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Lessons to Learn: Voices from the Front Lines of Teach for America
This is the inside story of the more than 8,000 recent college graduates who have joined Teach for America and committed two years of service to teaching in the nation's most troubled public schools. In the tradition of books by Studs Terkel, Ness combines interviews and essays from TFA members and alumni as well as principals, superintendents, parents, and noted education experts.
- GenresEducation
252 pages, Hardcover
First published November 26, 2003
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January 16, 2018
Right at the start and right at the end of this book the author says that she doesn’t want to be thought of as a cheerleader for Teach for America, that the organisation has its own problems, and that those problems are systemic to the fact that TFA is premised on putting undertrained teachers into hard to staff schools for a short two-year commitment. Nevertheless, she goes on to say, that given the realities of the US education system and society, and on balance, the world is a better place with Teach for America than it would be without it.
And there is something appealing in this kind of argument. She also starts by saying, “I tried to represent the Teach for America corps as evenly as I could, keeping in mind that race, gender, and socioeconomic background may shape a corps member(‘)s feelings about their classroom experience.” She also says that, “I asked the Teach for America national and regional staffs as well as corps members themselves to assist me.” And this shows. There are remarkably few voices criticising Teach for America in deep and fundamental ways in this book. And such voices exist, in fact, a book like ‘Teach for America Counter-Narratives’ should probably be read alongside this one. And while there is the occasional negative voice here, too often those voices are immediately discredited or, given the sheer weight of positive stories presented, it would seem nearly impossible for a reader to come away from reading this book not thinking, ‘well, yes, on balance, the world is a better place with TFA…’ Well over 95% of the voices reported here are cheerleaders for TFA.
And this is even while the author quotes Professor David Berliner’s research that showed that, “the students of uncertified teachers had 20% less growth in their achievement on standardized tests than students with a traditionally certified teacher” – and that he concludes, “Teach for America is a failure in producing the kinds of achievement its public relations would have us believe.” And then goes on to say, I’m not defending that certification is the only means to getting qualified people into the classroom, but if we pose the question, Is Teach for America failing? then, yes, they are.”
The survey of evidence that Berliner conducted was repeated by Heilig and Jez in 2010 in a report called ‘Teach for America: A Review of the Evidence” which again came to nearly identical conclusions – that TFA is an expensive program that is under-serving the communities it was seeking to help, and that at best the TFA teachers who stay and become fully credentialed teachers are only as good as similarly qualified teachers. But that TFA is much more expensive and has World War 1 levels of attrition. As a way of addressing teacher shortages, it isn’t the most obvious means of addressing this issue.
The problem is that even though Berliner’s criticisms are stated, this is then followed by an endless catalogue of success stories from TFA alumni who have worked insanely hard and that then makes any criticism seem churlish at best, if not grossly self-serving. As one ex-TFA teacher is quoted as saying (this time in bold and at the start of a section: “Teach for America is experimenting. They’re trying to make a real effort and turn teacher education on its head. TFA is almost a standing criticism of education schools. I dare anyone to point to a program that truly trains people well for urban and poor rural schools. I am right there with the critics when they ask about the problems with Teach for America. But I ask them to turn some critical light on themselves and ask, “Are your graduates making as many strides towards student achievement as Teach for America is?” I wish education schools would spend as much time assessing themselves as they do TFA. If one day education schools are able to put Teach for America out of business, I’d say Amen. That’s a day we all need.” Tom Shepley.
