When asked about Teach for America, I always answer that the recruits are terrific, very smart, very idealistic, but the organization is greedy, self-serving, and power-hungry. This commenter disagrees. He/she thinks that the recruits should know better. She/he thinks that if they are smart, they should know they are being used by an organization that is using them to build its power base, and they should know that they can’t overcome poverty by serving for two years in a hard-pressed district or by taking a job away from an experienced teacher.
Says the commenter:
I’m tired of people saying “well the kids who do TFA are alright it’s the organization that’s the problem.”
It’s not true. Without recruits, there would be no TFA. I consciously decided not to join the organization because I recognized that teaching without experience was a disservice and injustice to our nation’s underserved youth. Without members there can be no organization. There is no excuse for supporting an organization that exacerbates injustice and for being an uninformed member of the TFA corps.
And not all of its members are so idealistic. Most people I know joined it for a blip on their resume, because they needed a boost for law school. Using underserved youth to get into law school is not idealistic. It’s borderline imperialistic and absolutley unethical. TFA corps members have college degrees. They should know better.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Lloyd or Dienne, or anyone else who’s available, can we get a Himmler analogy going here?
LikeLike
Nah, but I’d welcome your analogy.
LikeLike
Come on!
LikeLike
For me, a TFA alum who had a MA when he was accepted into the program, the most attractive reason for application was working to curtail injustice. The second reason: no job outlook whatsoever. Now that “intern” has replaced entry level in every field, TFA will only become a more attractive join to smart and idealistic recent grads.
LikeLike
Kids who have experienced privilege and success are prone to support groups with similar attributes. Sorting through the Shysters or honorable groups takes some time and doing.The Shysters are better than ever, especially when endless money, privilege and stop-at-nothing way of life is considered to be a positive attribute and reinforced heavily in our culture. Humanities are for softies and billionaires are for the smartest, brightest movers-n-shakers. Hard to take the high road and opt out of golden opportunities. This is the billionaires’ haven of the United States of America. Even when one has to sacrifice the futures of other people’s children.
Just look around us – examples EVERYWHERE! Even Mother Theresa did not have millions of people jumping into actions to leave their privileged lives.
No excuses for TFAtypes, but the US Billionaires Clubs are good…very good at what they do. Like they say: everybody has their price. We as educators have worked for a higher cause and just don’t get the concept of ignoring our souls and not caring about kids.
I hope we never do! Keep up the Good Fight!
LikeLike
Nice: lacking a rationale to attack commenters on the site, you preemptively create one by putting words into their mouths.
You just revealed far more about yourself than you ever could have about Lloyd and Dienne.
LikeLike
If you mean that I am petty and childish, I have a hard time believing that I haven’t revealed that before.
LikeLike
TFA has an aggressive well organized recruiting practices. My daughter graduated summa cum laude from an honors college. She was contacted by TFA. She called to ask is this was for real, having the sense to know she did not have the skills
or training to be an effective educator.
LikeLike
Blaming TFA, the organization, but not TFA, the teachers, is like saying I love teachers, but not their unions (the Republican position). An organization is its employees or its members. They are inseparable.
LikeLike
Depends on how much understanding and control the members of the organization have over what those at the top are doing. In the case of unions, most were hijacked by people in cahoots with the corporatists like Randi Weingarten. It’s only been recently that some of the smaller unions like the Chicago Teachers Union and now Massachusetts (and a couple others which are escaping me at the moment) have taken back control with any semblance of democracy.
In the case of TFA, the corps members often get sold a bill of goods about how many regular teachers are incompetent, lazy, came from the bottom half of their class, etc. and how they are smart and elite and how their gifts could be used to help children in need and serve the world in a noble way – often compared to the Peace Corps. Sure, some corps members see exactly what TFA is and use it anyway as a stepping stone to their own career. But a lot get caught up in the idealism.
LikeLike
As an NEA member, I haven’t been happy with the position our leadership has taken toward Gates money and all that flows from that. But our organization is also democratic, so I fight from within. I’m on our state’s executive board, and I’ll be attending the NEA delegate assembly this year. Ultimately, the leadership represents its members, and the members are increasingly making their positions clear, so the leadership is responding. That is more than I can say for our political leaders in DC.
