Gary Rubinstein was part of the earliest cohorts of Teach for America. He became friends with many of the pioneers of TFA and the charter movement. Many years later, he became disillusioned and became a friendly critic. Over time, his criticism became sharper as he realized that TFA and the charter leaders were making unsupportable claims. He is now an experienced math teacher at one of New York City’s selective high schools. When he learned that the applications for TFA were steadily declining, he thought hard about how TFA lost its luster.
What happened? Certainly it was not financial woes. It has an operating budget of $300 million. Its CEO is paid $450,000 a year.
Rubinstein attributes the declining attraction of TFA to three factors:
- Failure to properly train corps members.
- Ineffective leadership.
- Alliance with teacher-bashing reformers.
The root cause of these factors is, he says, ”arrogance.” TFA never saw a need to improve their training. They made audacious claims about their success. They believed their own press releases. They kept raking in millions every year from foundations, corporations, and the federal government. It didn’t matter that there was no there there.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Best outcome- TFA credential, the kiss of death for employment in school administrative positions.
Also many TFA recruits are told that they must enroll in “graduate school” in the evenings and teach during the day. But at least in NY the graduate call is typically Relay Graduate School of Education, which has been the subject of intense criticism for years, and imo teaches “skills”best used in a no excuses charter model, not in a school that values the whole child.
clearly said: NOT in a school that values the whole child
The lack of training has, over time, led to lots of bad word of mouth. Almost every second hand story I’ve heard goes something like “I knew someone who did that and they had a terrible experience.”
In my limited experience with TFA “teachers”, I found that their training included a disparaging of public school teachers and a push to enter administration as quickly as possible…in order to have the power to transform teachers and education as a whole. They were encouraged to run for seats on local school boards, as a stepping stone to higher office…in order to have even more power to transform teachers and education as a whole. Their confidence had no bounds. This confidence was not earned.
We’ve known this for some time. As an example, see 2012 “Has Teach for America Betrayed Its Mission?”:
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2012-08-16-sns-rt-us-usa-education-teachforamericabre87f05o-20120815-story.html
(Do you recall the relationship between TFA and KIPP?)
From a retired public school teacher
That, say, a TFA Chemistry major would teach a 1st grader to read is educational malpractice.
—And that was TFA’s MISSION?
Quick survey: have ANY of us on Diane’s blog been taught by a TFAer? Any of our children? Grandchildren? If so, is that teacher still teaching?
Not a single TFAer I know—and have taught in 3 schools that had ‘em—has remained a teacher. Non-profit Land, lawyer & ‘fellow’ seem to be the subsequent job placements of choice
Years ago, I hired a young man who had done a couple years as a TFA teacher of poor kids in rural North Carolina, where he started a chess club, with great success. He was a fine editor for me, went on to be an education and science reporter for NPR, and is now a superb, innovative, inspiring high-school English teacher. A good guy, who is a friend of mine to this day. So, even in this bunch, there are some good ones.
Hey, guys, I have a great idea for supplying teachers:
Let’s recruit a bunch of people barely out of their teens,
you know, ones who know next to nothing and have zero experience.
Then, let’s give them a few weeks of training.
That will be so much better than using experienced professionals. They will look so cute in the photo-ops!
And it will be a win-win. They get some “service” to put on their resumes before going into their careers in investment banking and working as junior consultants for McKinsey.
Working in Philly- that used to have a large # of TFAs when I was in the classroom, and looking at the low numbers now as a teacher coach. I realize, we’ve only substituted TFA for emergency cert people who have even less experience on Day 1 than the TFA’ers did bc they at least had the 6 weeks summer school experience and are getting SOME type (not quantifying it) of support and education while in their programs. 6 in one hand, half a dozen in the other.
Events like this should help TFA reverse its decline.
Omigod.