There are a few things to say here – the first is that the answer to the question, “Are your graduates making as many strides towards student achievement as Teach for America is?” is “No, they are doing better than TFA”. That is the unequivocal finding of the published research. The second thing is that TFA isn’t new. At the time this book was written it was 15 years old – now it is over 25 years old. The issues TFA faces are no longer teething problems – they are systemic. The other problem is that, as Tom rightly says, “TFA is almost a standing criticism of education schools”. Yep – and that is the point. TFA will never replace teacher education – but its very existence means that teacher education in the United States will be constantly devalued in comparison to the organisation that brings some rich kids into poor schools for a couple of years of service and resume building before moving on to their real careers. Despite the fact that the vast majority of those taught to become teachers will continue to come from what will be seen as devalued education courses, and these are the teachers who actually want to remain in teaching long term. TFA creates a system that praises those who leave, while devaluing those who want to stay…
The question that needs to be asked isn’t ‘is TFA better than nothing’ – it almost certainly is better than nothing, but that is hardly high praise. Rather, the real question is, ‘if you wanted to improve access to quality teachers in the poorest schools in the US and you had buckets of money (as TFA certainly does with lots of that money was coming directly out of school budgets) then what opportunity costs are being sacrificed by us having chosen TFA, and would those sacrificed options have been more effective in raising standards?’
The problem is one of ‘common sense’. And the problem with common sense is that it limits the questions that we are able to ask. TFA receives lots of money from corporate and philanthropic organisations, and from the government. Something I read recently said that Obama gave buckets of money to TFA, but no additional money to traditional teacher training programs. Why would this be the case? Again, I think it comes down to common sense. The common sense view in Anglophone nations is that what makes change happen is ‘entrepreneurial young people’ – that is, don’t bother with training people to be professionals, professionals are educated idiots, rather take lots of smart young people, throw them into the ocean, and then see which ones sink and which ones swim. This view is so pervasive that no amount of ‘evidence’ can shift us from our paradigm. You then prove the ‘success’ of this strategy by talking to and about the alumni of TFA who have ‘made significant improvements’ to their student attainment, or have helped Johnny read, or who have won a $10,000 grant to start a new program at their school, or who took their students to France by showing them that hard work and dedication fix all problems – and the proof is that exceptional effort on the part of entrepreneurial individuals is all that it takes. Forget the systemic problems schools and students face, all problems can be fixed by dedicated rich kids going into poor schools and giving two years of their life to the cause.
But this not only ignores the research evidence that TFA teachers are less effective than real teachers, it also cherry picks 150 alumni from a community of over 10,000 (at the time this book was written) and gets these interviewees mostly from TFA itself. Perhaps some TFA alumni have made exceptional contributions – but does this mean that no other teachers are making similar contributions? The point is that we come away from books like this thinking that has to be the case, it is not boldly stated in the book that other teachers are hopeless, but the deafening silence on the achievements of other teachers tells its own story.
The main problem with common sense is that it blinds us to evidence. What is it that the best education systems in the world do to be the best? Do they send their teachers into classrooms with minimal training and see who will sink and who will swim? Well, no. What they do is extend the time and training that they expect from pre-service teachers before they are allowed to walk into the classroom. They do what they can to make teaching a valued profession, rather than, as TFA does, diminish teachings professional standing. In Finland, for instance, it is harder to become a primary school teacher than it is to become a doctor. Finland gets the ‘best and brightest’ into their classrooms, not by appealing to their sense of altruism, or of ‘joining a movement’ by ‘giving two years of their lives to the cuase of ending educational inequality’, while leaving the reasons for that inequality untouched – but rather Finland fundamentally changed the game.
Imagine if the US had put as much effort into improving general teacher education and esteem for teachers who want to be and remain teachers as it has into TFA. Rather than 25 years later seeing the problems of educational inequity growing year by year, they may have moved closer to the success countries like Finland have enjoyed. Like I said, it isn’t a matter of comparing TFA to nothing, but rather of comparing TFA to the opportunities that are forgone due to TFA existing. But because Anglophone nations are sold on the idea that the only way to fix problems is for individuals to ‘be the change you want to see in the world’ systemic change becomes simply unimaginable.
I don’t think current teacher education is perfect – but the TFA pathway will not improve teacher education, rather it is likely to have the exact opposite effect, it is likely to remain a distraction that obscures the path to real improvement. What is needed to improve teacher education is a significant research effort into what works and what doesn’t work, while concurrently doing what is necessary to make being a teacher something people actively want to do with their lives. Remarkably little research is available into precisely this. While TFA distracts us from what is needed it remains something that, on balance, makes the world a worse place for its existing, rather than a better one.
