Teach for America: Should Cobb invest heavily in the program? (Apparently not)
UPDATE Friday:
Cobb County Superintendent Michael Hinojosa averted a fight over Teach for America, withdrawing, at least for now, his proposal to hire 50 teachers from the program. Read more here.
The Cobb school board decides tonight whether to staff several chronically under achieving schools with newly minted Teach for America teachers. New Cobb school chief Michael Hinojosa wants to hire 50 TFA teachers. (The costs associated with the program itself would be borne by donations but Cobb would pay the actual salaries.)
The well-regarded alternative teacher training program — which attracts applicants by the thousands and can pick the very brightest and most capable college graduates — has both its fans and detractors, as the Cobb board debate reflects.
“They may be elite college grads,” Eagle said last week during a debate over Hinojosa’s proposal. “But knowing the content doesn’t mean you know how to teach.” Eagle said in a later interview that the timing of the proposal was bad for teacher morale, given budgetary pressure to cut teaching positions next year.
But David Morgan, who represents the part of the county where these teachers would wind up working, said the district has to try something new.
I have always been impressed with the TFA teachers I’ve met, and friends who are teachers usually speak warmly of their younger TFA colleagues. There are a lot of studies supporting TFA, but you can also find skeptics who challenge the research.
My own view is that we ought to applaud — and figure out how to replicate — a recruitment program that draws 50,000 applicants for 5,000 spots and that attracts college students with high GPAs and SAT/ACT scores. Complaints that these teachers leave the profession after a few years seem secondary since retention isn’t much better for teachers coming through traditional pathways.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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74 comments Add your comment
Former Gwinnett County Graduate/ 2010 TFA Corps Member
January 28th, 2012
11:27 am
Quite honestly, reading through many of these responses disappoints me. I graduated from the Gwinnett County public school system in 2006 (I was also the student body president at my high school), went on to receive an undergraduate degree in sociology at the University of Michigan, and then planned on working in the corporate sector. After much thought and deliberation, I decided to apply to Teach for America because I was volunteering in Detroit at the time and realized that our education system was going down the drain for too many of our kids. They were denied opportunity and people were not doing enough for these children. I was accepted into Teach for America and ended up coming down to the Mississippi Delta where exists the lowest literacy rates and highest teenage pregnancy rates in the country. Rural poverty is something that I had never seen in all my life.
I acknowledge that I am a very small sample size here, but I can tell you that Teach for America coming into these regions does make a difference. I work 100 hours a week to ensure these kids have the same opportunities I have and I seeing the adult interests, corruption, lack of resources, and inefficiency on the district and state level makes me sick to my stomach. But there is a large percentage of corps members staying for a third year in the Delta public school systems, including myself, and everyone else is either going on to TFA staff, working at charter schools across the country, or going on to graduate school programs to have a bigger impact in trying to provide equal opportunities for our students.
I came into this program not realizing how bad the school systems were. I studied it all day in a classroom and focused most of my undergraduate research on inequity in education from various fronts, but actually being knee-deep in it changed everything. As a first year teacher without a degree in teaching, I did have phenomenal test scores, and no, not everything was perfect (but what first year teacher has a perfect year, really? It is the hardest year of your life). But do I plan on going back for a masters to get more experience for the classroom? Oh you bet. Already applied.
Teach for America works on making sure we get people to various sectors of education. While I will be staying teaching for another year in the Delta, then plan on getting a masters in literacy and educational leadership, and continue to run a million different things for school (I am the school department head, school leadership team member, student council sponsor, advanced extended school day coordinator, book club sponsor, and help kids apply to summer programs because not all parents can read and write), I fully acknowledge that teaching is not for everyone. I want to become a principal, but this is NOT for everyone.But being in a school system that needs major over-haul, I MAJORLY value people who are going to take the time to get their butts out of the classroom, back to a top-three law school or policy school, come back and fix this system. It isn’t working, and it can be fixed, but it is going to take a lot of work and a lot of great people who WANT to take the time to fix it. Although I have NO desire to do law school, I really want people to go so policy can be made that is actually good policy and went through the same obstacles I did. I am tired of people making policy who never actually stepped foot into a classroom.
