The points that detractors of Teach for America raise usually fall into one of three interrelated buckets, to which I want to explore potential rebuttals:
Critique #1
Teach for America belittles the profession of teaching
by treating it as a Peace Corps–style rescue mission rather than a true profession, with salaries appropriate to attracting solid candidates. “A frankly missionary program,” wrote Stanford professor Linda Darling-Hammond in an oft-cited 1994 Phi Delta Kappan article, “TFA has recruiters and advocates who have focused much of their attention on the advantaged college graduates for whom TFA serves as something useful to do on their way to their ‘real jobs’ in law, medicine, or business.” [Source]
Response to critique #1
There are two parts to this criticism of TFA. One: The low-pay of teaching “belittles” the profession. On the whole, I concur with the implied argument that teachers should be paid more. (I think teachers — from kindergarten through high school — should expect a starting salary of $80K, with opportunities to earn upwards of $150K for demonstrating exceptional teaching. But let’s not get distracted by the finances or logistics of such a proposal; we can do that another time. Today I want to look at a few of the arguments in favor and against Teach for America as an organization.)
But TFA is not responsible for the teaching salaries of its recruited teachers. They earn public school teaching salaries commensurate with the salaries of non-TFA-recruited teachers. So the salary argument has no point of entering the debate about the merits of Teach for America as an organization.
The second point concerns the outreach efforts of TFA, which detractors claim — by recruiting the best students from the most selective of colleges and by offering teaching as “something useful to do on their way to a ‘real job’” — belittles professional education.
This argument simply holds no water. For one thing, there is nothing wrong with treating — or even marketing — teaching as mission-based service. This is exactly what teaching is! It is not a job, like auditing; it is a vocation, a calling. Education is not a widget making business; it is a public good, a public service, that shapes the hearts and heads of our children. If teaching is a job, it is a job of forging relationships, shaping minds, and of empowering people to engage in deep, critical-thinking and community action. Nothing could be more of a mission-based service than teaching.
(What is belittling is the false assumption that non-profit, mission-based work only offers meager financial rewards.)
Management consulting firms like Bain, McKinsey, and BCG, along with Wall Street investment banking institutions and international hedge funds, all recruit the best and brightest minds from America’s top colleges and universities. Most of these new employees work “only” for two years in these positions before matriculating to business school or moving on to other opportunities. Some even leave these fields entirely. No one would argue that young recruits in consulting and finance related fields “belittle” these professions.
Critique 2
TFA-recruited teachers “only” commit to two years in the teaching profession. We don’t need a “short-lived import-export system; our schools require more than self-reflexive service for post-college wanderers.” [Source]
Response to critique #2
One-third of all teachers leave within two years [Source]; half of all teachers quit within five years [Source]. This data is for all public school educators! The all-too brief tenure of teaching professionals is not unique to Teach for America; teacher attrition is a national public policy concern. TFA is not an “import-export system for post-college wanderers”; the entire teaching profession is, regrettably, an import-export system for passionate educators.
At least with Teach for America, recruits commit to two full years of teaching in the most dire of all educational environments. Non-TFA teachers make no such commitment; they usually sign a one-year contract, but without the support network of the Teach for America organization, they could (and often do) leave after one academic year; some leave mid-year!
And even though the TFA service requirement is “only” two years, “two-thirds of its grads stay in the education field, sometimes as teachers, but also as principals or policy makers.” [Source]
Critique #3
TFA recruits cannot be effective classroom instructors because they “only” under-go a five-week training program the summer before their placement. “Real teachers,” on the other hand, have to do a certification program, which often takes one to two years to complete.
Five weeks of training is simply inadequate to equip recent college graduates, no matter how high-achieving and well-intentioned, with the pedagogical skills necessary to be an effective teacher, claim critics.
Response to critique #3
Data. From this month’s Primary Sources section in The Atlantic:
The Kids Are AlrightCritics of the Teach for America program, which recruits top college graduates to teach in poorly performing public schools, have long questioned whether the program’s instructors are properly prepared, citing evidence that links teacher effectiveness to experience. However, the first study to examine Teach for America at the secondary-school level, recently released by the Urban Institute, finds that its teachers are in fact more effective than those with traditional training—at all levels of experience. The study measured performance on state exams and found that students of Teach for America instructors did significantly better in all subject areas tested, and especially in math and science. The authors found that even though the program’s teachers are assigned to “the most demanding classrooms,” they’re able to compensate for their lack of experience with better academic preparation and motivation. As a result, the authors say, students are better off with Teach for America instructors “than with fully licensed in-field teachers with three or more years of experience.”
—“Making a Difference?: The Effects of Teach for America in High School,” by Zeyu Xu, Jane Hannaway, and Colin Taylor, the Urban Institute and the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research
Quick thoughts
I am a bit curious by these critiques leveled against Teach for America by certain educators. Their criticisms, while rooted in seemingly intuitive assumptions (Of course a two year teaching program is better than a five-week cram program!), also seem to be motivated, a bit or in part, by ego and insecurity. They seem to want to create/preserve the illusion that teaching is some kind of alchemy, the secrets of which are passed-down by experts in sanctioned institutions and require one to two years to truly master.
Maybe. But this is not the only way that teachers learn to be teachers. It might not even be the most effective way; it is certainly not the most efficient. It’s not even a sufficient way of teaching teachers, just as graduating from an MBA program neither promises nor precludes ambitious entrepreneurs and visionary leaders from opening their own small businesses or serving as CEO of Fortune 500 companies.
Teaching is a skill. But it is equal parts — maybe primarily — an art. The passion? The charisma? The communicative ability to be an effective educator? Can’t be taught. It’s in you… Or not.
Teach for America screens the best and the brightest minds in the country, assesses their passion and ability to teach, and has grown to become one of the largest and most successful teacher recruitment and placement organizations in the country. And they do this not by offering higher salaries, nor cushier teaching positions. No, TFA takes could-be and would-be Yale Law School students, Wall Street wunderkids, and Peace Corps volunteers and places them in the most severely depressed classrooms in the most under-resourced schools in the most fractured school districts.
And the results — better classroom performance by students; an indelible and intimate portrait of a too-often broken education system by TFA teachers — speak for themselves.
Teaching is something we should be encouraging people of all stripes, backgrounds, and experiences to explore, especially among the most successful and ambitious soon-to-be and recent college graduates. Teach for America is at the center of the village it takes to raise a child.
Related reading: “Amazing Teacher Facts,” an editorial in the Wall Street Journal:
This month 3,700 recent college grads will begin Teach for America’s five-week boot camp, before heading off for two-year stints at the nation’s worst public schools. These young men and women were chosen from almost 25,000 applicants, hailing from our most selective colleges. Eleven per cent of Yale’s senior class, 9% of Harvard’s and 10% of Georgetown’s applied for a job whose salary ranges from $25,000 (in rural South Dakota) to $44,000 (in New York City).
Hang on a second.
Unions keep saying the best people won’t go into teaching unless we pay them what doctors and lawyers and CEOs make. Not only are Teach for America salaries significantly lower than what J.P. Morgan might offer, but these individuals go to some very rough classrooms. What’s going on?
It seems that Teach for America offers smart young people something even better than money – the chance to avoid the vast education bureaucracy. Participants need only pass academic muster and attend the summer training before entering a classroom. If they took the traditional route into teaching, they would have to endure years of “education” courses to be certified.
The American Federation of Teachers commonly derides Teach for America as a “band-aid.” One of its arguments is that the program only lasts two years, barely enough time, they say, to get a handle on managing a classroom. However, it turns out that two-thirds of its grads stay in the education field, sometimes as teachers, but also as principals or policy makers.
More importantly, it doesn’t matter that they are only in the classroom a short time, at least according to a recent Urban Institute study. Here’s the gist: “On average, high school students taught by TFA corps members performed significantly better on state-required end-of-course exams, especially in math and science, than peers taught by far more experienced instructors. The TFA teachers’ effect on student achievement in core classroom subjects was nearly three times the effect of teachers with three or more years of experience.”
Jane Hannaway, one of the study’s co-authors, says Teach for America participants may be more motivated than their traditional teacher peers. Second, they may receive better support during their experience. But, above all, Teach for America volunteers tend to have much better academic qualifications. They come from more competitive schools and they know more about the subjects they teach. Ms. Hannaway notes, “Students are better off being exposed to teachers with a high level of skill.”
The strong performance in math and science seems to confirm that the more specialized the knowledge, the more important it is that teachers be well versed in it. (Imagine that.) No amount of time in front of a classroom will make you understand advanced algebra better.
Teach for America was pleased, but not exactly shocked, by these results. “We have always been a data-driven organization,” says spokesman Amy Rabinowitz. “We have a selection model we’ve refined over the years.” The organization figures out which teachers have been most successful in improving student performance and then seeks applicants with similar qualities. “It’s mostly a record of high academic achievement and leadership in extracurricular activities.”
Sounds like the way the private sector hires. Don’t tell the teachers unions.
Play, think…
J.R. Atwood
Filed under: Education & Learning , Amazing Teacher Facts, education, evidence, Kids Are Alright, Linda Darling-Hammond, Making a Difference?, research, school, study, Teach for America, teacher effectiveness, teacher experience, teacher quality, teachers, teaching teachers, TFA, Urban Institute, WSJ
I have four responses to your post:
A. Teaching is a profession. To be a good doctor or lawyer, you go through a program that emphasizes hands-on work with traditional classroom experiences. I think that effective teacher prep programs are ones that create a strong connection between student teaching and classroom experiences – professors and master teachers visit student teachers in the classroom and offer critiques, there is a progression in responsibility during student teaching, and students are taught how to integrate best-practices and research into their work in the classroom.
B. TFA teachers are often put into special ed and English language learner classrooms – these are the students who need research-based interventions the most. There is so much academic and field-tested research out there about how to meet the needs of these learners – a true professional consumes this research and implements it in their classroom on a daily basis.
C. The cost of the TFA program is so high that there is a huge opportunity cost. TFA is not cheap to run (I read an article that said that when you calculate finders fees, the recruitment process, salaries, etc – it costs more than $125,000 per year for each placement). I’m tired of the ‘what we’re doing is better than doing nothing’ argument – if we took the money that the government and private donors send to TFA each year and invested it in programs that help veteran teachers adapt to new populations, other recruitment programs (like Oakland Teaching Fellows, New York Teaching Fellows, etc), reforming teacher preparation programs, etc – we could get more bang for our buck. In education, getting more bank for our buck translates into better education experiences for underserved students.
D. I went to an elite college campus where TFA recruited and many students decided to enter TFA. Although many students had their heart in the right place, I feel like the program generates more education opportunities for teachers than the underserved students. It’s creepy to think of teaching as a missionary exercise – let’s remember what the historical examples of missionaries teach us. TFA had crazy recruitment tactics that went beyond those used by investment banks, consulting firms, etc.
I very much appreciate your thoughtful response to this post and wish to address some of the points you make.
To point A), I totally agree. The better teacher prep programs pair-up newbie teachers with master teachers to serve as mentors and offer hands-on opportunities to truly engage with and wrestle both curriculum and pedagogy. But not all certification/MA programs with a good reputation do this, nor do all poor certification/MA programs NOT do this. Does TFA? I do not know first hand. But the data doesn’t lie: Students taught by TFA teachers (at least at the secondary school level), perform better than if taught by teachers from traditional certification programs. See the Urban Institute report cited in Rebuttal #3.
To point B): I agree with you point that a true professional “consumes and implements research [about the most effective learning research and teaching strategies] on a daily basis.” But are we to assume that no TFA teachers do this? I don’t know why we would or where there is evidence to support this implication. And again, I point to the data that shows TFA teachers are some of, if not the, most effective professionals in their fields, especially when compared to their peers who graduated from a traditional teacher prep program.
Point C) is an interesting one… Each recruit and placement costs upwards of $125K?! Wow. That is a lot of money. But I wonder how it compares to the total costs that JP Morgan, for example, invests on recruiting, hiring, and retention efforts for top-talent?
This is not to say that such costs are the most sustainable way to scale an organization, but I think such costs are defensible. Good people are hard to find. (Though I am sure there are plenty of ways TFA could get more bang out of its own marketing and outreach buck.)
I do not agree, however, that if we were to take the money from TFA and invest it into other teacher prep programs that we — or our children — would necessarily be better off. First, the money spread among various educational initiatives is not zero-sum. Just because TFA gets some money does not mean that, absent their existence, another program would. This is like saying, “Instead of spending all this money on the Iraq war, we should spend it at home.” Sounds good and I agree with the spirit of the argument. But if we stopped funding the war, its current budget would not necessarily be distributed among domestic social service agencies.
Second, instead of arguing that TFA’s money should be invested in traditional teacher prep programs, a case could be made that your program’s budget should be cut and given to TFA. After all, they can do in five weeks, and do it better, what it takes teacher prep programs to do in one to two years. Again, see the data cited in my original post.
As for point D), you inspire what I hope evolves into a spirited and important debate about teacher recruitment. Should such efforts focus on direct service and the lives of students, or appeal to the ambition and ego of would-be teachers, many whom might be interested in padding their resumes with a noble and important stepping-stone into an entirely different and money-making “real world” career opportunity?
My gut says the focus should be on the kids; but TFA’s outreach efforts, which flatter the egos of elite college graduates, yield impressive results. (Again, see the data.)
The various teaching fellows programs — in NYC, Oakland, and D.C. — are other great options, especially for people who are turned-off by TFA’s approach to the teacher shortage. And I am very much in favor of strengthening more traditional credential/MA teacher prep programs at schools of educations throughout the country. But TFA fills a different niche. Where city-based teaching programs address a local need, Teach for America addresses a national need. Where teacher prep programs prepare lifelong educators, TFA exposes future legislators, policy makers, and businesspeople to the crumbling state of our public education system.
I am not saying TFA can do it all, nor that its model should be implemented across all teacher-prep programs. But TFA plays a vital role in addressing a desperate teacher shortage in urban, rural, and under-resourced communities. To solve our energy crisis, we need to do it all — hydro, solar, and wind power; hybrid and electric vehicles; increased fuel standards and better public transportation systems; etc. One technology is not going to be our panacea. Similarly, with education, we need it all — traditional credential/MA teaching programs, innovative teaching fellowships like those in NYC, DC, and Oakland; and Teach for America.
Thoughts?
I can’t give my full reply now – but here is my major thought.
Why do you trust the urban institute study the most? There have been many studies that have shown different effects of TFA – http://www.ncate.org/documents/research/TFAResearchSummary.pdf
You say “again – see the data” – the problem is that the data points in many different directions. Could you explain why the methodology of the UI study is better than other studies that show that TFA teachers have little gains (or worse – negative impacts) on the learning of children?
I don’t think that TFA’s budget should be invested in traditional programs – we should find the top education program models and invest in implementing them in many types of teacher prep institutions.
What if the 125K was spent on attracting veteran teachers (who are better than TFA teachers – according to many studies) to at-risk schools? Here’s a little thought experiment – why don’t we put TFA teachers in the ritzy schools and give veteran educators more incentives to enter at-risk schools? (just a thought experiment – not a practical theory)
The funny thing is, we can tweak TFA. My teacher prep program only takes one school year – during that time, I get help from the best researchers, master teachers, administrators, etc. I have multiple student and co-teaching placements and classes in the evenings that complement these experiences. If TFA teachers would be much better off (less attrition, more help for ELL and special ed students, etc) why can’t they initiate a better training program and then extend the commitment time? Also, they could provide better support services than what they do now.
I also disagree with your point about teacher ed programs – many of them have a focus on social justice and offer incentives for students to teach in low-income schools after graduation. I’m teaching in a Title 1 school for at least 5 – 10 years after I graduate.
More later – I have work to do. Good post!
Great insight and many good points you make!
I cannot directly comment on the particular methodologies of the UI study or other reports. Like most inquiries into controversial social policies, the truth about TFA’s effectiveness is somewhere in between “it doesn’t work at all” and “it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.” I’m not sure where TFA falls on this spectrum, but the intent of my post was to disarm, perhaps, or at least explore possible rebuttals to, some of the more common complaints and criticisms I have heard about TFA.
I think it is wonderful that teaching, because of TFA, has become a post-college opportunity that is pursued as passionately by some of the highest achieving college students as early career positions in business and law. Who would have thought — 10 or even 5 years ago — that recent college grads would forgo $100K+ jobs to work 100 hours a week as public school teachers?! THIS is something to be celebrated. Wendy Knapp created an organization that takes a radical (and practical!) approach to addressing one of the most important social and educational inequities of our generation.
Twenty-two-year-old college graduates, green in “the real world,” may not be the most ideal educators to teach our children. (Or they may be.) But what they do offer, and what our children need, are passionate, concerned, able, and dedicated adults to serve as role models, to inspire them to believe in the power of education to transform lives and communities.
As for the methodology of uber-educator Linda Darling-Hammond’s oft-cited (and controversial) 2005 study criticizing TFA, I point to TFA’s official response (available here: http://www.teach-now.org/newsdisp.cfm?newsid=77) and to an article in The Stanford Daily (http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2005/4/15/studyRaisesQuestionsAboutTeachForAmerica), which is excerpted below.
Great dialogue! :)
Flawed Methodology?
Susanna Loeb, assistant professor at the School of Education, questioned the methods Darling-Hammond used in interpreting the data.
“While the research raises some important questions, I would want to see some more detail,” Loeb said. “There aren’t too many analyses in the paper so far, and often you need to look at the study in multiple ways to make the results more robust.”
Smith, of Teach for America, also attacked the rigor of Darling-Hammond’s methods, and said that Darling-Hammond has an “inexplicable, 12-year vendetta against Teach for America.”
Although Smith said Teach for America teachers are looking to get better at working with students who are learning English, she said that certification alone does not guarantee a good teacher.
“Certification status per se is not my concern,” Smith said. “My concern is whether teachers are having a positive impact on their kids. There are lots of factors that go into that.”
As an alternative to Darling-Hammond’s research, both Smith and Loeb suggested an alternative study put out last summer by the Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., an independent policy research firm.
The study — titled “The Effects of Teach For America on Students: Findings from a National Evaluation” — compared Teach for America instructors with other inexperienced and often uncertified teachers, and concluded that “Teach for America teachers had larger impacts on both math and reading achievement when compared with novice control teachers.”
I don’t buy the Linda Darling-Hammond study either – there are many other studies that use better methodologies. If you look at the other studies on peer reviewed journals, many of them show negative correlations. If you read that PDF I linked to, it says that TFA teachers are better than similar teachers – uncertified teachers with no experience. The comparisons about attrition that you made are untrue when studied with statistical controls – certified teachers and teachers in ed programs (whether traditional or not) have lower rates of attrition than TFA teachers.
I think that we need to create professionals – not missionaries. Children deserve it. There was an article in the Economist that said that the most important benefit of TFA is that it inspires elites to get involved in the education debate. There are already tons of elites involved in the debate – elite schools of education, billionaire charter school factories, etc. In order to change our education system, it’ll not only take a “Broad Approach” (Have you read that report?) but improvements to the services delivered by classroom teachers and school communities.
Although I’m glad that elite students are inspired to help schools – I’m more interested in creating lasting results for elementary and secondary students. You haven’t addressed my argument about tweaking TFA – students should go through a better training program (it could last for months to a year) and then have a slightly longer contract time. If this boosts opportunities for children and makes more efficient use of the passion and intelligence that elite students bring to the table – isn’t it worth it? As I see it, TFA mismanages the passion and intelligence of its teachers – it doesn’t provide them with support, a chance to perfect their craft, etc. I’m tired of the “well, it motivates elite students to get involved in education” argument – it kind of sickens me. It’s a strange version of white man’s burden.
I appreciate the pdf file you linked to that highlights some of the shortcomings of TFA… At the end of the day, though, I am a huge advocate of the organization. As one of my friends put it after reading this post, “The biggest problem with our ed system is a lack of human capital. TFA is the biggest boon to talent in the ed sector that I know of.”
In terms of expanding the support services for TFA recruits, sure — more training is better. TFA is not a perfect organization. But I do not agree that TFA should be radically revamped to increase the training if that means also expanding the length of service to which recruits commit.
TFA does not aim, I don’t think, to create lifelong professional educators. What it does aim to do is help provide the human capital necessary to at least make a significant impact in the teacher shortage epidemic and to expose high-achieving college graduates, who might not otherwise understand just how deep the public education system is fractured, to the students and families — the people! — that make-up the dire statistics that fill newspaper editorials, speeches by politicians, and on blogs like yours and mine calling for drastic education reform.
Two years is a long time to make a difference. And differences are being made by TFA teachers, just as non-TFA teachers are affecting lives in deep and powerful ways. Why not attract as many talented and able people as possible into the profession of teaching?!
I have never heard from any TFA teachers that they lack the support and network necessary for classroom success.
Thank you for pointing out the variables that skew the attrition data I cited in my original post.
I have heard MANY TFA teachers say that they lack support in the classroom (probably includes the relatively large percentage that quit before the 2 year agreement is up). If you Google ‘TFA personal experiences’ you might run across a few negative narratives.
