Teach For America

"Unfortunately, due to the changes and cutbacks within AmeriCorps, we are not currently able to guarantee that corps members will receive the "education awards" they once received through AmeriCorps. The education award is a credit of $4,725 per year of service that corps members can use to pay back undergraduate debt and to pay future educational expenses. We will continue to work to access this benefit and will keep potential applicants apprised of further developments."

Guess I'll scratch that idea.

invited to a final interview 4 this, dang

haha I hate everyone who does this

(except for you)

spared!

would you care to elabor8 your h8?

have a friend who did this, hated it; have two other friends doing ny teaching fellows, love it

but my friend who did tfa was... not really the teaching 'type'

I did this program. For me, it was the type of thing I could only have done when I was fresh out of college.

haha I hate everyone who does this

I wonder why this is. Although I suspect I know, and probably agree with most of your reasons, I would love to hear them.

I h8 that it made 'teaching inner city kids for a year' = 'prestigious masters program'

+ the fact that not very many of the teachers are actually interested in doing it for a career

= 'prestigious masters program'

in terms of how it's looked at on a CV, the type of people who apply and the type of people who get accepted

I don't think that's actually the perception of it. I can understand your point if you are equating it with certain types of masters programs that are not really applicable to a job that is being applied for, but look good on the CV anyway. In that regard, I think it is a bit of prestige thing to have as (presumably) your first job out of college. Let me tell you this, though - by and large, the folks in that program work their asses off.

By "type of people who apply" and "type of people who get accepted," please elaborate.

Do you have the same problem(s) with the Peace Corps?

I do agree with you that it is a problem that a good number of people who do it are not actually interested in doing it for a career. I was initially, but realized very quickly that I would not make a very good elementary school teacher. I suspect my experience would have been different if I had taught middle or high school.

Also, its for TWO years, and a lot of the sites are rural - I, for one, taught in the rural South.

i'm definitely interested in it as a long-term career and circumstances in my life (getting fired last month) made it a lot easier to pursue education through this channel.

That's the main reason I did it. Upon graduation from college, I was thinking either teacher or lawyer. I had a few family members and friends who had done the program, so I applied, got in, and did it. It was a quick, rewarding and interesting way to try out teaching as a job. I got to really know a part of the country I wouldn't have otherwise gotten to spend a lot of time in, and got to check one potential career off my list.

I am a lawyer, btw, which is going relatively well.

my problems with the peace corps are that I have a close friend who's spent the last half a year in a remote african village w/ starving africans and has been given basically no real instructions / purpose / tools / goal by the peace corps...she's accomplishing literally nothing beyond being a novelty white person for the village. (her words)

but the peace corps doesn't seem as...elitist? in the admissions process as teach for america. the peace corps isn't filled w/ ivy league kids.

my TFA friends a. all went to top 25 schools b. reallllly don't seem that interested in teaching for the rest of their lives. I realize that this is anecdotal, but still. I knew people who DO want to teach for the rest of their lives and didn't get accepted.

Having never taken part in the selection process as a selector, I cannot comment on what their decisions on who would v. who wouldn't make a good Corps member.

Now, this may be opening a can of worms, but what's wrong with Ivy League kids wanting to do something like TFA instead of jumping right into a profitable career? No one is getting rich doing TFA, and, even if its only for the two years, at least these people are drawing attention to the plight of public education in the country today by doing it. I would argue that the Ivy kids are the ones who have the least to worry about in terms of those schools negatively affecting them, and so it means even more that they are taking some initiative by doing something like this.

My school was not, and still isn't, in the Top 25 when I applied.
I feel the same way about the Peace Corps, to be quite honest. It really is what you make of it, and seems much less structured than TFA does.

'drawing attention to the plight of public education'? I mean, I guess if a bunch of mostly untrained 22 year olds can be elementary school teachers, that does draw some attention to the plight.

but what's wrong with Ivy League kids wanting to do something like TFA instead of jumping right into a profitable career?
a. I see no reason why an elite academic CV would correlate w/ 'better at teaching inner city children than anyone else would be'
b. there are only so many teaching positions out there and TFA kids are taking someone else's job while getting paid more than an entry level teacher would be. (regular teachers are not fans of TFA.)

teaching fellows programs tend to have a much better reputation among career teachers than tfa does, at least in my experience

a. I see no reason why an elite academic CV would correlate w/ 'better at teaching inner city children than anyone else would be'

You may be right, but an elite academic CV would also get them into a better teaching school, if they chose to do so, right?

