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E-mail Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2010 > July > 14 > Entry
The brand that is Teach for America
Sunday’s big New York Times story on Teach for America has been getting a lot of attention this week. In fact, it prompted the DDN editorial board to again call for Ohio to loosen rules that prevent TFA from setting up shop here.
If you don’t know about TFA, its a Peace Corps-style program that takes recent college grades and places them (with some TFA training but without full-blown teaching credentials) in high poverty classrooms across the country for two year stints.
The Times story focuses on the huge numbers of Ivy League grads who apply for TFA and talks about how exclusive a club it has become. TFA is so hard to get into that only the very top Ivy graduates get picked. Therefore, the TFA brand is very strong with a wide variety of employers, who see it as a sort of screening process that helps them identify the best Ivy talent, whom they then seek hire when their two-year teaching jobs are done.
The big downside to TFA’s elitism that everybody talks about is that the graduates it selects generally don’t stay in teaching so their impact is fleeting at best. That’s where the Times story goes. But there is another downside —Â TFA is missing out on top talent that could really make a difference. A friend’s experience with TFA demonstrates this.
The friend, who I’ll call Jay, is black and grew up in inner city Chicago, attending Chicago’s public schools. After a successful career in media Jay did a stint in the Peace Corps teaching English in a small African village for two years. He came back determined to become an inner city teacher.
TFA was his first choice for how to get started. But Jay had been an ordinary student years before at a small Midwestern state school. Basically, he couldn’t get TFA to give him the time of day. He vented his frustration to me one day. Here he was, passionately focused on a career in teaching, having come from the very poor background and schools he wanted to teach in, identifying with the kids culturally, bringing experience from effectively teaching poorer kids than anyone can imagine who didn’t even speak English and he wasn’t a good bet for TFA? Instead they were going to give his spot to some wealthy suburban kid fresh out of Harvard who will be an investment banker in two years?
It was hard to argue with him. Jay went back to Chicago, enrolled in a local college’s education program, did extraordinarily well and recently transferred to, you guessed it, an Ivy League college to finish his master’s degree. He is going to be a great inner city teacher one day for some very fortunate and deserving kids.
I still think TFA is a good program and that it can potentially benefit Ohio. But its leaders are doing the organization, and the kids its serves, a disservice by not considering a wider range of candidates.
Permalink | Comments (10) | Post your comment | Categories: Teaching and Learning
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By Sarah
September 20, 2010 6:36 PM | Link to this
You don’t need to go to an “Ivy League” School (do you even know what “Ivy League” means? Is there ANYTHING Cornell students can do that Stanford or MIT students can’t do?) to be in TFA. You shouldn’t be judging considering that Cornell is also an Ivy.
By Ari
July 17, 2010 12:01 PM | Link to this
As a TFA alum, I can tell you that it’s not all about being “elite.” If you check out Teach For America’s new publication about Teaching as Leadership (TAL), then you can see its values. Of course intelligence and hardwork are important, but other factors in deciding whether a candidate is a good fit are humility, the ability to overcome adversity, and the drive to continually increase your effectiveness. Obviously, we don’t know all of the details of “Jay“‘s application process. I’ve never heard of TFA ignoring anyone. Many of my friends in college complained about being pestered by recruiters. What I can say is that the people that Teach For America does hire are ones that care deeply about the issues and will work their butts off in the classroom. TFA also focuses a great deal on diversity, so unlike the 90% white, 80% female rest of the teaching population, TFA Corps Members come from a much wider spectrum of backgrounds.
By Ari
July 17, 2010 11:55 AM | Link to this
As a TFA alum, I can tell you that it’s not all about being “elite.” If you check out Teach For America’s new publication about Teaching as Leadership (TAL), then you can see its values. Of course intelligence and hardwork are important, but other factors in deciding whether a candidate is a good fit are humility, the ability to overcome adversity, and the drive to continually increase your effectiveness. Obviously, we don’t know all of the details of “Jay“‘s application process. I’ve never heard of TFA ignoring anyone. Many of my friends in college complained about being pestered by recruiters. What I can say is that the people that Teach For America does hire are ones that care deeply about the issues and will work their butts off in the classroom. TFA also focuses a great deal on diversity, so unlike the 90% white, 80% female rest of the teaching population, TFA Corps Members come from a much wider spectrum of backgrounds.
By Max
July 15, 2010 12:23 PM | Link to this
TFA has so many problematical pieces of baggage it is amazing any serious attention is being extended. Still, establishing a national teaching corps (with national certifications) is an interesting idea with uniform pay scales giving local districts firm baselines from which to form budgets. Taking otherwise unemployed college graduates into a critical profession like teaching is like placing pre-med undergraduates in patient treament capacities. Education is not a ‘DISCOUNT STORE’ endeavor.
By Mike
July 15, 2010 7:49 AM | Link to this
I would love to be part of TFA and I think it is a necessary component of education. Teaching is now about the teachers, and not at all about the students which is why TFA is necessary. I just wish it wasn’t so exclusive.
By Lastmanstanding
July 15, 2010 7:41 AM | Link to this
Come on Scott, TFA is viewed as union busting by the teachers union. Until unions are removed from schools, education will never be about academic excellence.
By TFA resource
July 14, 2010 10:19 PM | Link to this
If you’d like a first-hand account of what TFA is all about, check out RELENTLESS PURSUIT: A YEAR IN THE TRENCHES WITH TEACH FOR AMERICA, by Donna Foote. It’s both a history of the program and a narrative following a few of the participants.
By What TFA's for
July 14, 2010 10:16 PM | Link to this
This post fails to understand the underlying purpose of TFA. It’s not designed to provide a different way for ANYONE to get a teaching certificate. Most states have SEVERAL methods for people who hold 4-year degrees in non-education majors to become teachers. Instead, TFA is designed to give elite students the opportunities to teach in poverty settings so they better understand the problems with educating the children of the poor. Although a few decide to make careers of teaching, the idea is for them to take their experiences with them when they become leaders of (for example) industry, finance or politics. Think how much clearer education policy in Ohio might be if some of our leaders (say Jon Husted) had ACTUALLY WORKED in an inner-city school.
By Me
July 14, 2010 4:24 PM | Link to this
You don’t need to go to an “Ivy League” School (do you even know what “Ivy League” means? Is there ANYTHING Cornell students can do that Stanford or MIT students can’t do?) to be in TFA. I know plenty of people from UD that did it. You just have to be a good student, dedicated, and be a good teacher - qualities plenty of “credentialed” teachers lack.
By Jan
July 14, 2010 3:02 PM | Link to this
The article you linked contained the negatives of the TFA program that you ignored. If these students are dedicated to teaching, they should attend college and get the appropriate training as your friend did. TFA students look like they are building a resume and being well-paid to assume a role they are not qualified for. Inexperience in the classroom will not cure the ills of inner city schools.