John Merrow recently offered advice to those considering joining Teach for America, and retired teacher and active blogger G.F. Brandenburg decided to offer his own advice.
Brandenburg links to Merrow’s post.
Brandenburg’s advice can be summarized in a word: Don’t.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Great advice. Someone who really puts it down in simple terms exactly what the situation is. No one becomes a professional in 5 weeks. You cannot even become a good dishwasher in that time. There is a reason that college is 4 years as is apprenticeship in a trade. It takes that long to just begin to become competent in that field. What makes TFA so special that they can do what no one else in the world can?
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No one can become a good educator in 5 weeks. That’s clear. The real problem is, our 4-year institutions aren’t doing any better in preparing our nation’s teachers. TFA wouldn’t get traction if traditional pathways produced teachers that were demonstrably better. But all the research indicates that TFA teachers do as well (and slightly better in mathematics) than traditionally prepared educators. Anecdotally, having sat on hiring committees, it’s clear that TFA candidates are, on average, much better equipped to enter the classroom than other applicants.
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Citations please. You’re not allowed to make such inane statements as “all the research indicates that TFAers do as well”. Without citing the studies yours is just an opinion and a piss poor one at that.
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Mathematica 2004, for one. No need to be vulgar. We are entitled to differing opinions and still respect each other as educators and professionals.
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These are usually the “studies” put out by Wendy that are never peer reviewed and get passed along in TFA circles. Usually, they are bogus and there are other studies that don’t promote the TFA myth.
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No one is a fantastic teacher their first few years, no matter what the pundits say, so, I suppose that traditionally prepared teachers may be similar to TFAers. The difference? Traditionally prepared teachers are much more likely to remain in the field than TFA. And therefore, will grow more with time. I was prepared traditionally, and I struggled my first couple of years. But I’m in my 11th year teaching now, and I’m much better. I didn’t use teaching as a road to the law firm or whatever.
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“it’s clear that TFA candidates are, on average, much better equipped to enter the classroom than other applicants.”
What?
Not in my experience.
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Drew,
Hang around long enough here and you will see that I can be quite crude and vulgar, and quite frankly “I don’t give a damn” about being professional. Most teachers being “professional” is what has gotten us into this mess because they haven’t been forceful enough in speaking out against all the educational malpractices that have been foisted upon us. And those, like yourself, who spout the deformers’ inanities and platitudes will continue to get all the bile I can spit their way.
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Duane: I’m sorry that your life is such that you cannot but help express yourself in immature, inarticulate and offensive ways. You do your own opinions a disservice by communicating them in the fashion of an angry teenager.
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Fine platitude, so so sorry I don’t live up to your high level of being. Sometimes it’s good to listen to “angry teenagers” instead of self serving compromised adults.
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Assertions made from anger are infrequently better than assertions made from dispassionate, well-reasoned thought.
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As an educator, I agree with Diane. But here is another side to this.
I recently had a conversation with a well respected friend whose daughter is about to graduate from a major California university…but cannot find a job. Her parents are urging her to enroll in TFA in order to pad her resume and to give the economy time to recover. When I explained the disadvantages both to this graduate and to her prospective students, the mother did not budge. The answer seems to be, and understandably, that the country is in such bad straits that graduates must do something that can help THEM in the future. The disregard for the damage to inner students seems to totally escape these parents.
This student is an arts major and will not become a lifelong educator. The family is in huge debt for her govt. tuition loans, and these will double by summer due to sequester, from about 3.6% to over 6.5%.
It is a huge conundrum as to what highly educated grads can do with their expensive educations which left them with lifetime debt. My niece who recently passed the California Bar Exam on her first try could not find a job and finally took a free internship with a big law firm which has the power to use her free work and then fire her. This is not an anomaly, but many areas of the business world are using this same tactic to cut their expenses and get top notch free workers. These arrangements are taking such advantage of dedicated students, and their parents..
So, We the People, the end of the Middle Class, get the proverbial shaft from all sides. Our entire system has failed us and must be changed. The Electoral College must go, and the filibuster, and lowest taxes for the super rich, and special rules for corporations, and insider trading for Congress people, and SS top at $109,000, and we must have public banks, and, and, ….you get my point.
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Anything that will stimulate the economy, right? Like Jerry Brown’s tax policy.
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“The Electoral College must go”
And yet it won’t. Time for Plan B.
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I think there is something wrong with our current party system. The politicians don’ t really serve the American people. They seem to be controlled by the super rich as seen on this blog. The regular people out here seem to be an after thought.