Also - NOBODY is a good teacher their first year. NOBODY. It is a really hard job, and you don't get to experience what is difficult about it until you do it. Educational degree or not.

b. there are only so many teaching positions out there and TFA kids are taking someone else's job while getting paid more than an entry level teacher would be. (regular teachers are not fans of TFA.)

No. TFA functions as a placement service, or at least it did while I did it. I was not paid by TFA, I was only placed into the school district where I taught. I received salary, health benefits, etc. through the school district.

Nobody wants TFA in their district. Its not like TFA is creating the demand for the teachers. TFA is brought on as a last resort because they realize that these newly minted, under-trained teachers are a last resort to get someone/anyone in front of kids to attempt to give them an education. As far as I know, the districts would much rather, and often do hire local teachers first. I knew several people who were not able to be placed for over a month in the region where I worked because their potential placements fell through because of the spots being filled by "regular" teachers.

And I have heard "regular" teachers who feel both positively and negatively about TFA, and I can totally understand. Its not a unanimous opinion about the program, believe me.

i'm with iatee on this one. teaching in underfunded public schools (and then leaving 2 years later) is lame and, ultimately, not productive. teaching is not just a step on a 22 year old ivy leaguer's ladder to personal fulfillment. i want to tell them that the world is not their petri dish to experiment in and then discard.

i'm sure it works for some people (BLAM) but i, personally, would rather see people go into teaching who plan on staying there and not just thinking of it as a character building experience.

if nobody is good their first year, is there a good reason to let students lose their only chance to learn, say, 7th grade math/english to a dilettante?

Also - NOBODY is a good teacher their first year. NOBODY. It is a really hard job, and you don't get to experience what is difficult about it until you do it. Educational degree or not.

this is exactly why it's silly to have a program where lots of people are only gonna teach for two years!

I read somewhere that TFA people got paid more than an entry level teacher, might have read wrong

if TFA didn't exist, who would be filling these teaching positions?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-07-29-teach-for-america_N.htm

people who graduate from various schools with teaching degress, i imagine?
i just get really angry with the idea of teaching-as-volunteer work.

i meant degrees
i just got a root canal, you'll have to pardon me

This is petty, but I am mad at Teach for America in a nebulous way bcz someone promoting them put teachforamerica dot com stickers all over the nice marble benches & pillars of the library on my campus. Essentially vandalism. I wrote TFA an email saying how bad this looked & never heard back. This is the kind of experience that makes me feel like an old person.

i didn't have the impression that there is a huge pool of exp. teachers and/or recent education grads looking for work, but i don't really know that much about it. if tfa is replacing good experienced teachers i think that sucks, but at the same time i take what the Teachers Union President quoted in that article says with a huge grain of salt

there is in NYC im pretty sure. maybe not "huge" but easily fillable w/o the alternative cert. programs.

ok let's imagine that they did this program for nursing
how would everyone feel about that?

in my estimation, teaching is as much of a specialized skill requiring specialized knowledge as nursing. sure, there's no life and death immediately BUT if a kid has a shitty frazzled untrained 22 year old TFA teacher for 6th gr science and never learns what a 6th grader in another class learns, it could affect the rest of his life.

i'm being a little melodramatic, but still. it's not volunteer work. teaching is specialized and important.

i'm sure it works for some people (BLAM) but i, personally, would rather see people go into teaching who plan on staying there and not just thinking of it as a character building experience.

So would everyone who works with Teach for America. You can't blame the program for the fact that a lot of people - myself included - wash out after two years. Most of the people I know who did the program went in thinking they wanted to be teachers for the long term.

if nobody is good their first year, is there a good reason to let students lose their only chance to learn, say, 7th grade math/english to a dilettante?

No. But they would be subjected to worse if not the dilettante - overcrowding, being the main problem.

this is exactly why it's silly to have a program where lots of people are only gonna teach for two years!

the program doesn't limit your ability to stay on after your two years. Many people remain as teachers after their two year commitment is over.

Look, I hear you on all of these points. I had somewhat of a unique experience b/c of where I taught - most people did not sign up to teach in the rural south, but rather to teach in NYC or the Bay Area or somewhere they could remain in touch with real life. For me, TFA was my ENTIRE life for those two years, and, despite my many, many failures, I never stopped trying at it.