I value our teachers. Truly. Veteran teachers have given me more advice than one could imagine and they want the same things that TFA does too. But what was happening is places like the Mississippi Delta and even urban areas in our country were being left neglected and ignored. Even when I was a student in Gwinnett, we knew the crappy school in the county. We had jokes about the school. Playing them in sports was just a waste of time, and reading about their test scores became mundane reading.
Unfortunately, there was no reason that school had to be lower performing than ours. No reason. And if you start to blame the social factors, I will just get angry with you. You walk into my classroom for an hour. I would put my kids up against anybody, and they are under the federal poverty line. There are challenges, but nothing is impossible.
As a teacher who is now teaching at a middle school that is the only turn-around middle school in the state of MS, I am sending five of my students to one of the top private academic camps in the country this summer. Just because you are poor doesn’t mean you have to have a crappy education.
Is there a lot that needs to be fixed? Absolutely. Is TFA perfect? Nope. But until you can find something that is better, I will tell you that my friends and I are out here making a difference.
Tony
January 28th, 2012
11:27 am
TFA may bring some really good people into a few classrooms but the approach is only temporary. These people are not going to be teachers. They commit to two years and then walk away. Chronically underachieving schools need something more than short term approaches to solve their long term problems.
TFA targets high achieving students for their program. Imagine if we did the same to attract education majors. Raising the salaries of teachers, recruiting only the most academically prepared for techereducarion programs, and giving credentials to only the best. This is along term way to help solve the problems faced by some of these chronically underperforming schools.
TFA may send a few good people to a school, but they will not hang around very long.
Dr. John Trotter
January 28th, 2012
11:28 am
TFA teachers do not have regular due process rights. The contract is between TFA and the local school boards.
Tonya C.
January 28th, 2012
11:37 am
Good Mom:
If your child is actually in APS, then his or her school does have TFA teachers. That’s a fact you can bank on. In addition, depending on the cluster, the school also have teachers from foreign countries who have ZERO experience in an American classroom. Again, a verifiable fact.
Tonya C.
January 28th, 2012
11:44 am
Former Gwinnett County Graduate/ 2010 TFA Corps Member:
But is what you are doing sustainable? 100 hours a week? How will going back to school for your Masters affect that? I applaud your effort and courage, but can you continue at this pace for the long haul?
This is not meant to be condescending, but honest questions. My husband changed careers to be a teacher. He gives a 150%, but with a wife and children can only give so much. What happens when you get a life?
Non TFA Teach
January 28th, 2012
11:48 am
The problem with TFA is they don’t know the kids. TFA teachers are usually young caucasian students who need to have their school loans paid for. Now I have nothing wrong with that but they come into the inner city schools and have no idea the kids they are dealing with. The five week program doesn’t teach them how to deal with a kid, who just came from a house where nobody has graduated from high school. In addition, there are various other factors that plays a role into their deficiency in education. Teaching is a special skill and if you have no true love for it, the students will see this and will not listen to them. Inner city kids are a different beast and you have to love them and relate to them first. The are used to people leaving them alone or not caring. But once you show them that love and positivity they can perform some miracles.
lawdawg
January 28th, 2012
11:52 am
Cobb should absolutely be welcoming TFA! I’m proud of the superintendent for suggesting this idea. It seems to me that much of the opposition is from jealous stakeholders in the traditional education system.
College professors (and teaching assistants) do not typically have “education” experience – but they have superior knowledge in their fields. They may not be the best “educators,” but does anyone argue with the quality of education at Georgia Tech? In our high schools especially, we should be seeking out people with relevant coursework and great grades in college. A Master’s in Math, Chemistry, etc. should be more valued than a M.Ed. from some online university.
There’s this idea and expectation that we have to treat our students like babies…. Maybe that’s appropriate for primary school, and maybe a degree in early childhood education is the way to go there. But as far as the upper grades, we should be raising our expectations.
