<p>Runningthe basses, if you go to teachforamerica.org and click on “mission and impact” and then on “Impact” and then on “corps members impact” you will get to the studies and their links. TFA is a data-driven organization so they are very interested in the studies. They also put a link to another site that rates studies for their methodologies which is significant when evaluating the validity of studies.</p>
<p>Interesting, JHS. I’ve seen both. My kids went to the top elementary school in our district and I remember a few very young teachers coming in who were immediately highly sought-after. And that was in a school filled with amazing teachers. On the other hand, my DD had a first-year teacher for an AP course and it was not a good experience. But I have a feeling that time was not going to make that person a significantly better teacher. I think it’s worthy noting that while many veteran teachers are outstanding, some are not. Time does not always cause someone to improve who wasn’t very good to start with and that is true in a lot of professions. I have come across some teachers who have been teaching forever and are just not doing a very good job.</p>
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Runningthebases, I appreciate the tone and substantive nature of your posts. I see no animosity in what you’ve posted, because it is indeed “thoughtful analysis,” whether I agree with it or not. I don’t have the time to review this entire thread, but I believe that yours is the only negative take on TFA that hasn’t included factual errors, or been based primarily on cultural/personal biases. My post #77, which I think you might be referring to in the quote above, was intended to note some of the many previous mis-statements about TFA made here. </p>
<p>Sorry to have responded so literally to your question about choosing between TFA recruits and veteran teachers, but I’m a literal kind of gal. Even considering the question as a rhetorical one, I don’t think that I’d be more comfortable with teachers simply because they’re described as classroom veterans. </p>
<p>mimk6 has pointed you toward the studies we’ve mentioned. Here’s the link to the principal’s survery: [Teach</a> For America - Survey of school principals](<a href=“http://www.teachforamerica.org/research/principal_survey.htm]Teach”>http://www.teachforamerica.org/research/principal_survey.htm) Yes, it’s on TFA’s own site, but I don’t consider that of itself to mean it’s wrong. I’m running out of energy for this whole issue, but I’m still wondering why TFA recruits can get hired at all, if they’re less competent than traditionally certified teachers and opportunistic resume boosters into the bargain.</p>
<p>One issue I’d like to see clarified - my d tells me that TFA recruits must meet the certification requirements in their districts. She’s taken both parts of the Praxis already, for instance (at her own expense, just like other new teachers). She’ll complete TFA’s summer study institute, which includes classroom teaching under the supervision of a mentor teacher, and will enroll in a state-approved certification program in order to receive her (again state-approved) provisional license by the time she starts teaching. Some professionals may consider this under-training, but it’s not a complete lack of training, as has been attested elsewhere. State departments of education have approved alternative certification programs; why? They must meet some perceived need.</p>
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Thanks! 