And there is something appealing in this kind of argument. She also starts by saying, “I tried to represent the Teach for America corps as evenly as I could, keeping in mind that race, gender, and socioeconomic background may shape a corps member(‘)s feelings about their classroom experience.” She also says that, “I asked the Teach for America national and regional staffs as well as corps members themselves to assist me.” And this shows. There are remarkably few voices criticising Teach for America in deep and fundamental ways in this book. And such voices exist, in fact, a book like ‘Teach for America Counter-Narratives’ should probably be read alongside this one. And while there is the occasional negative voice here, too often those voices are immediately discredited or, given the sheer weight of positive stories presented, it would seem nearly impossible for a reader to come away from reading this book not thinking, ‘well, yes, on balance, the world is a better place with TFA…’ Well over 95% of the voices reported here are cheerleaders for TFA.
And this is even while the author quotes Professor David Berliner’s research that showed that, “the students of uncertified teachers had 20% less growth in their achievement on standardized tests than students with a traditionally certified teacher” – and that he concludes, “Teach for America is a failure in producing the kinds of achievement its public relations would have us believe.” And then goes on to say, I’m not defending that certification is the only means to getting qualified people into the classroom, but if we pose the question, Is Teach for America failing? then, yes, they are.”
The survey of evidence that Berliner conducted was repeated by Heilig and Jez in 2010 in a report called ‘Teach for America: A Review of the Evidence” which again came to nearly identical conclusions – that TFA is an expensive program that is under-serving the communities it was seeking to help, and that at best the TFA teachers who stay and become fully credentialed teachers are only as good as similarly qualified teachers. But that TFA is much more expensive and has World War 1 levels of attrition. As a way of addressing teacher shortages, it isn’t the most obvious means of addressing this issue.
The problem is that even though Berliner’s criticisms are stated, this is then followed by an endless catalogue of success stories from TFA alumni who have worked insanely hard and that then makes any criticism seem churlish at best, if not grossly self-serving. As one ex-TFA teacher is quoted as saying (this time in bold and at the start of a section: “Teach for America is experimenting. They’re trying to make a real effort and turn teacher education on its head. TFA is almost a standing criticism of education schools. I dare anyone to point to a program that truly trains people well for urban and poor rural schools. I am right there with the critics when they ask about the problems with Teach for America. But I ask them to turn some critical light on themselves and ask, “Are your graduates making as many strides towards student achievement as Teach for America is?” I wish education schools would spend as much time assessing themselves as they do TFA. If one day education schools are able to put Teach for America out of business, I’d say Amen. That’s a day we all need.” Tom Shepley.
There are a few things to say here – the first is that the answer to the question, “Are your graduates making as many strides towards student achievement as Teach for America is?” is “No, they are doing better than TFA”. That is the unequivocal finding of the published research. The second thing is that TFA isn’t new. At the time this book was written it was 15 years old – now it is over 25 years old. The issues TFA faces are no longer teething problems – they are systemic. The other problem is that, as Tom rightly says, “TFA is almost a standing criticism of education schools”. Yep – and that is the point. TFA will never replace teacher education – but its very existence means that teacher education in the United States will be constantly devalued in comparison to the organisation that brings some rich kids into poor schools for a couple of years of service and resume building before moving on to their real careers. Despite the fact that the vast majority of those taught to become teachers will continue to come from what will be seen as devalued education courses, and these are the teachers who actually want to remain in teaching long term. TFA creates a system that praises those who leave, while devaluing those who want to stay…
The question that needs to be asked isn’t ‘is TFA better than nothing’ – it almost certainly is better than nothing, but that is hardly high praise. Rather, the real question is, ‘if you wanted to improve access to quality teachers in the poorest schools in the US and you had buckets of money (as TFA certainly does with lots of that money was coming directly out of school budgets) then what opportunity costs are being sacrificed by us having chosen TFA, and would those sacrificed options have been more effective in raising standards?’
