A new report by Julian Vasquez Heilig and Su Jin Jez reviews the evidence about the effectiveness of Teach for America.
Their study, published by the National Education Policy Center, “challenges the simplistic but widespread belief that TFA is a clear-cut success story. In fact, Heilig and Jez find that the best evidence shows TFA participants as a group are not meaningfully or consistently improving educational outcomes for the children they have taught.”
They find that:
Teach For America and other organizations have produced studies asserting benefits provided by TFA teachers. Those studies, however, have only rarely undergone peer review – the standard benchmark for quality research, Heilig and Jez observe. In contrast, the available peer reviewed research has produced a decidedly mixed picture. For example, the results attributed to TFA teachers varies both by their experience and certification level. The results also fluctuate depending on the types of teachers to whom the TFA teachers are compared; TFA teachers look relatively good when compared to other inexperienced, poorly trained teachers, but the results are more problematic when they are compared to fully prepared and experienced teachers, Heilig and Jez report.
Because of these differences, the question most frequently asked—Are TFA teachers “as good as” teachers who enter the profession through other routes?—is not the question we should be asking, Heilig and Jez contend. Whether one or the other group is better is “a question that cannot be answered unless we first identify which TFA and non-TFA teachers we’re asking about,” they write.
Even more important, “The lack of a statistically and practically significant impact should indicate to policymakers that TFA is likely not providing a meaningful reduction in disparities in educational outcomes, notwithstanding its explosive growth and popularity in the media,” according to Heilig and Jez. Moreover, despite its rapid growth, TFA remains a tiny fraction of the nation’s teaching corps; for every TFA teacher, there are 50,000 other teachers in the U.S., Heilig and Jez note, and the small numbers and small impact of TFA point to a needed “shift in thinking.”
“We should be trying to dramatically improve the quality of teaching,” write Heilig and Jez. “It is time to shift our focus from a program of mixed impact that, even if the benefits actually matched the rhetoric, would not move the needle on America’s educational quality due to the fact that only 0.002% of all teachers in the United States are Teach For America placements.”
In other words, those who seek long-term, systematic improvement of the teacher force in the United States will not find an answer in Teach for America. Their numbers are few, and not many remain in teaching.
Those who want real change must concentrate on improving the working conditions of teachers so that it is an attractive option for college graduates, and must focus on raising standards for entry into the profession as well as strengthening the quality of professional preparation and support for new teachers.
To return to W. Edwards Deming, the last decade of school reform, shows no interest in what Deming called “constancy of purpose” or in this article: “long-term, systematic improvement of the teacher force in the United States.” We have wasted a decade of school reform time, energy, and money, on one gimmick after another—the illusion of technique. Only individuals who have taught for some time, been an administrator for some time, and studied schools for some time, could understand the distinction between a gimmick and systematic improvement. You can’t even hold a decent policy debate when you find yourself in a debate over whether this gimmick (VAM scores) is better than that gimmick (merit pay). When you attempt to switch the debate to systemic reforms (teacher training, pre-school education. staff development), eyes just glaze over and you end up back to discussing gimmicks.
“We have wasted a decade of school reform time, energy, and money, on one gimmick after another—the illusion of technique.”
I couldn’t agree more. And those ten years represent nearly a whole cohort of students. I would say it is two cohorts of elementary school students. If wasted time where thought about in human terms, perhaps we wouldn’t waste so much of it. Early developmental experiences have a great impact on a person’s subsequent life.
On another note, is is remarkable to me that in every other instance technocrats always want to see ROI. Yet on this topic, ideologues are completely content with ignoring the data or making up their own. As they say, you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but not all of the people all of the time.
All the reforms, TFA, charters, and gimmicks should only help education in America. It should make education look at itself and question the training of teachers, conditions, support, school districts and accountability. Higher learning needs to improve its methods to provide high quality teachers. maybe TFA can work along side professioal teachers and learn. States, towns, and districts need to find ways to improve conditions in imporvished areas. Couple schools with health clinics, adult learning, after school activities, social programs. Accountability needs to be a high priority. Does tenure need to be revamped? How do we continue to protect good teachers, help improve all teachers and remove poor teachers. Instead of just fighting these changes coming down, we should look how to improve the delivery of education. Maybe some of the reforms have merit. What should a charter look like? How does a charter differ in delivery of program to a public school? Trying to keep the status quo is a death sentence for all of us and the children. There will be some difficult answers, but progress demands that.
@ Bill:
Huh?
“Couple schools with health clinics, adult learning, after school activities, social programs.”
Wouldn’t it be great if one could get charter school money to develop something like this and make it a model that could be scaled up to all schools? But you can’t because the impetus behind charter schools is to do education more cheaply first and foremost.
The problem isn’t with teachers, understand? There is such a massive glut of people flooding the field, there is NO problem with finding teachers.
The hiring process, however, needs to be completely revamped so that districts no longer engage in cronyism and nepotism in hiring. That is rampant in the field.