I’m rapidly approaching the point where I think I’ll just have to agree to disagree with you anti-TFA folks. I’m truly grateful for the eye-opening responses. My d knew that colleague resentment might be an issue, but she hadn’t realized it would be such an enormous one.</p>
<p>My kids have had great teachers among both the brand new and the veterans. They’ve also had a few (very few) terrible veterans. I don’t think they ever had a terrible brand new teacher though. If nothing else they usually bring energy to the job. Well, my son has a new English teacher this year whom he hates, but that’s really been the exception.</p>
<p>Thought I would bump this up because I learned something interesting at my interview yesterday: </p>
<p>Teach for America saw such an increase of applications over last year’s pool ([up</a> 42%!](<a href=“http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/us/jan-june09/service_03-17-2.html]up”>http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/us/jan-june09/service_03-17-2.html)) that they are, for the first time, instituting a wait list.</p>
<p>Regardless of their motivation, there are plenty of young adults who are interested in working to give back. Some of them may not help as much as they or you would like, but the effort is there. Half of TfA has always been about getting the message – that K-12 education is still startlingly segregated by socioeconomic status – out to the public and making it an issue legislators and other public officials have to deal with.</p>
<p>Up 42%??? I knew it had gone up at my daughter’s college. Wow. It’s the economy. I think some students are thinking that a two-year paying job with a good organization where you give back is better than the unknown with the economy. Plus it can lead to a longer gig – for as long as you might need to ride out the crisis in the economy.</p>
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<p>Man oh man, I can hardly control my paroxysms of laughter. My oldest is a TFA street warrior in NYC. Works with low income, special-needs children among teachers who tend to be cynical, hard-bitten burn-outs. Intent on being a teacher. So very far from being a jock or fratso president, you cannot imagine! Attractive, yes. Charismatic, yes. And definitely very very far out there!</p>
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<p>The thing you have to understand is that in the kinds of environments we’re talking about, “experience” is grinding teachers into the blood-stained ground. In some of these places, the fresh recruits from TFA are working among cynical, hard-bitten, foul-mouthed chair-warmers and time-card punchers who often need more help than the children. </p>
<p>My TFA kid has a coast-to-coast network that would make your head spin. The experienced teachers? No, I think you are right, they do not network. Their circuits are fried. </p>
<p>It takes a pretty big belly full of fire to do TFA. This apparently is recognized by people who know the program, which is why it is a very valuable entry on any resume.</p>
<p>I was a traditionally trained teacher who worked with TFA first year teachers at my last job. I loved them. I can’t think of a coworker who had a problem with them. They were energetic, smart, committed, and fantastic at fostering meaningful relationships with the students. </p>
<p>Also, I was a little jealous! My first year teaching, and the first year teaching for all teachers in our district, was something akin to being thrown off a bridge with no life jacket. TFA provides a fantastic support network to its teachers that I think is invaluable for that first year. </p>
<p>My D has never attended a school where TFA was active, but, in general, I wouldn’t have a problem with her having a teacher from the program.</p>
<p>It should also be said that Teach for America is very selective, and only accepts approximately 15% of students who apply. This year the pool was 37,000, and 16-1700 kids were accepted. TFA partners with top grad schools of business, law, education, and medicine. It is extremely sought after by students and grad schools, alike</p>
<p>No, hovering, you are wrong…unless you personally know TFA members, and their experiences. The kids who are ADMITTED to the corps (15% /37,000 this year), are high achieving students, generally from the very top schools in the US. Last year, the median GPA for these top achieving students was a 3.6. I don’t know that stat for this year as of yet. While it is certainly true that many will not become career educators, they have a great deal of intellectual capital to give to a very underserved population. It is unfortunate that just about anyone can become a teacher, today. It doesn’t matter where you go to college, or even if you have achieved a 2.0 in you major, let alone your overall GPA. This is never the case with someone being trained by TFA . They will always be very intellectually grounded in their disciplines, as well as eager to help kids who are not much younger than themselves. They also go through several strenuous rounds of interviews and testing. They must become certified though highly respected institutions; they must take education classes during their tenure with TFA, and MANY get master’s degrees during that period. By the time they are finished with the program, they have become highly skilled teachers, armed with their outstanding undergraduate experiences, and extraordinary support and instruction from TFA…which by the way is part of Americorps. Why not try giving back? It might turn you into a more fulfilled person.</p>
<p>Four of my daughter’s close friends have been TFA teachers in New York City since last fall. Each one is struggling not only in the classroom but with the entire process. They felt unprepared for their classroom demands and also are finding it incredibly difficult to manage their students.</p>
<p>I have known each of these young adults for many years. They all graduated summa cum laude from their respective top colleges and were incredibly excited about the program. Two have decided not to return for the next year and the other two are currently involved in a lot of soul-searching. Unfortunately, for each of them it have been anything but a positive experience. They are devastated. according to my daughter.</p>
<p>I wrote the above not to disparage TFA, but to offer a report from the field.</p>
<p>JHS and Concerned Parents: Here is some info—All TFA Corps members who will be teaching in the Philadelphia Corps, are required to become certified through a program at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. According to Penn, 70% of those Corps members go on to complete a Master’s degree during their tenures at TFA. Of course they have to be accepted into the Master’s program, but generally TFA members have high academic standing, and will test well on GREs.
