Teach for America teacher argues Seattle schools should avoid "Teach for Awhile"

[erodriguez]

But while TFA allowed me this window into the problems of our country, it didn't prepare me to address these challenges. With only five weeks of training, it wasn't just that I was not equipped to differentiate instruction to meet the needs of students with a wide range of ability levels, create portfolios that accurately assessed student progress, or cultivate qualities of civic courage — it was that I didn't even know that these things were indispensable components of an effective education.

As well, TFA often overemphasizes the importance of test scores, driving corps members to narrow the curriculum to what's on the test to prove that they are effective teachers. Yet even by this measure, TFA-ers don't make the grade.

Consider a six-year study of TFA out of Stanford University that looked at more than 4,000 teachers and 132,000 students on six different tests and found not one case where TFA educators performed as well as certified teachers.

Moreover, TFA's own statistics show that a mere 33 percent continue teaching after their two-year commitment — creating high turnover in the very schools that most need the continuity and stability.

Seattle has an abundance of teachers with teaching certificates and master's degrees struggling to get a teaching position in the local public schools — West Seattle Elementary School, a target school for TFA, had some 800 applicants for a single job. Why bring in undertrained TFA recruits when we have so many young teachers in Seattle who have spent years developing their skills?

TFA is being presented as a solution to the problems in our public schools. But the reality is, in this era of cash-strapped school districts, officials are lured not by the quality of TFA-ers but by the fact that young teachers who leave the district and make room for more young teachers provide an inexpensive alternative to investing in more experienced teachers who will earn a higher salary.

Yet, if the Seattle school district truly wants "excellence for all," it will need highly trained teachers who have a lasting commitment to the profession — not the revolving door that has come to be known as "Teach for Awhile."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2013450374_guest17hagopian.html

[rfranklin]

1. Gee whizz! What a surprise...

that five weeks training doesn't prepare one to teach. They may not realize it but they are just scabs.

[erodriguez]

4. Scabs indeed.

[mikamandi]

2. The Truth Begins to Surface

Have any national, credible educational organizations, such as
ASCD, and journals dared to objectively study TFA and reveal
the truth about the actual effectiveness - or lack thereof -
of the program?
TFA is another manifestation of the popular myth that
"anybody can teach" and that the certified teaching
profession really does not possess a professional, esoteric
body of knowledge and skills.  

[laughingliberal]

3. K & R nt

[Brickbat]

5. TFA is some of the most sunshiney, feel-goody, painless scabbing I've seen in my life.

[yurbud]

6. the reason ''reformers'' like TFA is it's cheap labor and they don't do it long enough to think

about unionizing.

[erodriguez]

7. kick for the evening

[Starry Messenger]

8. k&r