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Why is Teach For America a controversial organization? An article featured in The American Prospect a few days ago outlined the creation of an anti-Teach For America national campaign filled with TFA alumni and members of the educational community. The claims made in the article are bold and ideological, and I agree with some of them. However, I want to dig more deeply — “fact checker” style — into a few of the most incisive claims.
What’s been lacking, I think, to readers of my blog so far has been the context of Teach For America in contemporary perspectives on public education in the United States. I have mixed my own observations with some of Teach For America’s talking points over the summer, but have not made a rigorous effort to separate the two or offer a real standard of comparison. This has been partially out of lack of knowledge and partially out of focus on learning first and evaluating second given my newness in the education world.
Like Babe Ruth and the New York Yankees, Teach For America is the House that Wendy Built. If you would like some very readable, promotional accounts of Teach For America and what led it to be the mega-funded, strongly-branded and deeply-rooted organization it is today, I encourage you to look at Wendy Kopp’s two books: A Chance to Make History, and One Day, All Children.
Below I will highlight two claims made in the Prospect article and reference them against my own observations from the summer training and background knowledge on Teach For America. If you would like more empirical, data-driven studies, look at this blog for more.
(1) “For districts, charter schools and fast-tracked teachers are attractive alternatives to public schools staffed with unionized labor—especially under the well-financed push that TFA supports. As the organization grows, it cultivates leaders who align themselves with its pro-charter slant.”
The charter movement is highly variable and highly controversial. Georgia faced a ballot initiative in November 2012 determining whether or not a state-level commission could override a district’s preference in opening a charter school. Not all charter schools are created equal, and some — such as in New Orleans — may replace previous schools rather than filtering out students from surrounding schools. Therefore, I am skeptical of claims that charters are categorically about union vs. non-union labor, or privatization vs. public education. Charters which are well-regulated, supported by the community and teach/retain students with integrity do not have the same impact as hurried, ill-prepared and high-risk charters. Teach For America should not be held accountable except in the efforts of its 501(c)4 arm for having a specific connection to the charter movement.
Second, the ideology of Teach For America staff and corps members differs from what the national leadership of TFA might advocate or have politicized as an issue. At Institute this summer, I heard in group conversations more negative than positive discussions about charter schools and found frustration among corps members with some charter schools in the Atlanta area which seemed to bend the rules of the kind of school with which TFA should have teacher placements. Teach For America may house and even enable existing charter school advocates, but I have seen or heard nothing to suggest it actively creates them.
(2) “Within TFA, resistance is an uphill battle. The optimism that singular change agents can overcome poverty—successful teaching “requires all the same approaches that transformational leadership in any setting requires” and “there is nothing elusive about it,” as TFA founder and CEO Wendy Kopp puts it—is a powerful brand that crowds out dissent”.
This claim goes hand-in-hand with the claim that Teach For America’s training system is insufficient to produce “highly effective teachers.” Though any teacher education program will have a distribution of the capabilities of practitioners who leave it, the average effectiveness and preparedness for the classroom should be its measure. Also, I agree that in its promotional work, advocacy and recruitment, Teach For America has a very powerful brand which can cause problems at times. However, the brand and ideology breaks down on the lower levels of the organization in a healthy way.
While the Teaching as Leadership framework in conjunction with Institute offers a relatively fly-by perspective on teacher education, Teach For America claims to have a rubric or profile of highly effective teachers which is utilized throughout the multi-step application process all corps members must navigate. The traits of highly effective teachers are supposed to act as insurance against the pitfalls of a shortened training schedule, predicated on the belief that good leaders will also be good teachers.
Second, TFA does offer the perspective of being foot soldiers in the new Civil Rights Movement of the 21st century and the steady drumbeat of political and social issues in the Teach For America curriculum preaches transformational leadership and “overcoming” poverty (talk about a tricky phrase). However, this perspective does not directly inform teacher education practices. In some cases, teacher education in TFA works against notions of “saving” students while breaking down the gaps in understanding about diversity, identity and community action. The Charlotte diversity program referenced in the Prospect article came through the Atlanta Institute this year, and I even had the chance to speak to its creator. This diversity program seems very congruent with the roundtables the article mentioned counter-TFA groups were creating.
While I have only given a passing analysis of two claims made in the article, I hope to have offered a more nuanced perspective on the issues surrounding Teach For America. The organization, while it is certainly concerned about its image and reputation, makes sincere effort to address criticisms and become a positive force in education reform. Additionally, the ideology of Teach For America can show through in the positions of its leadership, but breaks down on the individual level into a spectrum of views — as many regions actively work to embed themselves with local school districts and current teachers.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