My assumption is that something similar happens for Corps members throughout the country.</p>
<p>In L.A., TFA has a relationship with a particular school and all the corps members go there for the credential/Masters. The students get a discount for being in TFA. I don’t recall my daughter having to go through a school application process which is nice – I guess the vetting they get for TFA is part of the arrangement with the school. If there was an application process, it must have been a cursory one.</p>
<p>In the Philly Corps, one must apply, take the GREs, and hopefully get accepted to the Master’s program at Penn. For the credential, just being a member of TFA is enough. The thorough screening process sufices.</p>
<p>I want to echo carlmom’s report from the field, this time regarding my own ds. Like carlmom’s daughter’s friends, he graduated from an Ivy League school summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, thesis prize, and other top honors up the gazoo–and found TFA to be a nightmare. Briefly, TFA’s 5-week “boot camp” in no way prepares you for the rigors, or horrors, of the kinds of schools to which they send corpsmembers. If you are unfortunate enough to get a bipolar psycho for a principal, as my ds did, TFA will NOT go to bat for you. They value their relationship with the local schools far more than they value keeping a corpsmember happy, and will let you suffer, or quit, long before they will help you out. Ds endured a total lack of support when it came to disciplining completely out-of-control students (principal always blamed the teachers, no matter what–even when a student brought a gun to school). Fellow “experienced” teachers (not TFAers) taught him things like how to backdate false data to satisfy the endless requirements of a worthless bureaucracy. It was a disaster–and he, also, will not be going back for a second year.</p>
<p>Best resource you may find on the net to help you decide if TFA is for you is
[Thoughts</a> on Teach for America](<a href=“http://www.tfa-thoughts.blogspot.com/]Thoughts”>http://www.tfa-thoughts.blogspot.com/) --an excellent, highly perceptive analysis of the kind if people who will, or will not, thrive there.</p>
<p>When my DS#1 thought about trying for Teach for America, a family friend, who “teaches the teachers,” told me that she would not “permit” my son to do TFA. She said that the support was totally inadequate. Sounds like she was correct based on some of these anecdotes.</p>
<p>well-don’t know that I have read all of the posts–my D did 2 years of TFA and she did survive a middle school in the Bronx. 2 of her friends quit the first month. Yes, without question, it has helped her with her “after TFA” employment opportunities. She worked an amazingly hard 2 years-up at 5 and home at 6. Is she glad she did it? Yes. and as a parent I do think she was one of those mature young people who surprised us by being able to work THAT hard and come away feeling that it was worthwhile. But–it sure is not for everyone.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if oregon101 was suggesting this or not, but maturity of the corps members has had nothing to do with what we’ve witnessed with TFA. One of my ds’s fellow corps members left after a couple of months because one of her students kept threatening her life, and neither the school nor TFA would take action to protect her. Another found himself stamping out fires in the trash cans after his students would throw all their test papers into it and set it on fire. All of the TFAers my ds is leaving behind are somewhere between deeply depressed and counting the days until they can finish serving their time and get on with lives. Are they all immature? Or are TFA assignments like a roulette wheel, where corps members hold their breath to find out whether or not they’ll get an assignment that doesn’t devastate them?</p>
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<p>I’d hesitate to describe someone as “thriving” in TFA. That would be in bad taste, like saying your enlisted child is thriving in Afghanistan. </p>
<p>What seems to be helping my kid, as much as anything else, is a wicked sense of humor. This is someone who can start telling a funny story to a friend in the middle of a New York City subway train, and within minutes, without any apparent self-consciousness, have the entire car engaged and in stitches. I don’t know where he got that from, not from his Mom or from me. It’s a mysterious gift and you cannot take a course to learn it in school.</p>