Julian Vasquez Heilig has studied Teach for America and its effects, and has come to the conclusion that the organization is harming the future of the teaching profession by its grandiose and false claims.
It has raised well over a billion dollars to support a large and handsomely paid staff. Its recruits will go to classrooms where students need experienced teachers, not five-week trainees. And 80% will leave the classroom in 2-3 years.
I this post, he is in dialogue with historian Jack Schneider.
Heilig writes:
“TFA is an example of a solution being a part of the problem. Our current national teacher strategy in the U.S. can be likened to taking a plate of pasta and throwing it against the ceiling and seeing what sticks. Teach For America, with its high-levels of attrition out of the classroom after the two year temporary commitment exacerbates this issue for poor students.
“We know from the data that about 50% of traditionally trained teachers remain in the profession after five years. By comparison, previous research on TFA has demonstrated that their attrition rate out the classroom to greener pastures (Note: I did not say in the “field” of education, a phrase TFA likes to use—meaning that corps members have left teaching and gone to graduate school, have begun working for an education-oriented foundation, etc.) is around 80%, though it varies by community.
“The falling spaghetti is not just Teach For America. Almost 60% of all new teachers in Texas are alternatively certified teachers, which means they could have as little as 30 hours of training online before they enter the classroom. Alternatively certified teachers also have higher rates of attrition out of the classroom compared to traditionally trained teachers.
“Our strategy in the U.S. is to send the least qualified teachers to the classroom as quickly as possible. Thus, the falling temporary teacher approach is essentially the antithesis of the national teacher strategies employed by the countries with the world’s leading educational systems.”
The fact is that we need a well-prepared teacher corps. We need experienced teachers. What we do not need is the illusion that TFA can change our schools by sending in inexperienced teachers who leave after 2-3 years. That’s a hoax.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The hoax that teacher experience does not matter, and that advanced degrees don’t matter, and that National Board Certification doesn’t matter has been perpetuated by economists, notably Eric Hanuschek (700 publications since late 1970s, darling of legislators who want to de-professionalize teachers) along with Bill Gates and his insistence, along with Arne Duncan, that only test scores matter as in indicator of “teacher effectiveness.” All (and there are many others) just want to churn the workforce by using metrics that created a bell curve, putting half of the workforce on notice of danger and giving the other half a safe harbor pay-for-performancefor one more year.
Arne Duncan thinks teachers are like chess pieces. Teachers are viewed as can and should be moved around to schools where they are “needed.” He keeps pushing pay-for-performance that doesn’t work, and gives out money for projects that keep proving him wrong.
In a 2013 USDE-funded experiment, 1, 514 teachers identified as highly effective (VAM estimates for reading and mathematics) were offered a $20,000 bonus—paid in installments for two years—if they transferred to a low performing school. Only 81 teachers applied.
Of these, 75 stayed for two years. About 35 stayed beyond two years, but the rates of retention varied by district. The “improved student test scores” attributed to these teachers also varied by district and were not sustained over time.
Other experiments with teacher pay-for-performance show that few plans survive beyond six years due to funding and allocation issues in addition to a failure to make any consistent difference in achievement .Glazerman, S., Protik, A., Teh, B., Bruch, J., & Max, J. (2013). Transfer incentives for high-performing teachers: Final results from a multisite experiment. (NCEE 2014-4003). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from http://ies.ed.gov/ncee.
The effort to discredit experienced teachers is part of a quest for what Mercedes Schneider calls a workforce of teacher temps…and this too is part of the Duncan/McKinsey & Co vision, cynically called RESPECT, which calls for one teacher serving 100 students at computers with a few assistants, banishes job security and churns the teaching workforce by insisting on one-size-fit-all criteria for “effective” teachers. http://www.ed.gov/blog/2012/02/launching-project-respect/
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The privatizers just don’t claim that
TFA teachers are as good as
veteran teachers… nay, they claim
that TFA teachers are BETTER than
teachers with decades of experience.
Check out Billionaire Boys Club
member Eli Broad (a die-hard
John Deasy supporter) on a program
at NBC’s local Los Angeles news:
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/video/#!/on-air/as-seen-on/NewsConference-EXTRA–Eli-Broad–We-Should-Have-Done-More/274187301
Here’s the interchange:
(approx. times… 02:30 – 03:36
CAPITALS are mine)
——————————————————–
CONAN NOLAN: “- Have you lost your
enthusiasm for the Teach for America
program? I know your foundation has
provided money for this effort
to take college kids- ”
ELI BROAD: “-mm-hmm-”
CONAN NOLAN: “- and have them
commit two years,frequently to a low
income school … uhhh… is that… ?
Is that good for education?”
ELI BROAD: “I think it’s great for
education. We’ve been involved with
Teach for America for fourteen years.
They get the best students out of
liberal arts colleges to go into
teaching for at least two years, and
then most of them stay on in education
in one way or another.”
