Good intentions don't necessarily create good teachers
A recent story in the Star Tribune extolled the virtues of Teach For America, a program that takes high-achieving college graduates and puts them into classrooms as teachers.
The story led with Sarah Schultes, a newly minted college graduate who is teaching an eighth-grade science class at Anderson United Community School. She told the reporter her first day on the job "inspiring," "scary," "eye-opening," "exciting" and "humbling" all at once.
These are common feelings for anyone after their first day of their first post-college job. Unfortunately, these feelings also show the inexperience and naiveté of a person who has not gone through the student teaching and classroom regimen required of all Minnesota college teaching graduates.
Schultes is one of 43 teachers in the Teach for America program debuting in Minnesota this year. The national program puts college graduates in schools with high numbers of economically disadvantaged students. It was founded 20 years ago and it has 7,300 teachers nationwide who commit to spending two years on the job.
This year 15 members are in the Minneapolis public schools, five in the Brooklyn Center schools and 23 in charter schools. The Teach for America members obtain their state teaching certification while teaching. They also go through a five-week course over the summer in Los Angeles. They are paid the same salary as beginning teachers in the districts - $27,000 in Minneapolis and $33,000 in Brooklyn Center.
Education Minnesota, the statewide teachers' union, has questioned the program, saying that now isn't the time to be putting lightly trained adults in front of students. But Teach for America leaders say the idealistic recruits work hard and are amenable to helping students overcome Minnesota's deep achievement gap.
It is ridiculous to think that anyone with a five-week summer course and a license waiver from the government is ready to teach. Classes are now typically over 30 students per teacher and the education discrepancies - from the highest achievers to the nearly illiterate - are enough to stymie the most experienced teacher.
Teach for America has it half right. More enthusiastic, positive, intelligent adults are needed in schools. They need to help students overcome the academic hurdles to high school graduation. But to put untrained graduates barely four years older than their students in a class without proper training does a disservice to education in Minnesota.
Teach for America members should not have control of a class. They are not well-enough trained. They should serve as assistants to licensed, experienced teachers and help them give students the education they deserve and that we as Minnesotans demand.
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Comments
Confused
Student's score higher on state and district mandated assessments when they have a TFA corps member than they do with a traditional first-year teacher. Also, there is no difference in the rate of turnover in the first 5 years between traditional teacher and a TFA corps members in economically disadvantaged communities. The reality is many traditiaonl-track teachers only work in low-incom, high-need schools when they are desperate for a job, and stay until they can find a "better" job, whereas TFA teachers choose to teach in these communities and many remain years beyond their two-year commmitment.
This editorial lacks any supporting evidence
John's commentary is a common complaint about Teach for America. But unfortunately it relies one false assumption: That more training and education makes better teachers. This seems like a simple and logical conclusion, but sadly study after study has shown us that there is very little correlation between the amount of teacher preparation courses a teacher takes and their ability to teach well. The same is true for years of experience. It certainly takes teachers a few years (3-5) to get their practice in order but after that, there is no discernible difference in teacher quality between teachers of 5, 15 or 35 years. A great teacher for the most part remains a great teacher and, sadly, a poor quality teacher very rarely improves.
TFA members (who, John neglected to point out, are members of the teachers unions) may or may not be good teachers. But there is little evidence to suggest that additional coursework and certification hurdles will improve that.
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