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A great place for that college grad with no job is the Peace Corps instead of TFA. It will also look good on a resume, it will help the world in places that need help and it may just change their life. They won’t make a bunch of money, but they will have health insurance.
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Teach For America: A Review of the Evidence
Julian Vasquez Heilig
Policymakers and stakeholders should consider TFA teachers for what they are—a slightly better alternative when the hiring pool is comprised primarily of uncertified and emergency teachers—and continue to consider a broad range of solutions to reshape our educational system of education to ensure that all students are completing school with the education they need to be successful. While the debate continues on the effectiveness of TFA teachers, there is no debate over the high attrition rate of the corps. If educational leaders plan to use TFA teachers as the solution to the problem of teacher shortages, they must be prepared to continually lay out taxpayer dollars, and those from other sources, into recurring TFA recruitment and training to ensure a flow of novice teachers as TFA teachers consistently exit in the first few years on the job.
Based on these findings, it is recommended that policymakers and districts:
Support TFA staffing only when the alternative hiring pool consists of uncertified and emergency teachers or substitutes.
Consider the significant recurring costs of TFA, estimated at over $70,000 per recruit, and press for a five-year commitment to improve achievement and reduce re-staffing.
Invest strategically in evidence-based educational reform options that build long-term capacity in schools.
Click to access PB-TeachAmerica-Heilig.pdf
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I’m inclined to agree with Linda’s research citation above. TFA teachers would not be desirable in a context where the other teachers applying for jobs are well trained and prepared. In low-income contexts where TFA operates, this is often not the case. Ergo, TFA teachers are often the best available, even though they have relatively little training and preparation.
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So are you concerned about the number of veteran, qualified teachers who have been displaced in urban environments in favor of TFAers?
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In my district, TFA were used to fill vacancies, not supplant current teachers. Our district is strongly unionized and tenured teachers cannot be displaced, particularly not by less senior teachers. I cannot speak to other districts/states where labor laws differ. It would be worth considering what incentives principals (or other hiring managers) have to oust good teachers when so much emphasis is being placed on student outcomes and accountability. Since many principals jobs are evaluated based on school-wide student achievement, they would likely want to keep as many high-impact teachers as possible.
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Dienne — does the school you send your child to employ “veteran, qualified teachers”?
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Drew,
I can search for the article, but there have been cases in cities where teachers were laid off in the spring /summer and TFA troops marched in the fall and took the jobs of certified teachers. In that case, TFA members are nothing more than scabs.
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Flerper..why is veteran and qualified in quotes? What’s your point? Just make it.
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Linda,
That sounds like a district or city policy failure rather than the fault of TFA or the TFA teachers.
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No it is a way to destroy a profession and save money in the long run. They never stay long enough to earn a pension or need family medical benefits. And when test prep and testing become the new and improved teaching, then TFA temps are just fine.
It’s actually a plan Drew that Wendy doesn’t mind orchestrating or profiting from….because you know, it’s all about the kids and it’s the civil rights movement of our time. Experimenting of poor children is a hobby for some. So the policy failure is a win win for Teach for Wendy’s wallet.
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And in this scenario, what incentive does a city or district have in creating policies that destroy their own future by compromising student achievement? If cities and their families were being parasitized by TFA, why would they continue to pass policies that promote this? And again, this kind of failure should be blamed on the decision makers (who are not TFA or teachers).
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Define student achievement? Just test scores?
Poor TFA…they have no role in the destruction of our profession and the further segregation of the city schools?
Many of these districts are led by Broadies and some are former TFA temps and they all follow the same playbook. TFA, KIPP, Broad/Gates foundation, Stand on Children, Rheefirst…they are incestuous.
Smash and grab…get what you can and feign concern for the poor brown child while blaming all “failures” on the greedy unionized lazy teachers.
Catch up Drew…where have you been?
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Drew said “And in this scenario, what incentive does a city or district have in creating policies that destroy their own future by compromising student achievement? ”
Because elections are held on a 3 year cycle so all decisions are based on the hear and now (especially on who can give a candidate election funding *now*) not what things are going to be like in 15 years time. Politicians who are 50 will be retired when this years school starter graduates college.
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On the “hear” and now…I can’t even. Enjoy your own echo chamber and don’t worry about silly things like grammar or convention. They’re probably inventions of an oppressive elitist class of people willing to work tirelessly for 35k a year and be disparaged for it. I can’t express how discouraging these posts are to a dedicated teacher who came to the profession through an untraditional pathway.
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Drew, I don’t understand your frustration. I admire grammar, syntax, and conventions of language. I practice them in my writing. Why do you think that veteran teachers disparage them? I learned those things from veteran teachers. Didn’t you?
