The growing movement against Teach for America

[newarkhiphop]

Teach for America has been described by some as the Peace Corps for this generation. The darling of the education reform movement, TFA, which attracts some of the most talented college seniors in the country, deploys that talent to the poorest school districts in the country. One of those students was Erin Nolan, who joined in 2007 after graduating from college.

“TFA was great at setting up this vision of how you could really make an impact in the students’ lives,” Nolan told “America Tonight.” “They did a great job framing these big inequalities in education, and showing examples of how teachers could make an impact on that.”

But today, there’s a growing backlash led by some of its alumni who claim that TFA isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. For Nolan, she was in a bit of denial about TFA but grew skeptical about the program and its expectations for its teachers. She was placed in a magnet school in St. Louis, teaching science after completing TFA’s five-week training course.

She said she felt behind from the beginning because TFA hadn’t given her enough to transition from the summer program to classroom teaching. With 173 students, Nolan was overwhelmed. She resigned from TFA after teaching for just six months.

“I was miserable,” she said. “I was in a position where not only was I feeling incompetent every day — my incompetence was hurting the lives of children. So it was a heavy burden. It’s something where no amount of hard work I could do would fix it because I was so paralyzed by anxiety and discomfort and stress and sleep deprivation … I didn’t make forward progress.”


The backlash against TFA came to a head this fall. The Durham School District in North Carolina severed its relationship with the organization after more than a decade of working together. Last year Pittsburgh became the first school district in the country to reject an active Teach for America contract.

“Why should we put the least-experienced people in the schools that need the most help?” said Sylvia Wilson, a member of the Pittsburgh Public School Board, who helped decide to reject the TFA contract. “They didn’t have the kind of training that teachers are required for certification needs, what you need to have to become a teacher. I’m not saying that their hearts wouldn’t be there … But you have to have more than that. It takes more than just walking in a classroom and caring.”


Despite the criticism, TFA continues to attract the best and the brightest. This year brought in 700 new teachers. But some critics claim that the organization is damaging public education. One of the main complaints is that veteran teachers are sacrificed so schools can bring in TFA teachers to work for less. In Chicago, for example, 850 veteran staff members, including more than 500 teachers, were laid off last year because of budget cuts. Soon thereafter,350 TFA teachers were hired.

“That might be cheaper labor, but we don’t believe that in the long run, teachers who are undertrained and in schools in this rotating kind of system is what the U.S. needs,” said Leewana Thomas, a national organizer for United States Against Sweatshops, a student organization active on 150 campuses. “It’s actually bad for public education.”

http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/...e-growing-movementagainstteachforamerica.html


been saying it for years, TFA is a spit in the face to real teachers

 

[88m3]

good post


charter schools attract the same quality of staff


it's all about money and cutting the bottom line the greed in this country is disgusting

 

[humble forever]

I've also heard the best teachers don't like going into the struggle districts. Since they're good they'd rather go to some cozy district and they can do that because of their reviews and stats or whatever

good post


charter schools attract the same quality of staff


it's all about money and cutting the bottom line the greed in this country is disgusting

Yeah thing is i only see the charter school movement growing, at least down here in the south. The south doesn't take pre university education as seriously as the northeast imo

 

[Scientific Playa]

heard some school districts and classrooms are hell on wheels. too much to handle for a young teacher trainee right out of school themselves. sounds like a horror show in the making.

can't call it on chicago, both the city and state have major financial issues.

 

[YaThreadTrashB!]

I've also heard the best teachers don't like going into the struggle districts. Since they're good they'd rather go to some cozy district and they can do that because of their reviews and stats or whatever



Yeah thing is i only see the charter school movement growing, at least down here in the south. The south doesn't take pre university education as seriously as the northeast imo

Teachers teaching in the suburbs can actually make a good living compared to teachers in the city


talking 15-30k difference with so many years in

 

[Serious]

@ciroq drobama @Shogun

 

[Serious]

heard some school districts and classrooms are hell on wheels. too much to handle for a young teacher trainee right out of school themselves. sounds like a horror show in the making.

can't call it on chicago, both the city and state have major financial issues.

 

[The Watcher]

Teachers teaching in the suburbs can actually make a good living compared to teachers in the city


talking 15-30k difference with so many years in

Or small towns. I had a friend that took a job teaching in small town Iowa in a classroom of 15 kids. She got a huge relocation bonus for housing, is making $15,000 more than she'd have made sticking around a bigger city and is living a stress-free career life.

The trade-off is that she's stuck in a dinky Iowa town and says she sometimes feels guilty for not being able to reach a wider audience of students, but she must not feel too bad since she's been there 3 years now.

 

[BlackAchilles]

Teach for America is like putting in a rookie backup QB against one of the top defenses in the league

 

[Mowgli]

Anti family values will only make these probems worse.

 

[YaThreadTrashB!]

Or small towns. I had a friend that took a job teaching in small town Iowa in a classroom of 15 kids. She got a huge relocation bonus for housing, is making $15,000 more than she'd have made sticking around a bigger city and is living a stress-free career life.

The trade-off is that she's stuck in a dinky Iowa town and says she sometimes feels guilty for not being able to reach a wider audience of students, but she must not feel too bad since she's been there 3 years now.

I'm switching into a district that is still part of the city, but the school district is different


same ol inner city kids but making 10k more for a second year teacher

 

[Gallo]

There are better alternatives for young college graduates, like KIPP. At KIPP senior teachers mentor younger teachers - they co-teacher for a year and afterwards are given their own class. Teach for American should evolve into something like KIPP to better prepare their teachers.