The districts don't want TFA there b/c it means they are failing to retain recruitable, homegrown talent to teach the kids. It means that they are not a desirable place to work and support the kids. This automatically places them on the defensive to an extent beyond what public schools already are.

From an economic standpoint, the Boston school system sounds like they are just doing what any other school system does - they remove higher paid employees and replace them with lower-paid ones, e.g., TFA'ers. Doesn't make it right, but can you really blame TFA?

so was there a real shortage of teachers when tfa was founded (20 years ago?) and now there isn't? or was it always kinda bullshit-y and just replacing people who didn't really need to be replaced?

i'm here in texas, the need for teachers in math and science and special education and bilingual ed is palpable (my previous job was for an alt cert program that makes TFA's preparation look like a cotdamn doctoral thesis by comparison).

so was there a real shortage of teachers when tfa was founded (20 years ago?) and now there isn't? or was it always kinda bullshit-y and just replacing people who didn't really need to be replaced?

I don't think its either/ or, especially given the breadth of the program now, as compared to 20 years ago. I can tell you that where I taught, they needed teachers. No doubt about it.

there may not be a shortage in a lot of places in the sense that...enough eligible teachers to fill x number of vacancies. there's def an issue of finding teachers willing to work in urban and rural school districts when pay is the same/greater in a suburban school district w/ fewer pressures.

there may not be a shortage in a lot of places in the sense that...enough eligible teachers to fill x number of vacancies. there's def an issue of finding teachers willing to work in urban and rural school districts when pay is the same/greater in a suburban school district w/ fewer pressures.

Absolutely.

i guess this just makes me think of that miniseries "country boys". i think the kids in that school benefited substantially from having teachers who were part of their community, understood their lives/problems, etc. i am glad that TFA folks are filling positions, but i guess what i would like to see is a greater professionalism for the teaching profession.

i realize that's not easy.

i also don't mean to belittle your experience BLAM, or to discourage you m bison...i just wish people treated teaching like a specialized, professional career path rather than a fall-back option or a something to do when there is nothing else to do.

^^this. TFA, I guess, got a record # of applications this year r/t economy.

tfa just added a cohort for my hometown and current residence. the vast majority of them will be teaching in saisd which has been seeing declining enrollment for decades as most families either move outside the city center or send their kids to private school (hey, welcome to urban isd's!) san antonio has a decent public school system in those more suburban areas (two largest districts comprise about half of the county student population) so we don't have a very large private school enrollment here.

saisd, tfa or not, has a big problem with retention. difficult to either keep them in district (some take the job to get their foot in the door, work for a bit, then jet to the suburban districts as more experienced and qualified candidates) or in the profession altogether.

tfa is not without its flaws, but at the very least it is recruiting very bright and energetic ppl into a profession where both of those traits go a long way.

to wit: i mentioned i had been working for an alt cert program which 4 now will go nameless. texas has privatized alt cert like no other state, and this particular program now certifies more teachers on a year to year basis than ut-austin (between about 2500-3000 statewide in each of the last couple of years, will likely stay steady this year). they offer districts band-aids, thousands of ppl who've undergone menial training and who are legally eligible hire but are not only criminally underprepared but screened only to see if they have a bachelor's degree. it's a quickie certification that appeals to a lot of ppl because it's easy as fuck (no assignments to speak of, just sitting in about 40 clock hours of classroom instruction in which you are one of 300 people plus 40 hours of online instruction with multiple choice quizzes...this fulfills pre-service training in the state of texas btw!). it's a shotgun approach: train as many ppl as possible and get them to pass content exams and into the applicant pool...districts will be desperate enough to hire for their critical need areas. (if it werent for the fact i would be the only one posting there, i could start a shitty thread abt this place tbh).

i also don't mean to belittle your experience BLAM, or to discourage you m bison...i just wish people treated teaching like a specialized, professional career path rather than a fall-back option or a something to do when there is nothing else to do.

Totally no offense taken whatsoever. I absolutely wish this were the case, as well.

i have to go grade papers now
carry on!

i just wish people treated teaching like a specialized, professional career path rather than a fall-back option or a something to do when there is nothing else to do.