Jason
January 28th, 2012
12:08 pm
TFA is not the answer when there are currently hundreds of college graduates with teaching certification who cannot find a job in this state. Hire them first before outsourcing to others.
Former Gwinnett County Graduate/ 2010 TFA Corps Member
January 28th, 2012
12:10 pm
Great question that I would love to address. I think that teaching in a low-income area is like an investment banking job– you can’t do it forever if you exert yourself that much, which is the reason why many people leave after a couple of years in low-income areas (it is tiring if you want results and we get paid nothing).
However, with excellent school leadership (an aspect majorly lacking in many rural and urban areas), you are able to dedicate yourself to solely focusing on instruction, which for that reason, I am not worn out. Yet. I have an excellent school leader, who is NOT TFA, and I plan on one day becoming her to run my own turn-around school.
I think that I will continue this until probably my late 20’s before I become a principal. I think also that many of my kids who are coming to me in 8th grade on a second grade reading level forces me to have to dedicate my time, creativity, and innovation toward directly finding solutions. There isn’t always resources. There isn’t always people doing their jobs on the district and state levels, which causes major strain on classroom instruction. So I am having to do those things because other people aren’t do the best job higher up. That is what takes time.
Also, it gets easier. I have no idea how you all do it with kids and families. I applaud all excellent educators who can get the job done with a family. However, I think if all my kids came to me on grade-level, I wouldn’t be working this hard. But unfortunately, 80 percent of my kids are not on grade level. So I do what I have to do so they can succeed. I think that solution lies in more resources toward pre-school and early childhood so we can close that gap early. That is a whole different issue.
But I had teachers in Gwinnett who had families and lives who put in a SIGNIFICANT amount of time to making things happen. Okay, maybe not 90 to 100 hours, but I can tell you that they made a difference in the amount of effort, time, and compassion they put into their work and students as a whole. And I can tell you right now the ones who did and didn’t. It was obvious then. Even more obvious now.
So back to your question. Can it be sustainable? Not 100 hours. No. But a lot of factors play into your 100 hours. You can scale back over time. I choose to work 100 hours. I could be working more like 60 hours this year, which is a huge difference in last year. But I wanted my kids to go to Phillips Exeter Academy Summer Program, Ole Miss Summer Academy, and needed to start extracurriculars at my school because there was no community. So, I had different priorities. Also, my school is a failing school and needed some major work from the curriculum instruction all the way up to the way funds within the school were allocated. It depends on the situation. Also, if you are a veteran, you know what works and it gets easier to plan over time with the multitude of resources you have accumulated over the year. I can’t wait until I can say that.
I am applying to a Masters Program currently that is two summers back to back. For the second masters in literacy, I will be taking a year off of school in order to make that happen. I am fortunate because I am young and can reasonably do that. Until public schools pay more based on performance, I will be leaving to go teach at a charter school soon enough. If I am putting that much time and energy into getting results, I should be paid well. My financial situation will not be sustainable in my mid-twenties, so I will eventually leave the public school system in order to hopefully become a master educator.
Do I have a life now? Some might argue no. I think I definitely do as I am driving to Memphis tonight to enjoy my night off with other TFA friends, but I absolutely love my job. So my job doesn’t feel like work to me. It is a passion. Not everyone is as fortunate in that regard, I understand. But you should be in this profession only if you love it.
Former Gwinnett County Graduate/ 2010 TFA Corps Member
January 28th, 2012
12:18 pm
And as my principal once said, “I don’t care who is teaching my children. As long they can get the job done.”
The best one should be teaching our kids. No, I did not have an undergraduate degree in education, but I think I was better off coming from one of the best public universities in the country. I did research on educational inequity in college and wrote fifty page papers on the subject conducting one ethnography after the next, and crunching numbers until I was blue in the face. Between that, my work ethic, TFA institute to get down the basics, and a desire to help young people, I could teach. Do I want more knowledge?
Yes, I will go back to get more for it because now after being in the classroom two years, I see exactly what I need and am much more cognizant of the gaps that I need to fill in my own professional development. Also, TFA develops us constantly. More than my own district, that’s for sure. I am learning something new all the time. I never stop learning, and that is why I love this job so much. If you want to learn more, you can make it happen. All the time.
