I’ve heard that Sunnyside School District is working with Ed Supe John Huppenthal to bring a group of Teach For America (TFA) teachers to the district. My understanding is, Huppenthal has promised to help Sunnyside with the initial costs to sweeten the deal. The latest version of the state budget includes $500,000 for Teach For America, which gives Huppenthal some walk-around money to peddle his wares.
Full disclosure: The Sunnyside/TFA connection is rumor-mill information, but the rumors are pretty well substantiated.
Teach For America already has a presence in other areas of the state, but currently it has no southern Arizona beachhead. Sunnyside would be the first. Superintendent Manuel Isquierdo likes to stay in Huppenthal’s good graces, which may have something to do with his willingness to accept the TFA program.
My understanding is, Huppenthal’s people approached TUSD with a similar offer, but it was rejected.
Teach For America is a controversial program. It’s promoted by advocates for the conservative/corporate “education reform” movement, people who are big on high stakes testing, charter school expansion and de-professionalizing of teaching. It’s criticized by progressives who are advocates for well-funded public schools and well trained, experienced teachers. Like most facets of the “education reform” movement, TFA is phenomenally well funded, with $500 million in assets and a $250 million a year revenue stream, a mixture of public and private money. The organization has lots of friends in high places — rich donors as well as legislators at the state and national levels.
Here’s how Teach For America works. College graduates are recruited to teach for two years, often in schools with low income, mostly minority students. When they’re accepted, they attend a five week summer boot camp. That’s all the preparation they receive to work under some of the most difficult teaching situations in the country. TFA says the new recruits are trained by experienced professionals, but in fact the trainers are often TFA teachers with two years of classroom experience.
Once school starts, the new teachers are pretty much on their own. They get some help and guidance from TFA staff, often not much, and many of them reach out to more experienced teachers in the school for help, though that can be problematic. TFA recruits are given the impression that they’re educational missionaries sent to save students from failing teachers working in failing schools. So when they find themselves overwhelmed by the task of dealing with 30 to 40 difficult-to-reach students, they have to overcome their initial disdain for their fellow teachers and reach out for help, and the more experienced teachers have to overcome their resentment toward these untrained recruits who think, or began by thinking, they know all the answers.
It shouldn’t be surprising that many of the TFA recruits feel woefully unprepared for the classrooms they step into with only five weeks of summer training to guide them. Many of them are highly successful students from some of the country’s best universities, meaning they have good educations and are generally hard workers, but the worlds they step into when they enter their new classrooms are foreign to them, as is the role of being a teacher in a K-12 school. Some experience feelings of inadequacy and failure at a level they’ve never known before and are devastated. Many leave long before their two year commitment is up. Few remain in the classroom for more than a few years.
The program has been referred to disparagingly as “the TFA temp agency,” “educational tourism” and “drive-by teaching.” Of course, its supporters deny this and trot out glowing success stories and questionable statistics to lure in more donors, legislators and school districts.
How effective are TFA teachers in the classroom? It’s hard to measure, and the few reasonably objective studies are ambiguous. The best answer is, TFA recruits are either a bit worse, about the same or a bit better than similarly undertrained, inexperienced teachers. Since they tend to leave the classroom after a few years, their skills don’t have a chance to mature. Before they reach what would probably be their best years of teaching, they’re gone.
Like so many of today’s programs which are supposed to save our schools from failure and turn our children into educational world beaters, TFA mixes some good ideas together with a heavy dose of smoke and mirrors. The program is more destructive than constructive, more focused on dismantling our system of public education than improving it.
There’s lots more to say on the subject of Teach for America. Depending on the level of interest and comments, I may write more in future posts.
This article appears in Mar 27 – Apr 2, 2014.
You said “they have to overcome their initial disdain for their fellow teachers and reach out for help” I think you mean disdain from their fellow teachers. I admire the person who is willing to go into a troubled school and give 110% regardless of how well they are trained.
Just another ploy of the “education for profit” and “anyone can be a teacher” mindset. Have fun with that, another sad day for Sunnyside students if the adults in the crowd allow yet another way for the Supt. to sell them down the river.
I thought the students were already being sold down the river by the corrupt Sunnyside admin.??
Pie in the sky bull**** programs like this are no substitute for parental involvement and hard working students and a good school administration.
This “project”mis already doomed.
A problem, especially in ALEC Arizona, is that Superintendents, school boards, and those with power and influence don’t denounce the policies and their advocates (Huppenthal) that are killing public education.
You forgot to mention that TFA students receive a bounty in student loan forgiveness, cooling their relationship with the seasoned veteran teachers scraping by to pay their loans back. As a veteran teacher who has dealt with many of these Peace Corps-minded fly-by educators, I have seen many act unprofessionally (one young teacher had to be reminded to wear a bra several times) and none included “teacher” on their short list of career goals. Sunnyside admin has become a desperate mess of legislative suck-ups.
Pima Mujer is right. Superintendents and school boards should be open and honest about policies that are hurting education. While there are well-meaning TFAers and also ones who do good work, Dave has done a good job of summarizing the problems. One thing he doesn’t mention is that having TFA on one’s resume is a great boost for getting into elite graduate and professional schools when the two-year stint is up. Former TFAers are coming together to renounce the organization and educate the public. We don’t have a shortage of teachers willing to teach in difficult circumstances. We just need to honor them and not punish them for taking on the challenge. Also, we should provide teachers a decent wage and working conditions that encourage them to stay in the profession, instead of leaving in disgust or despair.
