Alright, I said it, I don’t support Teach for America. As an education major and future educator, I truly believe that TFA plays a large role in continuing educational inequality and the opportunity gap that so many children in America face, and here’s why.
I’d like to start off by saying that I have multiple friends who are ambassadors and members of Teach for America. I don’t think that they are bad people. On the contrary, they are some of the kindest and most genuine people I know, and they joined TFA because they want to help others and make a difference in a broken education system. However, Teach for America is not the way to make that difference.
For those of you who don’t know, Teach for America is a nonprofit organization that was founded with the hopes of fighting educational inequality by providing young leaders as teachers. Their mission is to “enlist, develop, and mobilize as many as possible of our nation’s most promising future leaders to grow and strengthen the movement for educational equity and excellence.” So in short, TFA recruits recent college graduates to teach in low-income, underserved schools for about two years.
The first glaring red flag is Teach For America’s training period. The summer before their first year starts, the young adults recruited to the TFA ranks receive about five to seven weeks of training and then begin their journey as a teacher. Five to seven weeks. Read that again. Education majors go through four years of classes, observations, practicum, and student teaching. The main reason for all of this buildup before actually leading a classroom is to lessen any negative impacts we may have on students. Anyone who is new to teaching can tell you that it’s hard and you are bound to make mistakes. After four years of college, 200+ hours of observations, and a whole semester of student teaching, new teachers are still going to face obstacles and make mistakes. However, the difference is that these teachers have been better prepared. They’ve taken courses on special education, the best ways to assess students, working with English Language Learners, and so many other important concepts that will be needed in a future classroom. The bottom line is that a few weeks is nowhere near long enough to prepare future educators, and the TFA trainees do not have the opportunity to learn from different observations and classroom experiences before they are thrown into a classroom of their own.
Not only do TFA recruits receive little training in general, but they are also grossly underprepared to serve a group of students who are probably very different from them. I have been able to explore and discuss the concept of a savior complex in multiple of my education classes, and Teach for America does just that- creates a savior complex. TFA approaches educational inequality and the opportunity gap as heroes who can save the students in underserved urban schools. Before these teachers even enter the classroom, they have certain perceptions and preconceived notions about these children that affect how they interact with students and run their classrooms. Now don’t get me wrong, this is something that every new teacher, regardless of how they got there, will struggle with. The difference is that teachers who have received an education in teaching and spent longer than a few weeks in training will (hopefully) recognize their own biases and preconceived notions. They will have taken courses and had discussions on diversity and inclusion, the effects of school and communities on education, multicultural issues in the classroom, and so many more. Without these courses, Teach for America candidates are often blind to their own biases as they are thrown into a classroom with students who don’t look like them and come from a completely different community and socioeconomic background.
The final major issue I have with Teach For America is the inconsistencies between what TFA “stands for” and what they actually do. Although a major part of their mission is to end education inequality, it seems that they are just perpetuating it. TFA provides teachers with under-resourced schools, so how can that be a bad thing? Well, those teachers only stay there for about two years. After that, another wave of inexperienced, under-qualified teachers comes in, and the cycle never ends. After only two years, new teachers have probably just gotten the hang of the whole teaching thing only to leave and be replaced by someone who has never taught before. Furthermore, all students, but especially those who are already disadvantaged and attending under-resourced schools, need experienced teachers who can provide stability and consistency to their schools. It has been found that high teacher turnover rates (i.e. teachers leaving and being replaced by new ones) have negative impacts on all students at the school, not only the students who have those teachers. So, Teach for America’s lack of consistency and qualified educators seems to perpetuate educational inequality. To make matters worse, in many cities TFA teachers are actually taking jobs away from trained, certified teachers, rather than filling empty teacher positions as their mission states. Providing education to students who need it should be more than a way to fill a few gap years or something to put on a resume. All students deserve to be taught by qualified, prepared teachers who want to stay in the profession.