But that is solely on the intrinsic motivation of the educator.
Therefore, I do not care if you have a degree in education if you can’t get the job done.
Teachers are Made. Not Born.
Sidney C
January 28th, 2012
12:24 pm
uh no, Dr. John, you are mistaken. I have had the priveledge of sitting in the employment orientation for my niece (after being taken advantage of by her last district) and the while they claim, full benefits, in fact, its at a much high rate than the regular teacher and they are not available for local or state retirement benefits. AND the money comes from DC as a grant to the districts.
end of discussion
seen it all
January 28th, 2012
12:39 pm
I’ll have to say this– I agree with TFA teacher about one thing. Many of the teachers with all the “credentials and experience” don’t want to go into areas served by TFA graduates. And I think that many TFA teachers do have some desire to go in and at least try to help make a difference. I know many so called certified teachers who wouldn’ even think about going into a lower socioeconomic neighborhood to teach.
Observer
January 28th, 2012
12:53 pm
Former Gwinnett County Graduate/ 2010 TFA Corps Member, January 28th, 12:10 pm, states: “I think that I will continue this until probably my late 20’s before I become a principal.”
I am not a K-12 educator, but wonder about the likelihood of this happening. It may be a significant motivation for the present hard work and dedication expended by this newcomer to the educational profession. Possibly it was suggested to him or her during TFA recruitment.
K-12 educators: is this likely to happen?
Tonya C.
January 28th, 2012
12:56 pm
Former Gwinnett County Graduate/ 2010 TFA Corps Member:
But you did answer my question. Teaching requires a tremendous amount of effort and resources. And you admit it’s not really sustainable over the long haul. I am not against TFA, especially when it does what it was intended to do: serve students who otherwise would get the educational shaft. But Cobb IS NOT in that position. Let’s be clear.
And it doesn’t get easier. I know some fantastic teachers who have been in the trenches for decades who say due to the top heavy bureaucracy, constant changing mandates, and degrading home lives of the students they are working harder than ever.
I just wish we would focus on LONG-TERM solutions to these problems. Instead of trying to patch up the holes in the ship, it needs to to docked and serious repairs made. TFA is a short-term solution to the long-term deficits in education.
Former Gwinnett County Graduate/ 2010 TFA Corps Member
January 28th, 2012
1:14 pm
It was never suggested to me during recruitment. Actually, it became a great idea that came to my attention when I became the department head at my school at only 24. There are principal pipeline programs everywhere and I am currently applying to one now. I think it is very likely if you are good at what you do, and you are in a region that desperately needs good leadership. I think 30 is a very good time for me to consider school leadership as an option especially in a rural region.
I think you have to start taking the necessary steps right now in order to make that happen however. Waiting too long is the problem. People do not look at enough long-term solutions to fix the plethora of issues. And I agree, I will be very very happy the day TFA does not have to exist and students can get equal opportunity everywhere.
BOO TFA!
January 28th, 2012
1:32 pm
I work with five TFA members. 4 out of the 5 have caused stress, extra work and problems for all the other members of our staff. They are uncertified and required to spend coutless hours outside of work doing certification requirments. Most of them are spread so thin, it makes a bad situation worse. In the future, I would prefer NOT to work with a TFA member.
Teacher Education Supporter
January 28th, 2012
2:12 pm
Please read the research on TFA! http://greatlakescenter.org/docs/Policy_Briefs/Heilig_TeachForAmerica.pdf
Cobb County has qualified teachers to teach in our county. We also have graduates from colleges of education from universities who would LOVE to have a job. These graduates acquire content knowledge, pedagogy, and have experience in the classrooms teaching students. Cobb County board members should NOT support Hinhosa on this!
Observer
January 28th, 2012
2:29 pm
Addressing all K-12 educators, especially in rural areas:
Is this dream of “Former Gwinnett County Graduate/2010 TFA Corps Member” likely to come true? —”I think 30 is a very good time for me to consider school leadership [becoming a school principal] as an option especially in a rural region.”
