Seattle School Boards Wants to Eject Teach For America

A Seattle teachers union claims that TFA members should not replace real, certified teachers and that the contract with Teach for America should be cancelled.

The Seattle School Board wants to ban Teach for America, a teacher training program focused on ensuring that minority students and children from poor backgrounds have access to high-quality teachers, from Seattle schools. Teach for America — known simply as TFA — is touted by its fans as a force for good, but to its detractors it’s taking education reform in the wrong direction.

Despite concerns from various parties that 5 weeks of teacher training before getting a classroom placement is woefully inadequate for any new teacher, the recent $8.3m federal grant suggests that the service provided fills a desperately needed gap in the education marketplace.

In 2010 TFA was awarded a 3 year contract to teach in Seattle schools, but now the Seattle teachers union wants to cancel that contract amid claims that the TFA teachers are no longer needed to and counteraccusations that the unions are fearful of losing power and influence.

Advocates of TFA claim that the high quality of their recruits makes up for the short time being taught how to teach, and that results support this assessment.

“The Effects of Teach for America on Students” (Mathematica Policy Research, 2004). Using random assignment of students to teachers, the gold standard for research methodology, this national study found that students of Teach for America teachers made more progress in a year in both reading and math than would typically be expected, and attained significantly greater gains in math compared with students of other teachers, including veteran and certified teachers. This study also found that Teach for America teachers were working in the highest-need classrooms in the country, with students beginning the year on average at the 14% percentile against the national norm.

The Seattle School Board alleges that barely trained teachers are no longer needed as there is no longer a shortage of fully certified teachers. Advocates of TFA argue that including their members deepen the talent pool available to schools considerably. Despite the teaching training program being so short, a measure designed to get quality recruits into the classrooms they’re needed in as soon as possible, the program has accumulated numerous high profile supporters and grants. The Walton Foundation recently committed to giving nearly $50m to TFA over the next five years to double its teaching corps.

Comments

tired teacher

March 14, 2012 at 10:57 am

so basically TFA is saying “we hire smart people, the rest of you teachers are stupid.”

i think the anti-government crowd loves TFA because they are only committed to teaching fora few years, so they can pad their resume for their high paying real job.

Reply
- Keving
  
  March 15, 2012 at 9:22 am
  
  That is hardly what TFA is saying. I would understand why some schools might choose not to employ TFA graduates because they do tend to leave quicker than regular teachers, but no true professional is allowed to sulk because someone wasn’t sufficiently deferential to their credentials (cough, tt, cough.)
  
  Reply
  - tired teacher
    
    March 16, 2012 at 4:44 am
    
    so you come here to insult me because i believe education should be done by trained certified educators, who have a dedicated passion for the task? not some half assed do gooder who was told doing this going to help them land a better job later on?
    
    and i want people to be deferential to me? how about i just want someone to respect the fact that teaching itself is a skill that should be respected.
    
    i mean seriously try to do what i do, let alone do it well, then we will see where your flippant remarks go.
    
    Reply
  - Eva
    
    March 27, 2012 at 7:28 pm
    
    Going off of the previous ommcent discussion, how do you feel about a very shy, introverted student attempting to get the same sort of information from a teacher as an open and outgoing one? I myself am not a very good speaker, and am very introverted to say the least. In fact, I have some major social phobias which have led me to skipping classes altogether for fear of being called on. For some people this makes sense if you are unprepared, but I typically am up on all my work to the best of my abilities. In response to your video, do you agree with how school systems function with normal test procedures? I find studying specifically for a test is rather self-defeating to actually learning something. If everything not on the test is thrown aside, and a person is really only studying for a good grade, then nothing is really be learned (and more importantly, retained).
    
    Reply