LikeLike
Yes, TFAers have great intentions.
One of our recent “bright young things” intended to get himself into Harvard.
Three years later, countless hours of veteran teachers time and district money for training, support, and endless apple polishing on his part and mission accomplished!
LikeLike
One of ours told me today that he will be backpacking in Europe for two months before beginning law school. All three of them were very up front about doing just the minimum, The fourth one never came back for his second year.
LikeLike
But they are the “best and brightest”
Yeah, right.
LikeLike
One of our TFA people ( 2 whole years, plum assignment at a Recognized middle school that had no need for TFA) just bought a school board position, after being the lackey of our Broad superintendent here in Dallas. He was literally moved by the power that be, into a paid for apartment in the area that he was running, 6 months before he ran. He is now on the board and pushing for charters and “home rule” ( elimination of teacher salary scales amongst the “perks” of this) which is being pushed by John Arnold, the Enron pension buster and a bunch of-wait for it!-anonymous “concerned citizens”…No they are not all innocents, those grifting TFA-ers.
LikeLike
I fully agree with at the points made in this post. If TFA recruits are the best and the brightest they should know better and see TFA for what it truly is, an arm of the so called venture-philanthrapist who are bent on pushing the false narrative that public schools are terrible and need to be shuttered.
Wake up young, bright, twenty somethings and smell the coffee!
LikeLike
You mean “smell the double decaf, non-fat latte, medium foam, dusted with just the faintest whisper of cinnamon?”
LikeLike
… Or is it “smell the double Cappuccino – half-caf, non-fat milk, with just enough foam to be aesthetically pleasing but not so much that it leaves a moustache?”
LikeLike
Scott,
Having several former baristas in the family, ROFL.
Thanks.
LikeLike
They promise the recruits that they will pay their student loans. The carrot gets them every time.
LikeLike
As a 2014 “Corps Member,” I grappled with my choice to join the organization for a long time. I strongly support the public education system, and I recognize that organizations such as TFA have negative effects on the public system. Nevertheless, from a college senior’s perspective, the challenge in my job search was finding an opportunity that might allow me to help the education movement where it is most needed. I attend one of the top schools in the country, but aside from TFA, there were alarmingly few options that might either prepare one for or work directly in urban education. In general, I think greater action should be taken to clearly prepare future educators for the toughest schools in the country. If what you’re saying is “We can’t have you working in these tough schools immediately, get your butt kicked for awhile, but then learn from this” and also “The alternative options will be unclear, you’ll largely be left on your own, but this is better,” then this seems like a pretty difficult choice in the first place.
LikeLike
If your learning about urban education means that a career educator, probably minority, does not have a job, then I say you think much too highly of yourself and too little about the damage you do. I’m not sure why your not wanting to put in the time to prepare yourself justifies your inflicting yourself on the neediest after five weeks of “training.” Apparently you chose a school with a lousy education department since you did not avail yourself of its training or get your certification. It is certainly easier to let some fly by night organization weasel you in with no training and learn on the job. Now that TFA no longer claims to be providing teachers where there are none, you have no excuse for what you are doing. Don’t pretend there is any nobility in your choice to join TFA. It is about what you want, not about what the schools need.
LikeLike
Whether it’s the organization or the members is a good question. However, I think the scary point is that TFA is their preparing these temporary teachers to become education policy makers, as title one mentioned above. When running for a local Board of Ed or putting their name in for Superintendent or Principal or running for political office based on their education record, they can claim that they were a teacher, and so they know how to fix education. That removes one of our main objections with these education reformers – that they haven’t been educators before so how can they possibly know how to fix education. There’s hundreds, probably thousands of these ex-teaching TFAers that are setting out to write education policy at the local, state, and national level, and it’s not policy that most members of this blog would agree with or like.
LikeLike
I think the objection is that they’re not educators. There’s a difference between teaching for a two/three year stint on your way somewhere else vs. being an educator. Otherwise, we’d have to acknowledge Michelle Rhee as a “teacher”.
LikeLike
Dienne: To us, they may not be teachers. But I think they could convince the locals voting for members of the local Board of Education that they had been an educator. I believe that’s happening already.