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Dianne, being disparaged by someone who complains of inadequate education and then uses “hear and now” instead of “here and now” in the same breath is disheartening. I hoped to engage in productive dialogue here. I’m not a TFA zealot, and I agree with much of the criticism leveled against the organization I’ve read here today. But as I’ve been generous, in equal measure the respondants have been ungenerous, discounted research that doesn’t confirm their predispositions and simultaneously displayed poor spelling/grammar. I am open to alternative points of view and well-reasoned arguments. By in large what I’ve found today have been conspiracy theories of cities with self-destructive anti-poverty policies coupled with inattentiveness to conventions of English. I’m discouraged at the general level of discourse more than the substance of the argument. My students would know better.
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FLERP! – yes and yes. They are able to attract highly qualified teachers at somewhat reduced salary in exchange for quite a bit of latitude in teaching and a cooperative, supportive teaching environment. I don’t know too much about benefits, but I know the teachers get health coverage.
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I would hope so. Do you know what the salary range is? I still can’t wrap my head around how a private school can charge under $10,000 in tuition, have class sizes of 16, and be able to offer remotely competitive pay. As you can see, it’s made an impression on me;)
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They used TFA in Detroit to work in the EAA and put veteran unionized teachers out of work. There is no shortage of teachers in the state of Michigan. This is why I find Broad to be particularly dispicable. When billioniares go around the country driving people out of work it is pretty disgusting. The EAA is a mess and they are trying to expand it. IT is no solution for education
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I was one displaced. My AP was given a job at a new school with an opening, my job was being cut at my previous school I taught at. I asked her about the position and she told me she was only allowed to hire TFA grads. Now, I’ve been on unemployment since June, and collected more money through that than a TFA makes in a year.
Cheap labor. That’s all. And the government dolled out enough money with my unemployment and their TFA salary, that it would have totaled my previous salary. Go figures…
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Diane and bloggers, If you haven’t seen this article about The Goldwater Institute, please read.
http://www.roguecolumnist.com/rogue_columnist/2013/04/the-goldwater-institute.html
I’m always happy to see The Goldwater Institute exposed for what they really are.
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I wonder why higher institutions of learning even allow TFA on its campuses. How can a college or university encourage its students to seek a profession, in which they are a part, by obtaining training from TFA? It doesn’t make sense.
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If anyone here were a constitutionalist, it would make sense. It’s called life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Next thing you know, college campuses will prevent the military from recruiting on campus and their faculties will refuse to authorize ROTC. Imagine!
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Why did you switch pictures?
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crony capitalism. That’s all it is.
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Perhaps I should have prefaced my comment as tongue in cheek.
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Sorry to miss the irony, Mary Dooms. “I’m so confused” in the audience’s mind.
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My advice: Don’t consider teaching AT ALL, especially if you are in midlife.
I learned it the hard way how bad it can get.
Too late to retrain for something else and too broke to do it.
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What Diane R left out of my summary is this: if you really want to help improve education for the poor and underprivileged, become a real professional teacher by going to education school somewhere, and get student teaching. If you want to teach students secondary math, then do Math for America.
I should have added that you won’t be a decent teacher until after several years of hard work and additional classes and taking the positive and negative feedback from everybody into account – the 10,000 hour rule of considered, careful experimentation and attempts to get better.
It was interesting to read the post on how many highly-educated middle-class upper-tier college grads have enormous student loans they can’t repay, and NO JOBS and no way to get one, even with that fancy degree. So a lot of them apply to programs like TFA out of desperation, and so that they don’t have to take yet another 12-18 months of classes before finding a job. They don’t often last, however.
This is the future that our overloards the Broads, Gateses, Kochs and so on have in store for us. The Jack Welches of GE and other companies have shipped all the industrial jobs overseas, leaving behind industrial, urban waste lands like Detroit — and blaming the teachers.
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You’re right about leaving behind wastelands. They hoard billions, bully people and aren’t remotely ashamed.
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How come the TFA aren’t career ready? A six figure ivy league education to go play camp counselor at Camp Learnalot? Looks like a system failure in their education.
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You always make me laugh. What a shame on their family that they have to slum via TFA to pay their loans while they look for a real job.
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Glad to keep you laughing. I’m sure most TFA are normal college grads. But, Obama, Duncan, and the common corons can say career ready all they want, but without the actual careers to go along with them, there seems to be a bit of a problem.
