by Charles Sipe

I was listening to NPR Talk of the Nation interview Donna Foote, a journalist who followed 4 Teach for America recruits for a year and wrote the book Relentless Pursuit. You can listen to the interview here.

I have always admired Teach for America for their mission to close the achievement gap of poor communities where students face tremendous challenges in achieving an education. However, I was surprised to learn that there is criticism by some who don’t believe Teach for America helps, but actually hurts schools.

“Teach for America has a two pronged theory of change and one is that there will be catalytic change, but the more important one, and the one that is most likely to impact or close that achievement gap, is the idea that the experience in the classroom will be so transformative for these young leaders they will become agents of change and they will be the ones who will go on to affect the educational reform needed to close that gap.”

But one of the criticisms is that the recruits often leave the school when their 2 year commitment is up, and this constant turnover causes instability in the schools. However Donna Foote states “It’s not just teach for America teachers who are bailing, we have a major retention problem in this country, within 5 years 50% of all new teachers leave and within 2 years you’ve lost about 14% especially in inner city, hard to staff schools. So Teach for America would be crazy to think that these young people who could make many more dollars and have a easier job would stay in a teaching position that is not esteemed or valued in the country right now”.

Another argument is that Teach for America de-professionalizes teaching because it only requires a short period of training and the recruits are are ill-prepared when they start, and are not ready to be teachers. TFA recruits undergo a 5 week “boot camp” training that attempts to get new graduates up to speed in just a few weeks to take on extremely challenging situations. The book looks at the challenges facing the new teachers such as students who are living in very impoverished conditions or face the influence of gangs. However, proponents might say that often the alternative are long term substitutes at these difficult to staff inner city schools, and not that substitutes can’t be good teachers, but Teach for America is very selective and corp members are often very bright, energetic, high achievers who can positively influence students.

What do you think? Is Teach for America helping close the achievement gap? Let us know in the comments!

Image courtesy of boletin