I am a former corps member (CM). I left at the end of my 5 weeks of summer training due to family issues. I am now a fully certified teacher with a masters degree in Teaching and Teacher Education. I currently teach at a high school in the Marana district. My 3 months of pre-institute reading and 5 weeks of in classroom experience would not have been enough for me to be an effective teacher to the students I was supposed to teach. I’ve watched friends, peers, and people I truly respect crash and burn and leave mid-year in TFA because the program simply cannot prepare you for what you’re going into, and it does little to support you once your in that situation.
I am strongly ideologically opposed to this program now. After going through a rigorous and thorough teacher education program, I now see why I was ill prepared to be teaching in summer school and so not ready to move into a real classroom. Teach for America takes bright-eyed and bushy-tailed go-getters (ie me!) and tells them how amazing they are and what a difference they’ll make and then doesn’t give the support to be successful… because teaching, ladies and gents, is not something you can simply waltz in the door and do flawlessly. Especially when the population you serve needs so much more than you can offer. Without a thorough pedagogical training I had no idea how to best serve students who needed the most highly qualifies of teachers, not the least qualified. The insane “group think” and shaming that came with walking away from TFA was mind blowing. I truly just feel bad for students who ends up joining TFA. Leaving TFA was one of the hardest things I have ever done because they made me feel like a terrible person for abandoning the students I had yet to meet. Mind you, I didn’t leave because it was too hard but because I had a tragedy at home that meant I needed to be with my family. I have no doubt if I had stayed in the classroom with TFA I would have left after my commitment was up, just like the vast majority of the CMs I was in CT with, because throwing someone with no experience into the classroom is just asking them to fail. Because you do fail. And they tell you that you will fail. You will fail students and then you will learn how to do things right. It isn’t easy, they tell you, but you’ll grow to be a great teacher. But what about those students who you weren’t a great teacher for? No one seems to consider them. The true disservice would have been me trying to teach those students.
When it comes to TFA CMS, a few will become “teacher leaders” or “transformational teachers”, but only after stumbling through a lot of HARD lessons with the kids in the classroom being the people who are hurt most by the steep learning curve the under-prepared 21 year old will face. The vast majority of CMs go into TFA to pad their resume (of the wonderful people I met in the CT corps, the vast majority are getting ready to start medical or law school as they have met their two years in the classroom) and know for a fact after two, MAYBE three years they are gone. So few CMs choose to stay. And while overall teacher burnout is very high, TFA corps members will often leave midyear. The statistics that they use to show who is still in education are ridiculous. If your job is even vaguely related to education then they say you stayed in education after your commitment. Work at a teacher hospital? You’re still in education! Most members will tell you themselves that teaching isn’t their long term goal. The students in these low income district do not need yet another person coming and going. Many have been left behind so many time, why add another person to that list?
TFA needs to make major changes to be an effective organization…. like actually certifying teachers and making their commitment 5 or more years. TFA also does a heck of a lot to promote charters and throw public schools under the bus. All in all, I would be very unhappy to see TFA come into Tucson. And mind you, three years ago I would have been delighted to be able to re-join the corps in Tucson. In my time with TFA I felt like I was fed a lot of misinformation then left without any support. In the end, I was made to feel like a horrible person when I left the corps because I was hurting kids I hadn’t yet even been assigned. The truth is that had I stayed, that would have hurt them the most. I had no clue as to what I was doing! They still email me about my return to the corps to this day… fat chance.
But to all the Pima County Libs, “Common Core” is wonderful…right? What a bunch of Crap CC is, creating your little Hitler…uh Obama Youth Corp.
The whole Hitler/Obama routine is quite played out, even for uncreative right wingers. We get it already, let it go.
We suffered through 8 years of your buddy, bush, now its your turn.
THANK YOU, fanciefoodie!!! Your post was truthful and helps people understand the great disservice TFA is doing to education, especially in the areas with the poorest students. Marana is very lucky to have you working for them! Again, thank you for your honest personal experience with TFA.
cempiremtn, I am a Liberal Democrat totally opposed to Common Core (and I am not alone). It is the first time ever that I have agreed with Michelle Malkin on anything, and probably the last, but this program crosses all political lines. It has one goal: to turn the general population into perfect little worker bees, to serve the elite like Bill Gates and corporations like Pearson. As more & more people become more aware and informed of all the data that is being gathered on every student being tested across the nation, and who has access to that data, more and more parents will say “Not my child!” and opt out of the testing, thereby invalidating the results. The more states are learning about Common Core, the more they are realizing that they jumped the gun, embraced those federal funds before they actually knew what they were signing up for, and some states are saying “No thanks!”…the price is too high, I won’t do that to the students in my state, and they’re opting out.
TFA is just one more way that public education is being destroyed. I am totally opposed to TFA and hope & pray that Sunnyside residents will stand up and say a loud “NO!!!!” to this proposal.
As a Sunnyside Teacher, I am concerned what this means for me and my students. I walked into this district that I love with my eyes wide open to the challenges that I would be facing, but being responsible for the education of 25 – 30 students every year is a daunting experience, especially when I don’t feel I get the support from the district that I need. If these teachers can come in and make a difference- great! However, once they see that they lack the resources from the district to truly teach these students they will wonder, like I wonder, what the heck they got themselves into. This is another way of Isquierdo trying to boost his image instead of taking care of the students.
It is because of bright ideas such as these that I am leaving the Sunnyside school District as well as taking my open enrollment daughter out of the district. There are amazing teachers in the district, I’m just not happy with the decisions that Isquierdo and his board of 3 are making.