― figgy pudding (La Lechera), Tuesday, March 2, 2010 5:14 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

definitely, and i like to think that i do. i've been collecting a variety of texts and resources (online stuff, too) for the better part of the last year and a half as sort of a makeshift pre-classroom prep. traditional cert programs aren't really feasible 4 me financially tho.

texas has privatized alt cert like no other state, and this particular program now certifies more teachers on a year to year basis than ut-austin (between about 2500-3000 statewide in each of the last couple of years, will likely stay steady this year). they offer districts band-aids, thousands of ppl who've undergone menial training and who are legally eligible hire but are not only criminally underprepared but screened only to see if they have a bachelor's degree. it's a quickie certification that appeals to a lot of ppl because it's easy as fuck (no assignments to speak of, just sitting in about 40 clock hours of classroom instruction in which you are one of 300 people plus 40 hours of online instruction with multiple choice quizzes...this fulfills pre-service training in the state of texas btw!)

so glad to find some insider information about this; i've been looking into certification programs in various states and was totally skeeved out by the sheer number of alt certification programs in texas. a lot of these company's websites do not inspire confidence btw.

Those programs can be the educational equivalent of puppy mills.

horseshoe come to nyc we can haaaang

there are a lot of those programs in texas, but there's only a handful that you need 2 look at w/r/t to private programs as far as generating a significant (most if not all of the regional educational service centers have their own programs which have been around a while and are a bit more reputable).

the program i worked for was def for profit even tho their website is a dot-org. they are just str8 up a business. all u need to know is that the family that runs the joint hire big-time republican lobbyists/lawyers and contribute mad ca$$$$h to rick perry.

*a significant number of teachers (and money)

la lechera, puppy mills would be favorable, i would liken it more to animal testing labs. where they test boner pills. on girl dogs.

i'd like to know why -- specifically -- there has been such a movement from traditional teacher training in a college environment to these quickie certification programs.

really i maintain that this problem could be solved if college students were led (by their advisors/professors/anyone) to think that teaching is a viable/respectable/rewarding/creative career WHILE THEY ARE IN SCHOOL rather than after they graduate with their comparative lit degrees.

why all the self-loathing, people? is it the years of being treated like babysitters? like martyrs? like glorified volunteers?

horseshoe come to nyc we can haaaang

― max, Tuesday, March 2, 2010 8:07 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

nyc is a distinct possibility i will hold u to this!

Amanda, I think I was too head in the clouds/out of it in college to be on top of professional training. believe me i wish i had certified then :(

seriously, though -- if someone you respected (an adult, advisor, professor, ANYONE) had suggested it to you, perhaps you would have considered it? i would have.

my fave high school English teacher basically ordered me to teach high school but yeah, no one really mentioned it in college.

one thing about college is that youre constantly in the thrall of yr professors--and so if you are wanting to be a teacher-type youre a lot more likely to look at a college prof as a model for that, and not a high school teacher

btw horseshoe i will die if you come to nyc

you can't die i will need friends!

i will do my best

(most if not all of the regional educational service centers have their own programs which have been around a while and are a bit more reputable).

does this mean universities? are there any non-university programs that are non-sketchy?

I think a bunch of people above have already basically stated what I think about TFA as a means of improving inner city schools - it's borderline useless and possibly even mildly harmful. That's no reason not to do the program I guess.

What I'd really like to see is a program to get EXPERIENCED teachers into those schools - maybe a concerted recruiting effort plus some kind of bonus? I also think education (beyond a basic threshold) is a useless metric of how effective someone will be and so, to a certain extent, is intelligence (again, beyond a basic threshold needed to be confident with whatever material is being taught and to understand the needs of kids).

My wife thinks the NYC Teaching Fellows is a bit better because (1) it's designed with the intent of getting teachers to stay as opposed to just doing a stint and (2) in their recruitment they specifically look for people who have had to deal with adversity and are thus likely to be able to handle the difficult experience.

teaching fellows is also open to professionals looking to switch careers (are who are more likely to stay in teaching), and stresses community involvement in a way that (imu) tfa doesnt. it has a much higher retention rate--over 50% for 5 years i believe, whereas tfa is like 30% after 2

i have two good friends who are doing NYTF--both of whom intend to stay in teaching in the long term and saw the alt. cert. program as a way to help pay for a masters and to dive right in so to speak.

one thing about these programs, NYTF in particular, is that they do help fill spots for 'special needs'/'emotionally disturbed' classes, which generally need a lot of teachers since by law they have to keep up a certain student-teacher ratio.

I think a lot of school districts do offer bonuses for teaching at high needs schools. Pretty sure this happens in NYC already, for example.

Nope. NYC is on a scaled pay system.

hmm there's something called Teachers for Tomorrow but it looks like it's only open to new teachers for some reason.

(most if not all of the regional educational service centers have their own programs which have been around a while and are a bit more reputable).

does this mean universities? are there any non-university programs that are non-sketchy?

― horseshoe, Tuesday, March 2, 2010 7:24 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark

i think in new york this is the equivalent of the BOCES, a lot of states have these sort of regional entities that provide professional development among other things (http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/ESC/). here in san antonio, region 20 has its own in-house ACP which is decent (considerable more training than the program i worked for, to be sure).

thank you!

no prollem!

What I'd really like to see is a program to get EXPERIENCED teachers into those schools - maybe a concerted recruiting effort plus some kind of bonus?

yeah! i think the problem is exacerbated by independent school districts which set their wages - uh - independently so there ends up being sort of a fairly level market wage for teachers. so the poorer/lower-performing district pays basically the same as the more property wealthy district. at that point, it's a wash and talented teachers will then decide where to teach based on non-economic criteria. a few of the martyrs will sacrifice 4 tha luv of tha game, but most will take the shorter commutes and the bratty kids at some suburban isd over the alternative.

states with some measure of creativity might provide incentive bonuses on top of annual wage to teach in title I schools, or perhaps providing bonuses for some value-added metric (i hesitate to say it because i am not a fan of high-stakes testing, but if you can improve the school's and/or student's test scores, i think a big sack of money is a good way 2 b rewarded). as it stands, it's a thankless job to be an excellent teacher in a high-need setting since pay is in most public schools is based on seniority and level of education (with some stipends for critical need areas, but not nearly enough to tip the scales in any meaningful way).

Not so much for or against Teach for America as looking at what the organization has learned about data on effective teachers:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/01/what-makes-a-great-teacher/7841/

I'm new to teacher education (in my own, I think very rigorous online Bemidji State University fast-track license program at the moment, paying almost entirely with student loans), and so I'm not strongly opinionated, but reading the article, I find a lot of the "aha" revelations are actually well-established practices or facts in my program, at least.

M. Bison, have you read Anita Woolfolk's Educational Psychology and Richard Arends's Learning to Teach? They are great, and at least with Woolfolk, if you get it new with online materials, you can quiz yourself. (The Arends online stuff I access through class, so I'm not sure about that.) What really makes the knowledge stick though is observing the material in action, especially with excellent teachers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/education/19regents.html?hpw

supposed 2 find out baout dis 2NITE :O

omg good luck!

good news: in.
bad news: put me in dallas even though my wife has a job here in SA. and i indicated as much in the application. (trying to see if i can be reassigned now, BALLS).

say, turns out I'm doing this after all

last 9 months summary:
- got a teaching job after having gone through an alt certain program last summer, teach special ed math en el westside de San Antonio
- going to be most likely the only TFA dude at my district bc they are allowing me to fulfill my corps years at my school which is just west of saisd (my district is arguably in more dire str8s than saisd).
- I leave for Houston for institute training in about 3 weeks.
- i am 25 and I will be one of the oldest dudes there whaaaaaaaaaaat

imma have to take the last three days of school off to do this, which means I miss my seniors' graduation, :(

also any lurkers doin this' post up like Shaquille up in this

only been back home a week, def not missing living in a dorm room

the qual of the training was legit, but having taught for a year, I know a loooooooot of ppl will struggle p badly if they are not confident in their content or are uncomfortwble with the idea of being a fucking grown up.

*teaches america*

*is changed*

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/08/30/is-teach-for-america-working/

a: for the Waltons and Gates, yes

funny to see my attitude towards these fools evolve itt

http://www.theonion.com/articles/my-year-volunteering-as-a-teacher-helped-educate-a,28803/

That roundtable is a pretty big pile of anecdata

oh yeah, particularly for the pro- side

http://theamericanscholar.org/heal-for-america/

caek, we got a lil tfa h8fest goin in the secret 77 thread 4 teachers

3 years and ~lyfe experiences~ changes a man deeply

cool twitter stuff at #resistTFA