LikeLike
I was just wondering if they start to use students’ test scores to rate teachers and then in turn rate the college the teacher came from, are they also going to rate the TFA teacher’s program (5 weeks) based on their students’ test scores? Or should we take it back another step and rate their colleges, even though they didn’t, for the most part, major in education?
LikeLike
I am happy the writer is motivated by altrism, however, similar to the reason why those in poverty engage in crime at higher rates, those looking to catapult their career will not likely be so altruistic.
I am certain most would prefer to be public school teachers as the overall compensation is far preferential. Likely their skill set, experience and/or education level makes them unable to compete.
I don’t think a lecture is going to be sufficient to dissuade these individuals.
LikeLike
I am gobsmacked by your response here…
“similar to the reason why those in poverty engage in crime at higher rates” – what the heck are you talking about here, making a sweeping, grossly offensive generalisation about the poor?
LikeLike
You would think they should know better, but they are 22 years old, not fully developed in the judgment area of the brain and very idealistic. They think they can save the world. Then reality hits. The not only think they can teach without experience, which a few manage to do, but they also think they can teach without training. I mean, it’s illogical and I don’t think they would want heart surgery done by a doctor with only a 5 week boot camp. But the organization insidioiusly pumps them up, foods those little late adolescent egos and cheerleaders them on.
LikeLike
The “save the world” mentality is not limited to naive 22 year olds.
LikeLike
My daughter was one of those idealistic 22 year olds who believed she was doing a good thing no matter how hard I tried to convince her what TFA was all about. After one week of training she began to see some of the things I warned her about and at the end of the training she quit – for the sake of the children she wanted to help. I believe that 22 year olds are still developing intellectually and don’t have the world experiences needed to see through TFA no matter how bright they are. From my experience as a mother and someone who now works with college students it is my feeling that most of them mean well, want to feel they are invincible and will only learn about life after a few hard knocks. None of us want to think that there would be an organization who would achieve financial or any other type of success while hurting young children but unfortunately that is what TFA is. TFA has a very good PR campaign that sucks young adults in, and I can tell you from watching my daughter that the fall that occurs when the reality of what TFA is starts to become evident is tough. Typically TFA recruits are high achievers who aren’t used to failing or realizing they had been sucked in. In my opinion TFA is guilty of abusing corp members and the students they teach.
LikeLike
Indeed, TFA is like a sinister matryoshka doll, with levels of evil nested within each other, and one of its most insidious aspects is how it preys upon the inexperience and credulity of young people.
LikeLike
Your daughter was lucky to have such an astute guide. Sadly, most of the ‘recruits’ lack that insight.
LikeLike
We are told they are the best and the brightest, the future leaders. They are followers not leaders. They have essentially joined a cult where they blindly follow. Leaders think for themselves, they are not told what to say, how to respond, and what to think. They are exactly what you don’t want teaching children. Unimaginative robots for hire. No morals, no individual philosophy, no self respect.
LikeLike
… and all combined with a hefty dose of arrogance and condescension.
LikeLike
I’m always hearing the phrase the “best and the brightest,” too, in describing “reformers” and TFA recruits. The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam is my favorite book on the Vietnam War. It describes how the “best and the brightest” advisors, none of whom ever had to stand for elected office, got us into the war. Since reading that book, I’ll never think of that term in any but a tragic, ironic usage.
LikeLike
the “best and brightest’ only need a C- average bachelors in any subject to get in… not a very high bar to have to pole vault over
LikeLike
Bravo! My exact thoughts, so now I don’t have to think about witty ways to convey them!
LikeLike
Don’t be too presumptuous about what terrific, smart, idealistic graduates know about how TFA operates in the teacher labor market.
In 2007, I knew a pre-med student who attended Amherst College who was thrilled to have an opportunity to teach kids who lived in the Bronx via TFA. The only way she would have known about how TFA functions is if someone suggested she do a little research.
Moreover, was there an alternative path to pursue an interest in teaching with an organization other than TFA? One that goes on campus and recruits because that’s how she hooked up with TFA.
She has moved on from teaching and is now in medical school.
LikeLike
RIght–the kids don’t always know what they’re getting into. One of my former students, a good, thoughtful kid, decided to do TFA about ten years ago. I didn’t talk to him until about a year after he joined up, at which point he had major misgivings about the organization and his own decision to join it. He just didn’t know–and I’m not sure it was quite as obvious ten years ago as it is now. The good news is that he is still teaching!