The problem is one of ‘common sense’. And the problem with common sense is that it limits the questions that we are able to ask. TFA receives lots of money from corporate and philanthropic organisations, and from the government. Something I read recently said that Obama gave buckets of money to TFA, but no additional money to traditional teacher training programs. Why would this be the case? Again, I think it comes down to common sense. The common sense view in Anglophone nations is that what makes change happen is ‘entrepreneurial young people’ – that is, don’t bother with training people to be professionals, professionals are educated idiots, rather take lots of smart young people, throw them into the ocean, and then see which ones sink and which ones swim. This view is so pervasive that no amount of ‘evidence’ can shift us from our paradigm. You then prove the ‘success’ of this strategy by talking to and about the alumni of TFA who have ‘made significant improvements’ to their student attainment, or have helped Johnny read, or who have won a $10,000 grant to start a new program at their school, or who took their students to France by showing them that hard work and dedication fix all problems – and the proof is that exceptional effort on the part of entrepreneurial individuals is all that it takes. Forget the systemic problems schools and students face, all problems can be fixed by dedicated rich kids going into poor schools and giving two years of their life to the cause.
But this not only ignores the research evidence that TFA teachers are less effective than real teachers, it also cherry picks 150 alumni from a community of over 10,000 (at the time this book was written) and gets these interviewees mostly from TFA itself. Perhaps some TFA alumni have made exceptional contributions – but does this mean that no other teachers are making similar contributions? The point is that we come away from books like this thinking that has to be the case, it is not boldly stated in the book that other teachers are hopeless, but the deafening silence on the achievements of other teachers tells its own story.
The main problem with common sense is that it blinds us to evidence. What is it that the best education systems in the world do to be the best? Do they send their teachers into classrooms with minimal training and see who will sink and who will swim? Well, no. What they do is extend the time and training that they expect from pre-service teachers before they are allowed to walk into the classroom. They do what they can to make teaching a valued profession, rather than, as TFA does, diminish teachings professional standing. In Finland, for instance, it is harder to become a primary school teacher than it is to become a doctor. Finland gets the ‘best and brightest’ into their classrooms, not by appealing to their sense of altruism, or of ‘joining a movement’ by ‘giving two years of their lives to the cuase of ending educational inequality’, while leaving the reasons for that inequality untouched – but rather Finland fundamentally changed the game.
Imagine if the US had put as much effort into improving general teacher education and esteem for teachers who want to be and remain teachers as it has into TFA. Rather than 25 years later seeing the problems of educational inequity growing year by year, they may have moved closer to the success countries like Finland have enjoyed. Like I said, it isn’t a matter of comparing TFA to nothing, but rather of comparing TFA to the opportunities that are forgone due to TFA existing. But because Anglophone nations are sold on the idea that the only way to fix problems is for individuals to ‘be the change you want to see in the world’ systemic change becomes simply unimaginable.
I don’t think current teacher education is perfect – but the TFA pathway will not improve teacher education, rather it is likely to have the exact opposite effect, it is likely to remain a distraction that obscures the path to real improvement. What is needed to improve teacher education is a significant research effort into what works and what doesn’t work, while concurrently doing what is necessary to make being a teacher something people actively want to do with their lives. Remarkably little research is available into precisely this. While TFA distracts us from what is needed it remains something that, on balance, makes the world a worse place for its existing, rather than a better one.
February 17, 2009
This book was not quite as pleasant to read as Relentless Pursuit, but it contained a lot of valuable information, wisdom, and experience. The author interviewed hundreds of people and wove their stories into a general description of what Teach for America is.
She included quotes by people who love the program, people are on the fence about the program, and also critics of the program. She also discusses her own story and why she did what she did. Overall a decent book if you want to know more about Teach for America.
She included quotes by people who love the program, people are on the fence about the program, and also critics of the program. She also discusses her own story and why she did what she did. Overall a decent book if you want to know more about Teach for America.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews