Teach For America is a non-profit organization that gears it’s efforts toward closing the “achievement gap” by training professionals from all backgrounds to teach in the poorest schools of America. Recently, TFA is getting lots of press because their cohorts have included lots of young people with impressive resumes and an Ivy-League educational background thus making TFA a lot more competitive and selective. Opponents of TFA dislike the org for serving America’s young elite with “priceless” teaching moments rather than the ill-educated children they are supposed to be teaching. Teachers in TFA are required to teach for two years and after that they have the option of leaving or staying, and stats prove that most of them leave. Now I understand this creates a number of issues. Is TFA really just a strategic career move for self-seeking, elitist, rich people trying to gain “life experience” before moving on to a “better” more lucrative opportunity? Maybe.
Or maybe we need to step aside from the “blame-the-rich-people” argument and realize the greater, underlying issue with: a. the quality of education in America, b. organizations like TFA, and c. the school board system.
If we can all agree that as a whole our education system is lagging we can definitely agree that we see an even bigger discrepancy in inner-city educational systems. The quality of education in the inner-city is definitely subpar to that in our suburban neighborhoods. What are the qualities that make up an education? I would say teachers, parents, socioeconomic standards, textbooks, federal funding, etc…. so why are we attacking Teach For America for bringing in rich young adults to teach poor kids? While we can buy new textbooks for inner city schools we still can’t buy them new socioeconomic circumstances. If Teach For America teachers are to leave teaching and eventually becoming lawyers, politicians, lobbyists, corporate CEOs then those are the same people we will need rallying for our cause to better the educational institution in this country. Naysayers of TFA need to realize that they aren’t a political non-profit organization, they don’t take sides, but simply they are using an age-old tactic that has always worked best: networking.
The attack shouldn’t be on Teach For America, attack the education system and the standards for which teachers are penalized and awarded for their success; or lack of.
The New Teacher Project Inc., another non-profit org. much like TFA, is more focused on changing education policy and standards. Every year (I think) they publish a white paper on the failures of the education system and what needs to be corrected. In 2009, TNTP published “The Widget Effect”- the title comes from the idea that teachers are treated as interchangeable “widgets”. Quoted from their paper, “a teacher’s effectiveness- the most important factor for schools in improving student achievement- is not measured, recorded, or used to inform decision-making in any meaningful way.” We have standardized the hell out of teacher performance to the point where school administrators can’t determine what makes a poor teacher from an effective one. The implications of that being below-average and excellent teachers are still allowed to pass the third grade.
And I know that if you took any standardized test throughout your schooling you understand what a fail standardized exams really are. Don’t we all hate the SAT for equating us with the pothead in our class who took the exam high and got the same exact score? Now I know that pissed you off.
My point is there is more than one way to skin a cat. Teacher For America, The New Teacher Project Inc., Unions, Arne Duncan, Bill Gates- all using different tactics to combat the same cause. And if you realize that TFA is not worse than standardizing teacher effectiveness then the rant on TFA should stop and you should hop on the train, join the cause.
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