays a 2,400 hundred-dollar finders fee for each TFA recruit and it shouldn’t matter if this comes from a grant or not. Then schools routinely spend thousands of dollars to train novice teachers and the vast amount of this money is wasted on TFA teachers because so few stay around. Our limited resources should be spent on teachers who have a chance of developing into veterans who will spend a lifetime educating our children not on people looking for a diversion or an adventure.

Finally there are local teachers and college of education graduates who can’t find positions, it is them rather than the TFA hobbyists that we should be looking to put in our classrooms. Then after we have exhausted all efforts, if there are still openings is when we should ask TFA for a few recruits.

There are undoubtedly great TFA teachers and college of education graduates that have made the wrong career choice. It boils down to what gives the counties children the best chance to be successful and what makes sense economically. In both cases Teach for America comes up short.