Gary Rubinstein has a brilliant idea to make TFA teachers better. His big complaint about TFA is that the organization doesn’t prepare its teachers for a real classroom. They get five weeks of training in the summer, practice teaching for only a few hours in front of small classes, and then take on large classes in poor schools where they confront class management issues that they can’t handle.
Spoiler alert: Gary says they should start their training the day after they graduate college, working as subs in real schools. A simple but smart idea. Will Wendy listen?
TFA now says that it is really not so much about training teachers (which it does for only five weeks, not enough, as Gary says), but about training leaders. Who are TFA’s most prominent leaders? Michelle Rhee, Kevin Huffman, John White. All three are actively working to promote vouchers, charters, and privatization. More leaders like them and public education in the U.S. will be ruined.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Prediction: TFA will not listen. Like any organization, they are focused on self-sustaining and growth.
Would she lose her finder’s fee? Since the original mission was abandoned a long time ago, I don’t think she really cares about teachers in the classroom. Why not skip it all together and just start a new organization, one that wants to destroy public schools, abolish teachers’ unions and privatize. DFA…destroy for America. At least be honest.
How about PFA? Privatize for America.
SFY….swindle for yourself.
I’m a big fan of Gary’s, but given TFA’s real purpose – to enrich itself and its leaders while identifying, grooming and promoting leadership cadre for the hostile takeover of the public schools – the best way to improve it is to drive a stake through its heart.
My problem with this is that there are so many teachers who have lost their jobs to TFA that many have started subing, especially in large urban areas. This would just be another kick when their down, because TFA would start taking their subing days.
Thank you, kb! And not only the subbing days (and my minuscule paycheck), but the JOB THAT I WANT! That I’m qualified for! That I intend to stay in for more than 2 years!
I mean, I understand Gary’s idea, and I know that subbing has made me a better teacher, but, but, but…gah!
Thank goodness my district doesn’t employ TfA. It would be very hard for me to maintain my professionalism if I was subbing for one-I could do it, but my head would explode and I would probably “forget” to leave my card.
Is this really the latest TFA mission statement? If so, it confirms what I and many others have thought about TFA for a long time: that it operates in a Scientology, cult-like way. Most are thrown into impossible situations with inadequate preparation as part of the lower levels of the pyramid scheme. Some survive to go one teaching, having gotten some valuable experience and reinforced their dedication to classroom education.
Many, though, leave quickly. Most, probably scared out, frustrated, or having never really intended to go into teaching anyway-just fulfilling an obligation.
“TFA now says that it is really not so much about training teachers (which it does for only five weeks, not enough, as Gary says), but about training leaders” says it all, though. Now we need to name the names and make the connections between who cherry picks the “leaders to be”, puts them on a cosmetic, no-accountability path to ruining the lives of others that takes them through classrooms first-where they get a chance to ruin young minds.
In Louisiana retired teachers can no longer substitute without forfeiting benefits. Anyone who believes there is ANYplace for TFA is still not with the program. New Teacher Project and New Schools For New Orleans make their cut and the TFA organization is accumulating wealth in their contracts with states. Louisiana pays a minimum of $1million a year just to contract for TFA as an employment agency – per instructor “training” costs are also paid separately is the state teacher pay supplement – all with taxpayer dollars.
By the way, if you haven’t seen Oprah channel – OWN – new series “Blackboard Wars” an unreality series filmed at a New Orleans charter, you must. After much fear and trepidation at the idea of its filming it is turning out to be an exposé of the disaster that many of these charters have brought to N.O. Several of the teachers featured are TFA although they don’t make that clear to an unknowing public audience. The filming of these students’ lives is a travesty a even filming the actual delivery room scene of one young student. The first episode featured a “teacher?” Yelling at her students in barely recognizable dialect with her boobs hanging out all over the place. I am SURE the filmmakers caught on and did not attempt to cover over the truth of what is taking place there. Steve Barr and his principal are acting their parts for their own personal aggrandizement! It will ultimately result in a black eye and I hope a lawsuit for the RSD to allow this.
TFA has been quoted here to the effect that they consider their organization a kind of 21st century Peace Corps – that they offer high end, intellectual grads a service alternative to the military. Has any member of the military _ever_ risen to leadership except through promotion step by step through the standard chain of command? (At least since the Civil War ?)
When have “high-end, intellectual grads” ever needed an alternative to the military?