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In addition to my comments above, I would like to debunk what seems to be a commonly held misconception about grads who join TFA. I graduated an ivy league school with no loans. Not because I was loaded, but precisely because I wasn’t. My family was too poor to pay tuition, I received generous grants and aid and worked my entire college career to pay off the difference. I was lucky enough to have paid my tuition (after grants) by the time I graduated and was a first generation college student. I joined Teach For America because I was so grateful for the opportunity education brought me, well above my predictable social class and opportunities. I wanted to be that awesome teacher for other students similarly disadvantaged. I learned a great deal in my first two years, alongside other novice teachers from traditional and nontraditional programs. We all had valuable experiences to share and all learned from veteran teachers. I do a good job in my classroom (out of TFA, yes. I’m still a teacher, like many in my coprs year) and my colleagues recognize that the more diverse our faculty is the stronger we are as a school. I’ve been about as inside TFA as you can be and I assure you, its full of generally liberal idealists who want to give as many opportunities to our least privileged children as we can. Maybe the effort is misguided, but if that’s so, its certainly not intentionally misguided. Not that I expect you to take me at my word after the hostility I’ve encountered here.
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Don’t take it personally. I’m skeptical of my parents, wife, and children. Any word that comes out of their mouths goes through an extensive rendition and verification process before I even harbor the thought that there might be some truth to it.
I’m glad you stuck with teaching, that is awesome. I’m reading statistics that 10 to 12 percent of Stanford grads apply for TFA. If that interest from smart and driven people translated into career educators somehow, that would be a boost for education in the USA.
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27/21
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Drew,
How many years have you taught now?
Duane
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Drew, it’s good you’re here and open to hearing perspectives outside those shared within TFA. Since you shared your story, I’ll share mine. When I moved to NYC, I had five years experience teaching in Title 1 schools and seven years experience in total. I could not get a job because of a hiring freeze in the district except in schools that were new and adding classes. In prior roles, I’d earned teaching awards and documented evidence of raising student achievement for ELs, some of our most at risk kids. The same Spring I couldn’t find work in NYC urban schools the district kept their agreement to hire TFA and TNTP interns with 5 weeks experience instead of Ivy League grads, like myself, with actual, significant and meaningful experience and expertise . So In addition to data that show TFA teachers don’t outperform peers, especially in their teaching of ELs, I also rely on this personal experience that flies in the face of your argument that TFA staffs “hard-to-fill” positions. I encourage you to continue teaching if it’s a career you love. We need folks committed to growing their expertise and not giving up on the kids for edu-leadership roles. I encourage you to question everything TFA is telling you is the truth, and what KIPP says is the truth and what most media tell you about what is happening in public Ed. Good luck, amigo. Thanks for your work with kids. From one teacher to another.
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Maggie,
My argument was never that TFA corps members were not hired in conditions where other applicants were or could not be. Rather my argument is hiring decisions are policy decisions made by districts, unions and/or municipalities. Motivations behind these decisions are manifold and I’m sure not always honorable. But why blame TFA for these policies? If you don’t like that TFA exists, that makes sense. TFA exists purely as a result of a inadequacy in education. If we develop policies to solve the problem, TFA will lose its raison d’être. Most alumni and staff I’ve met hope that TFA does not exist by the time their newborns graduate from college because that will mean we as a country of teachers, parents, policy makers, and citizens have successfully addressed the achievement gap. Address the cause, not the symptoms.
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Drew, I encourage you to question your understanding of the achievement gap specifically as it relates to growing income inequality. I also encourage you to consider the possibility that TFA, as an org, has many other purposes besides addressing the achievement gap–have you been following the policy decisions championed by TFA alum? TFA is a political body forwarding market-based reforms of public education under the guise that they are interested in improving educational outcomes for historically undeserved kids. They receive both private and government funding to do this. TFA’s lobby fought to prevent Linda Darling-Hammond, presumably our country’s expert on teacher-quality, from becoming our Secretary of Education. Darling-Hammond has been and continues to be critical of TFA’s model of placing interns with 5 weeks training in classrooms populated by kids who need access to master-teachers of language and literacy. Right now, there are teachers and education-leaders who will only post dissenting opinions about TFA and the reform movement anonymously as they fear repercussions. For this reason among others, Diane and Linda are so beloved. I encourage you to continue your exploration of purpose and power inside TFA and the larger reform movement.
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You learned from veteran teachers?? Are they the same veteran teachers that every state is trying to kick to the curb in the year 2013? $$$$$..Hire younger..pay less!!
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Thanks, Maggie. I like the way you expressed yourself. I think we all need to help each other. Those who haven’t been on board this blog for as long as some of us have or those who haven’t experienced what some of us have, probably don’t understand all that has happened and is happening. Before this blog, I didn’t really understand why I was being treated the way I was.
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