CONAN NOLAN: “Some have
suggested that the… the period for
training prior to going into a classroom
isn’t extensive enough for those
young students or young
graduates who end up in… the…
Members of various teachers
unions call it “Teach for Awhile”, not
“Teach for America”.
ELI BROAD: “Well, you know THESE
TEACH FOR AMERICA TEACHERS
DO BETTER—especially in teaching
Math and other subjects—THAN
VETERAN TEACHERS, and yes, they
can improve the way they train their
teachers, and they’re doing that.”
———————————————
He didn’t say “some” TFA’s were
better than “some” veterans… it was
a blanket claim.
This is such a blatant falsehood.
It’s the “big lie”… if you repeat it often
enough, and for a long enough period
of time, people figure, “Well, it MUST
be true.”
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“
TeachJello for America (TJFA)”TFA has got some gall
Nailing jello to the wall
Claiming that their staff will stick
Even though it’s just a trick
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According to Wendy Kopp herself, TFA is not about supplying well-trained teachers to needy classrooms around the country; it is a training academy for “leaders,” aka school privatization cadre. A quick look at the TFA alums promoted to the public demonstrates this quite clearly.
From that perspective, TFA has been all too successful.
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And of course, unless you want your pasta al dente, none of it should stick if it’s ready.
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not sure how that translates, but it crossed my mind. Maybe it means no teacher will want to stick it out in a situation that is not good for children.
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Here’s a solution. Have major universities offer 4 year teaching scholarships to education majors in states where their is an urban teacher shortage. The scholarships can be supplemented by the USDOE. In exchange, the scholarship recipients must teach in the state in an assigned urban district for 4 years or pay back the scholarship. No TFA needed.
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At AlwaysLearning – i don’t know where there is a true shortage of teachers. Teacher shortages is propagandized by the reformers so TFA can save the day. I know qualified, certified, credentialed teachers who would work in Newark, and Newark won’t hire them — sending a reply to applications that they don’t have the qualifications Newark is looking for, when the truth is Newark is looking for TFA.
So, if certified, credentialed, Highly Qualified TEACHERS can’t get jobs in the urban districts that are the very districts a scholarship would place the into, such a program would be useless. AND, such programs DO exist, and still, even if said districts promise jobs to said graduates, they still part the Red Sea to hire TFA, because TFA strong-arms the districts into it. It is always a tit for tat with TFA, and TFA’s power is great, as is the people TFA surrounds itself with, to donate, to lobby, to make back-door deals, and to break laws, rules, regulations, and create new, TFA-friendly legislation at the expense of teachers who want to be teachers.
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Donna,
No strong arming is necessary in Newark. Anderson is a TFAer.
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Giggles.
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AlwaysLearning.
Long time ago there was a teacher shortage in my home state. State offered four year scholarships to teacher candidates at no cost if you taught in the state for every year you had a scholarship. But 5% interest from start date of the scholarship if you did not follow-up.
This deal helped to made my undergraduate education possible.
The TFA-ers and tech industry is counting on massive retirements in the net decade–baby boom aging out and the distain for teachers in federal and state policies opening up the job market.
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They are getting their mass retirements.
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Oh, I see Cami’s bloodied forehead photo several times a week on one of downtown Newark’s side streets. Her actions are criminal. All of these Rheeformers should be prosecuted; instead, when the do finally step down, they are rewarded with other government positions, or profitable non-profit jobs, or consult, or….. but they should be tried, found guilty, and have to do hard labor for their crimes.
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By the way, I abhor TFA. It has helped create the problem, and sends an endless supply to Wendy’s husband’s charter chain, KIPP. It perpetuates the problem. When did you ever see employees at non-profits racking in the salaries that Wendy got for years? It has been, indeed, a conspiracy against pubic education, with the elites holding the play book, and playing the rest of us like a fiddle.
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College Board is also a “non-profit” and David Coleman makes over a half million per year salary.
The previous head made over a million per year.
And the College Board continues to rake in millions of dollars in ‘non-profits” year after year.
Only in a America could non-profits be so profitable.
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I believe Coleman makes $750,000 a year at College Board
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The usual suspects are museums, performing arts centers, hospitals and medical associations, etc.
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Watch TFA invade preschool next….coming soon to a city near you. Here’s hoping Seattle does not become the poster child with the 2 competing universal pre-K proposals set out for voters. One has the backing of Bill Gates, the charter lovers, the TFA sycophants, etc. That one pays preschool teachers (like the unqualified TFA-ers) $30K a year, while admins will make $100K. 1 admin per 50 kids, prescribed curriculum, assessment heaven.
The other was proposed by the unions. Qualified teachers, better pay, no TFA.
2 guesses which one the Seattle Times endorses! (Hint: same one as ed deformer Mayor Murray (D) supports!)
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