Wendy Kopp: “there was a front page article in Fortune Magazine saying that corporate America was going to take on education reform. So, there were so many elements that made the timing for this perfect. The other things is, I say this all the time, my greatest asset was my inexperience, my complete naïveté. I was convinced that this both had to happen and could happen, that it had to start on a significant scale right from the start and really, no one was going to talk me out of this, like people would tell me how crazy this was and I would just not really hear it, and I think that was truly one of my biggest assets. The other thing is that I think this particular idea was one that just very quickly magnetized just thousands of people, really, who really identified with the values on which it was built and just thought it made sense, you know, from college students who did in fact, you know, 2500 recent college graduates, you know, in four months responded to a grassroots recruitment campaign which at the time was flyers under doors, you know? The folks in corporate America who were quoted in that article actually came through with seed grants and ultimately with significant support, so, you know, in the first year alone, corporations and foundations donated $2.5 million to make it possible, and there was tremendous support in the education community as well…”
Uh-huh.
Every youth generation wants to make a difference concerning the problems and social issues of their time. But talk about naivete! Corporations exist to make profits for their shareholders. One has to ask oneself – “when many corporations get together to ‘take on’ the system of educating children a “sacred” task that has traditionally been held by communities, religious groups and families, cui bono?” As a public policy student, she should have realized (or at least gotten the picture by now) that any diverse coalition will have divergent interests. Who will co-opt whom? It doesn’t take too much imagination to guess that those groups with the most money and political influence will have more influence.
This has always been a corporate agenda…and one that was rather pathetically inspired by the angst of the white upper-middle class.
This raises a historical question. Was there truly a shortage of qualified teachers when TFA was founded? If so, was it only limited to certain areas…the same kind of areas that have difficulty attracting other kinds of professionals? In short, was TFA a “solution” to a misunderstood or misstated “problem”?
Why is there an assumption there is a “problem” with the “quality” of the teaching profession? That is a LIE.
One of the big problems in education is the persistent use of nepotism in hiring. If you want to curb that unfairness, which is rampant in the field, put public schools under a civil service system.
There are some great schools and teachers out there. You are right though, nepotism and cronyism has hurt the system. Political fighting, power struggles, nepotism, cronyism has hurt many school districts throughout the country. Unions are there to protect teachers rights and improve conditions but sometimes is resistent to change. Throughout the country big business is trying to destroy workers rights and benefits, the teaching field is no different. The teaching system, contracts, pensions, school day and year are old ways of doing things and hasn’t changed in years. How can the system be changed and still protect teachers rights, retirement programs, teaching conditions, student learning? Big business and reformers see the changes in charters, vouchers, e-schools, and TFA. What else has been offered except complaining.
Reblogged this on Transparent Christina.
I read an article about a Harvard grad who joined TFA. She admitted that when she joined she was turning her nose up at veteran teachers, thinking they were the problem and she would do a better job because of her background, education and intelligence. 2 weeks into teaching she found herself desperately seeking advice from the people she had been so critical of. She realized, the problem wasn’t the experienced teachers. The problem had multiple layers and that she had been very naive. We were all naive at 22 and these young people are being taken advantage of. Anyone that tells them they can learn to be a teacher in five weeks is also naive or not in touch with reality – or perhaps has a different agenda than what they proclaim.
Teach For America (TFA): Caught Red Handed for Inaproprate Sexual Misconduct
http://teachforamericacrime.wordpress.com/
When will our local, state, and federal representative put an end to this organization that is dismantling America.
I have a first hand experiene on this. Deasy the Eli Broad trained supt. of Los Angeles Unified School District was a teach for America man. He taught at most 2 years and we don’t know that for sure. Whatever, when he came here he began and still does, charging into classrooms and criticizing the teachers etc. One substitiue was fired on the spot for not being creative enough. Now anyone who has ever been a substitiute knows , particularly in Elementary school that creative activities require a certain bonding and looser from of discipline that more structured activities. If you are there for the first time you will probably, if you have any sense, stick to the structured lesson plan given to you by the teacher. I know for a fact that’s a given in LAUSD, you follow the teachers plan. Of course since he never was a sub he didn’t know the horrors of letting a class loose on a creative lesson when you have little or no control. As a qualified and experienced sub I can tell you there is no more desperate feeding. Hold the reins tight until you get to know thme and establish rapport. He didn’t know this, having never taught long enough and so fired her on the spot. Much to the dismay of other teachers. He also used to target classrooms of teachers who were heavily involved in the Union. Go figure.
Julie: the substitute teacher that Superintendent Deasy fired was Ms. Patrena Shankling.
He sat in on her classroom for some ten or so minutes then became disruptive because she wasn’t being ‘creative’ enough. Turns out she was following—as she was expected and required to—the lesson plan left for her by the regular teacher. She was well liked at the school where she was subbing. Hence, she was fired for doing her job.
Any wonder why I call the leading charterites/privatizers “edubullies”?
For the specific incident and a video of Ms. Shankling, please click on the following links:
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlIuF1em_Y0
Link: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/apr/14/local/la-me-0414-banks-20120414
Link: http://4lakidsnews.blogspot.com/2013/11/patrena-shankling-substitute-teacher-dr.html
Thank you for your comments.
😎
@ Jule:
To put it succinctly and bluntly, John Deasy is a fraud. An expensive one.