LikeLike
My experience with TFA recruits is that they are typically very young and very idealistic. I feel sorry for the commentator that most people he knows only joined TFA for a blip on their resume. I pray that he/she joins a different crowd and meet more people from different backgrounds. I bet he/she will find that there are plenty of people who are genuinely trying to make the world a better place and are highly idealistic if not naive. And regarding whether it is the fault of the members or the fault of the organization, I would recommend looking at some of the recent documentaries on the Vatican Church scandals. It is hard not to empathize with people whose faith, dreams and idealism are betrayed because of institutional deceit.
LikeLike
So, if they’re young and idealistic, why don’t they go through the trouble of getting credentials? I did so, as an astronomy and physics major (BS and MS), and found that I actually learned a lot in the graduate school of education. In fact, I would say that what I gained in my understanding of epistemology, cognitive science and philosophy has greatly informed not only my pedagogy (always leaning toward the supportive) but has informed my political ‘worldview’ as well. I certainly don’t regret a minute of those courses that were needed for certification (except, perhaps, “educational statistics’, that sought to teach mathematics without actually doing the math).
TFA kids need to demonstrate the ‘grit’ it takes to actually prepare for the profession.
LikeLike
I find TFA arrogant with that assumption that only TFA-ers go to elite schools. I have met some who went to very ordinary schools. Some of the teachers on my campus went to excellent schools, like me: I went to Cal. Teaching is my second career, but personally that college exp did nada for my teaching, because I did not have an education degree. I don’t see how “Steph” could be more prepared by dint of her supposed stellar background. I did TNTP and they offered the same elitist mindset. Steph your college background is not exceptional. You are not worth more than a trained teacher… Who might have gone to a better school than you btw…
LikeLike
TFA recruits I have run into mostly are trained to look down on the old-time teacher. It is pounded into their that they are from the elite and the older teacher is the problem.
I think this is their general attitude.
Sorry, a good portion of Ivy League grads are rather anti-democratic in their thinking.
LikeLike
This commentator is, I think, more sophisticated than most when it comes to understanding how insidious a force TFA is. I am glad so see his or her views aired here, and I respect them and think they have merit. On the other hand, as a longtime faculty member at a large public university (U. of Massachusetts), I feel compelled to say that the students I’ve had who’ve gone into TFA after graduation are wonderful, creative young people who really see Teach For America as an opportunity to do some good, to humble themselves in the face of large social need, and certainly to learn a lot more about what it takes to be a successful teacher. I feel for them; I’d love having them teach my own kids — allowing for the fact that their appeal as teachers is much more a function of their youth and warmth than of any practical experience in the field beyond a few weeks’ “training.” They are so good that, if they do stick with teaching beyond their one- or two-year TFA commitment, they’ll become an asset in the profession.
None of which is to imply that I admire the way TFA is being used to displace more mature teachers (and unions), or to pretend that the government is taking a strong step toward improving schools in poor districts.
LikeLike
I think you are correct concerning the motives of may who enter TFA. On the other hand, TFA kids should be advised that if they truly want to make an impact, they should spend an extra year or two in graduate school, and then do a bit of supervised student teaching under the watchful eyes of a master.
That TFA teaches these kids that they are ‘elite’ is, already, a very poor platform upon which to build a teaching career. Exceptional education is a dialog, a conversation (given the understanding of the developmental level of the student). If you are ‘elite’, and can’t see yourself in each of your students, you are doomed to failure.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
LikeLike
in Minneapolis, Josh Reimnitz, a former TfAer got elected to the school board after living here for a short while. He campaigned on his ability to understand urban education and claimed that he had raised the test scores of his students.
What he failed to mention was that the Atlanta school where he had taught was part of the Atlanta test cheating scandal, with a phenomenal number of wrong-to-right erasures. His own classroom math scores were 3.88 standard deviations above the norm and reading scores were 6.63 standard deviations above the norm. (scores are reported on p. 117 of the actual Governor’s report http://clatl.com/freshloaf/archives/2011/07/06/atlanta-schools-cheating-investigation-full-report)
LikeLike