Since they couldn’t get their dream job right out of college or get into the law school of choice. It’s called padding your résumé. It’s called “all about me”. For most of them, not all.
Just in case anyone is looking for a quote, Wendy Kopp has said one could look at “Teach for America’s core mission, by evaluating whether we are producing more leaders who believe educational inequity is a solvable problem, who have a deep understanding of the causes and solutions, and who are taking steps to address it in fundamental and lasting ways.” (Amanda M. Fairbanks, “Gauging the Dedication of Teacher Corps Grads,” New York Times, January 3, 2010) As Gary has pointed out, this is the 2nd redefinition of the TFA mission. It is mission creep that is positively creepy.
Diane, Gary’s idea is one of the most sensible suggestions/critiques of TFA. Bravo, Gary!
I am a TFA alum who has remained in an urban public high school classroom for the past 6 years. While I concede that my TFA training was condensed and did not mirror the reality I encountered on my first day of teaching, I continually wonder: What university prepares teachers for the realities found in our urban public high schools? Many of my friends and family members (including my husband) have taken the traditional route to becoming a classroom teacher. Their student teaching experiences in suburban schools were no preparation for the challenges that exist in most of our inner-city schools. During my TFA years, my traditionally-trained colleagues and I were equally challenged by the struggles of being first-year teachers. I found myself at somewhat of an advantage, however, because of the TFA support network which surrounded me. Of course, this is just my personal experience.
My intention here is not to wave a TFA banner, but to point out that the question of teacher preparedness extends far beyond TFA. Are colleges and universities doing their part to prepare young teachers for real classrooms?
I don’t know about everyone else but I can tell you about my Iexperience. I spent a whole year student teaching. One semester was in one grade and the following was in a higher grade. Both semesters I had a cooperating teacher who helped me at every step. I spent all day in the classroom. I had to go to all the faculty meetings, all the grade level meetings, back to school night, parent teacher conferences or PTA meetings. I was exoected to prepare all of the lessons. I had to prepare my own lessons write my own lesson plans with all the objectives, standards and focus of the lesson. At the same time that I was doing my student teaching I had to take classes at night and all day Saturday for the year that were required for a Teaching Credential. Was I Prepared for my first year of teaching? probably not, but I was more prepared than Teach For America Teachers.
I should say this is omly a fraction of my training.
I went through an alternative certification program, one that pre-dates TFA. It also provided a summer’s worth of pre-service training. NOT ENOUGH. It is not only unfair to the students, but to the TFA members who, despite what you may read, are for the most part diligent and want to do the right thing. They are not, however, adequately prepared.
If we were serious about this, we’d have a TFA program where the members were apprentices at a school for a year, making some salary by subbing for teachers (after a while), but also having mentors and taking some classes that helped them improve themselves as teachers. Yes, that would require a different funding model, but one problem is that TFA has grown up around its funding model — finder’s fees for the organization, full-salary (+ AmericCorps grant) for the TFAers and fund-raising of a sort we have never seen before in education.
It is a farce.
Longer training periods cost money. If someone else won’t foot the bill, they wouldn’t do it.
Interesting TFA’s approach to teacher “training” (vs. education). Could you imagine going to a dentist, doctor, lawyer, accountant, librarian, psychotherapist who only had 5 weeks training? How much credibility would an anthropologist, a neurologist, a historian or any other profession have if they had only 5 weeks of training? And yet we turn over our most precious resource, the foundation of our future, our children to these undereducated TFA folks, who may or may not produce students who can reach for any of the professions listed above (and many more). I’m sure this has all been said before AND obviously needs to be said many thousands times more since TFA is still around and their “experts” are being listened to.
If anything, teacher education should include, like internships for doctors, more time in the classroom during their internship phase. In working on APPR committees in two different districts, we’ve drawn on the research that more teachers stay in the profession if they are given mentors during their first years who meet with them on a regular basis.
There is the art AND science of teaching. Volumes have been written on these topics.
Researchers have spent decades studying the human brain and how it responds to new information, how it makes meaning, synthesizes that information to make new meaning, and then applies it to real life situations. Five weeks training might prepare one for how to fill out the forms teachers are now required to complete, but five weeks will not make anyone an educator.
“And yet we turn over our most precious resource, the foundation of our future, our children”
No, children are not “resources”. That thought is absurd and makes those of a young age to be the “means” to be used and not the “end” to which we should be interacting with.