I disagree with the statement that there ‘is no human capital in education’. I think that there is mismanaged human capital. Teachers are expected to perform miracles on small budgets – help children who are behind before they enter preschool; have more instances of health and nutrition problems than their peers (including lead poisoning); come from neighborhoods with few or no social and economic opportunities for growth; etc. There are teachers out there who would be ‘bad’ in any situation – but for the most part, I see teachers that are strained – they lack time, they lack professional development and training opportunities that help them deal with the shifting education population (special education and English language learners), some lack freedom in the classroom to evaluate and target instruction to their students (scripted curriculum), many lack the support of parents and community institutions, etc.
So you’re saying that even if TFA yields no benefits for students (or even negative consequences), that it is a program that our government and NGOs should continue to support financially? That scares me. I refuse to support a model when I know that there are better models out there – that’s how our education system got to where it is today – people are afraid to change and drop models when new ones come along that are better. I think that we can use the capital of the TFA teachers (and all teachers) in a much better fashion.
“TFA does not aim, I don’t think, to create lifelong professional educators. What it does aim to do is help provide the human capital necessary to at least make a significant impact in the teacher shortage epidemic and to expose high-achieving college graduates, who might not otherwise understand just how deep the public education system is fractured, to the students and families — the people! — that make-up the dire statistics that fill newspaper editorials, speeches by politicians, and on blogs like yours and mine calling for drastic education reform.”
I’m tired of at-risk children being life and learning experiments for affluent adults.
There are also much better models to expose elite students to education. For example, I received grants from my school to volunteer full-time at an alternative school inside of a juvenile detention center for a summer – it was almost like student teaching. I worked 30 – 40 hour weeks. I spent most of my day in the classroom. After class was over, I took an intern position with the administrative side. Over the course of the summer I gained more responsibilities. The classroom teacher was a highly qualified and caring special education instructor – the students’ learning experiences were not sacrificed for mine. I think that this could work if TFA was tweaked – if TFAers had to do more student teaching they could provide more opportunities for students while they learn how to handle their classroom. Since the training period wouldn’t be as long as a traditional program, they could still devote a few years of service.
[...] “Don’t tase me, bro!” (A Reflection on TFA Reform) Posted in Uncategorized by educatorblog on June 18th, 2008 (Post inspired by a debate I’m having with JR Atwood on playthink) [...]
Here’s one of the narratives I was talking about: http://www.okaysamurai.com/2003/08/teach-for-america-chronicles.html
[...] a debate about TFA that JR Atwood and I had on his playthink blog, the issue of opportunity cost came up [...]
As a Teach for America Corps member, I can see the argument for your critiques but strongly disagree. While I could refute all of the arguments against TFA, I’ll chose one that I strongly believe in.
I enjoyed the response to the critique about the 2 year time commitment. Many TFA teachers stay beyond those two years, and many more continue on into administration. TFA doesn’t just create teachers, but it educates corps members on our country’s quality of education. It creates awareness and gives people the background and motivation to evoke change in educational policy in the United States.
I’m currently in the ‘5 week boot camp’ mentioned above, and my awareness and knowledge about how our country’s education system functions has added to and further driven my passion for education reform and student achievement. Critiques of TFA always seem to forget this.
[...] of the arguments against Teach for America fault the program for encouraging corps members to leave their schools [...]
[...] have been several analogies I’ve come across between Teach for America and the missionary mentality – privileged individuals set out to save the impoverished, indigenous people; often without the [...]
“For one thing, there is nothing wrong with treating — or even marketing — teaching as mission-based service. This is exactly what teaching is! It is not a job, like auditing; it is a vocation, a calling. Education is not a widget making business; it is a public good, a public service, that shapes the hearts and heads of our children.”
I couldn’t agree more, but the problem is that TFA doesn’t agree with you. They may mouth the vernacular of “mission” and “vocation” but they do not treat it like that. Many experiences of ex-TFA’ers attest to this: that they push teachers for higher test scores or they accuse you of “not caring.” That is not a way to develop and retain a qualified teaching corps.
TFA, for all its intentions, is not the answer for long-term teaching stability. Veteran teachers are not the enemy–they know a whole lot that no book can teach you. If President Obama is serious about education, he should stop staffing fly-by-night programs. Instead, he should back programs that train teachers so they can stay longer in the profession–as well as provide incentives to keep good teachers.
this is a great debate! check out a perspective from a 2005 TFAer in Miami -
amanda
http://amandadavenport.wordpress.com