Dr. John Trotter
January 28th, 2012
2:43 pm
@ Sidney C: I don’t doubt that you were with your daughter and observed what they told her about benefits, etc. But, if all of the money comes from the Federal Government (and I could be wrong on this), then what is the contract signed by the local system district and TFA all about? If the financially-strapped systems have to pay no money, then in their way of thinking it’s a no-brainer. I am not trying to be a smart aleck; I truly want to know.
TP
January 28th, 2012
2:54 pm
Cobb County has a great parntership with Kennesaw University. Student teachers in the traditional education Department plus the Urban Education program are producing great teachers. Why do we have to look to TFA for new teachers when Kennesaw is next door.
teacher&mom
January 28th, 2012
3:00 pm
@Observer….Yes, it is very likely to come true.
@Former Gwinnett County/TFA: “There are principal pipeline programs everywhere and I am currently applying to one now.”
Would you care to disclose which pipeline program you are applying to?
teacher&mom
January 28th, 2012
3:06 pm
Perhaps the $400,000 in donations can now be used toward supporting beginning teachers in the classroom?
If the goal of the donations is to increase the number of effective teachers in S. Cobb, it should not matter if the teacher is a TFA member or a graduate of a traditional program….right?
Will the district still receive the donations?
Jerry Eads
January 29th, 2012
2:38 pm
Everyone: The data are what the data are. Rare exception personal anecdotes don’t count. Five short weeks of training, no matter how good it is, doesn’t make a good pilot any more than it makes a good teacher.
I’m glad the kid worked a hundred hours a week trying hard, but very few people can keep that up for a few weeks, much less for a career. Many ORDINARY teachers work 60-80 a week. For 20-30 years.
Average real teacher retention is FAR more than two years. Our own data show that we still have more than 60% (64.2%, to be precise) of ours after ten years. Most of our teachers are competent, many are fantastic. Some need help and some perhaps should find another career. But replacing them with totally clueless virtually untrained kids, almost all of whom will be gone in a few years, may be a cutesie quick-fix for adults who apparently don’t care about the future of our country.
But THE RESEARCH shows it’s not a good thing for our children.
Ole Guy
February 1st, 2012
1:22 pm
Rates of retention, according to the article, appear to be about the same for both TFA and traditional sources. The big questions, therefore, arise: is TFA really worth the investment? Can TFA be expected to have any real impact on teacher shortages? Would it not be wise to, instead, address the base issues behind teacher shortages?
TFA, as I see it, is tantamount to pumping air into a flat tire before addressing the base problem that the hole in the tire has been all but ignored. While the presence of the hole has garnered much debate, complaint, and analysis, nothing, OF REAL SUBSTANCE, has been done to address the BIG PROBLEM which the hole presents. One can come up with all sort of “creative ways” to put air into the tire, but without first addressing the BASE PROBLEM(S), all the creativity in the world won’t do a gd thing as far as the initial problem is concerned.
BEFORE expending another ounce of effort on TFA, let’s howbout addressing the REAL problems behind teacher disatisfaction…we’ve seen them before; hashed em’ into oblivian, and, in the end, ACHIEVED ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! Teachers…grow a pair/acquire some “professional guts”…organize, unionize; do whatever is necessary to send the undeniable message to the powers that be that THE TEACHING PROFESSION IS YOUR DOMAIN, AND YOUR’S ALONE. Stop whimpering an’ whining and TAKE FREQUIN CHARGE OF YOUR PROFESSIONAL SELVES.
Every time I see nonesense, like TFA, taking up valuable space, I am reminded just how gutless the entire teacher corps has become (this is not so-called teacher bashing, but simply a statement of sad reality). As far as I’m concerned, TFA, for the intended purpose of filling teacher voids, is nothing short of scabs. In-and-of-itself, TFA is a fine program for those wishing to enter the teaching field following a career in a non-educational endeavour, but in it’s current form, serves no purpose other than to “pump air into a flat tire before going to the trouble of fixingb the hole in the tire”…STUPID STUPID STUPID!