I remember back in the 80’s when personnel departments became “human resource” departments. I was appalled then and I am especially appalled that that language has so permeated our language that we don’t think twice about making such inane statements.
I do though agree with the overall gist of your post, especially an internship.that ideally would be a paid position.
They put TFA people in the ROUGHEST schools in Detroit that were taken over by the state. I can’t believe they would put unprepared kids in that situation. One of my friends that went to work there told me that the TFA wouldn’t come out in the hallways to help during passing time and had no idea what was going on. I wonder what their turnover rate is? A ton of people have left those schools already. I wonder how much cover-up goes on in TFA? These schools have HEAVY gang activity. Only about half of the kids show up daily who are actually on the roster. I’ve heard stories about how bad it is and this is from experienced educators. Can you imagine going into these schools as a barely trained TFA. They fired all of the teachers and brought in a bunch of these kids. I know they have had gang fights since being taken over. There has to be TFA out there who are disillusioned by it all.
Over the past 20+ years, most of the summer school students that TFAers have had their 5 week training with were there because they failed and had to repeat the course. Some cooperating teachers have reported that they were not supposed to intervene when TFAers were teaching then. Talk about at-risk guinea pigs! I have not been able to find any research on the pass rates of those high-risk summer school students. Are others aware of research on that? Or did TFA and their corporate sponsors just not want to go there?
I think a year working as a Paraprofessional would be a much better model for TFA, and for kids, than the current model or the current model plus a month of subbing (in any district?) at the end of the school year.
BTW, I think subbing the last month of school is likely to be rather custodial, since not a whole lot of teaching is often going on then, at least in my experience. It would be like counting babysitting as teaching experience, IMHO.
The school will also be looking for a sub who knows the students, if one is available.
So now charter schools are ruining public education, Diane? I don’t think so. http://credo.stanford.edu/ It’s sad to see the negative effects that teachers unions have had on student academic performance, and Diane’s views on education reform over the years. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CEEQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpiketty.pse.ens.fr%2Ffiles%2FHoxby1996.pdf&ei=CN8zUdFSyK-IAoeKgZAD&usg=AFQjCNENNN6byHhON0r4GYJcWCkSHP-grA&sig2=qji8tDF2Kt0XaRptQlZfkw&bvm=bv.43148975,d.cGE
TFA will never do anything that diminishes the enormous number of applications they receive. Therefore, they will not add additional requirements prior to institute that will cut back on their number and images as a prestigious organization.
Additionally, I do not think they would do anything that would cost the organization more money, such as additional training. After all, this would subtract some big bucks from the CEO’s salary.
Here’s what I wrote on G.R.’s blog:
Well, I actually need certificated, trained, and experienced substitute teachers to substitute for me when I am out. Substitute teachers are teachers, and they perform a valuable job. I read somewhere that American students spend the equivalent of one school year being taught by substitutes. Just think about how maternity leave, sick days, professional development, jury duty, etc., add up over 13 years of schooling. Picking up the pieces after an inexperienced sub means lots of backtracking and reteaching.
I also do not agree that TFA should go into the paraprofessional business either. As a special education teacher, I well understand the value of strong instructional assistants. Poorly trained IAs are not helpful to anyone.
I’d be open to the idea of tutors, mentors, lunch/recess monitor assistants, after school program assistant instructors, classroom volunteers.
This small improvement to TFA is definitely not a complete ‘fix,’ but at least a step in the right direction. I’ve written earlier about a one year residency http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2011/11/22/how-id-fix-tfa/, but I think TFA is very far from making it a 3 year commitment.
I agree that having bad subs isn’t ideal, so I appreciate all the feedback on this.
Gary — I have appreciated your posts ever since I read ‘What happened to my TFA’ a few years ago. I keep on thinking that you are one of those people who might, along with other alums, take control of the TFA message, or at least offer a counter message.
I also appreciate that you throw a lot of ideas out there and are willing to let the bad ones slide down the wall into an undefined ooze if they don’t stick.
This one doesn’t stick.
The residency one might, however, but the way to get TFA to go for it is to apply pressure. Two pronged pressure:
1) TFA still, for some reason that is beyond me, gets AmeriCorps money for its members who are fully-salaried employees.
They should not, but residents should.
2) TFA should not be able to place teachers in non-shortage areas.
Not that that is something you don’t already know, but that is where the idea of TFA got off on the wrong track.
Imagine a military general who had no battlefield experience. How much trust would he have? who are these ‘leaders’ who have no idea what they are talking about.
I’m not necessarily thinking of bad subs, but of uneducated and inexperienced subs. Substitutes in my state have to have the same qualifications as contracted teachers. Even many private schools require that substitutes be certificated. I subbed for a year or so after leaving my first contracted job. Subbing allowed me to explore many schools and programs within my city, and ultimately reaffirmed my desire to teach full time.
My last name is Ford and there are two things I heard incessantly when I was kid —
“Fix Or Repair Daily” and “Ford has a better idea.”
Gary, whose blog I read regularly, has a better idea — a better idea than TFA’s present course, but it is not the right idea. If TFA really wants to make a difference, then the program should be redirected. The first year should not be regular teaching, but an apprentice ship with some education courses thrown in. Student teaching might be one apprenticeship track, working with school social workers might be another and subbing a third. I’m sure others can think of a 4th or 5th or 6th track.
Would TFA go for this? No, it runs against their mantra that talent and dedication are the only things that matter and that their blitzkrieg training is sufficient. Besides, it goes against another selling point — their web-site currently has a quote from someone in the Philadelphia region, “I am a teacher – not a student teacher, not a volunteer worker or a tutor – but a teacher.” The TFA member does not seem to realize that is the problem and neither does TFA.
So what then? TFA models itself on the Peace Corps, but they are not volunteers — annual salary, with be up to $50,000 plus a year.
But despite the fact that they are NOT volunteers, but salaried workers, they do get money from AmeriCorps. Teach For America corps members can receive grants of over $11000 for the two years. This is in addition to their salary. So they often make more than teachers who are trained.
This money can be taken away and it should be. Congressional confirmation of this money is slated for June of this year? Anyone want to write his/her congress person?
You might remind them that City Year members get NO SALARY, only room, board and a small stipend. For City Year members, that $11,000 is the bulk of their compensation.
TFA members — or anyone making over $30,000 a year, should not be getting money that is supposed to go to volunteers.
Tell that to congress.
KOPP, AN ATTITUDE:
As Rachel Levy has pointed out, “Kopp says in her memoir, for example, that she is ‘baffled’ that teachers are required to have professional training as doctors and lawyers are; teacher quality is a matter of talent and leadership.”
See Rachel Levy, “Teach For America: From Service Group to Industry,” All Thing Education blog, 28 May 2011
http://allthingsedu.blogspot.com/2011/05/teach-for-america-from-service-group-to.html
Yet we should be taking an exam that is like the bar.
It’s a shame that no one who is not in the profession can quite agree on what teachers should learn or what they should BE.
Help us, please! (Sarcasm, of course.)
Dear Diane,
I am not so sure that I would agree that Gary Rubinstein’s idea of improving TFA training is excellent. I would say it is far from adequate.
I am currently retired after teaching in Glenview, Illinois for 34 years. In the early 90’s our district was invited to create a clinical model school by the Illinois Department of Education. The idea was to develop a more comprehensive and effective method for inducting students into the profession.
Candidates applying for the program needed to have a BA, with preferably several years of post graduate employment. The program was modeled on the medical profession’s training. First year interns were placed with master teachers in three different classrooms at three different levels. During this first year, they functioned much as a traditional student teacher under the direct supervision of their mentor teachers. University classes were taken at night and on weekends.
The second and third years these interns became residents and were assigned their own classrooms, but still connected to a mentor teacher at their same grade level. This mentor counseled them through their first opening of the school year, their ongoing planning, their first teacher conferences, report cards, and closing of the school year.
At the end of two years, they received their master’s degree in education and also had two years of teaching experience. I’m sure many would say that this is too time consuming and expensive a process, but until we decide that teaching is a serious profession that demands long-term commitment, we will not produce the skilled teachers that are needed to address the needs of our children.
We currently have a system that invites anyone with a college degree and a pulse to be a teacher. So how do we think that’s going? It invites exactly the kind of contempt that we are receiving at the hands of hedge fund managers and other “reformy” know-it-alls.
Full disclosure. The above clinical model school was finally phased out of the district when the administrators and teachers who were so invested in it retired, and as new school board members were elected. That’s the other major challenge. Even when an effective system is developed, it is terrifically difficult to replicate and to sustain because the societal commitment is not there.
Sorry to go on so long, but I thought you might be interested to know that such a program was actually up and running nearly twenty years ago.
Georgia Gebhardt
Wilmette, IL