<p>Has anyone had any experience with the Teach for America program where a new teacher works in an underprivileged community?</p>
<p>Lots of people have. My daughter is doing it now. It is extremely hard work. Both the work itself and TFA are very demanding. TFA is far from perfect, but seems to do a pretty darn good job of preparing, motivating, and supporting its corps members, and striving to get better all the time. </p>
<p>It’s an interesting organization – some people love it, some hate it. If you research it, you have to be very conscious of the fact that both its supporters and its detractors often have agendas to which the issue of finding and training the best teachers are tangential.</p>
<p>What do you want to know?</p>
<p>I’ve had friends who did it and quit after a month, and friends who did it and loved every minute of it, right until the last day. It’s varies a lot by the individual, by what their faced with and how much they can take of it. And from the long view, it’s really putting a band aid on a bullet wound in the educational system, but when it works, in the short term, it can make a difference for a few kids and so maybe it’s worth it after all. I don’t know. </p>
<p>It’s very, very, very hard work, and teaching is pretty much a full time 24/7 profession, especially for the inexperienced. You work all day, you write lesson plans or grade papers at night, it’s a lot to do. In some of the schools there is a good support program and the teachers get help from each other, but in other schools you’re really out there on your own. </p>
<p>And it’s not easy to get into. Especially now when lots of people are looking for a few years of service work before trying to break into the job market.</p>
<p>My nephew and a mentee who used to work in my urban/underprivileged classroom both went through Teach For America. They found it hard but worthwhile. </p>
<p>The nephew is in a rough downtown neighborhood in a large East Coast city. He was surprised to be assigned to teach math (was a history major), but brushed up on it. He has the complete respect of his class of teens, most of whom could pummel him into the ground if they chose to. His dad raised him with clear, stern instructions and a sense of leadership. I imagine that’s about how he handles things if he has the respect of his students, which he does. </p>
<p>My mentee wanted work experience before Law School. She was sent to a rural area somewhere around Utah or Colorado among Native Americans and Latino kids who studied in some kind of community center. I gather she found it a very rich experience, and from there went on to Law School. Regardless of future profession, an experience in American public schooling would make for a better citizenry == that was how it was expressed to her. She was an intense, hard worker when I knew her. I’m sure she will be great wherever she goes from here. </p>
<p>Teach for America does send students without benefit of professional teacher education to some of the country’s most challenging schools and classrooms. But as a newly certified teacher for a poverty district, as low person on the totem pole I similarly received the building’s most challenging situations in terms of kids/room/materials at first. The classroom management is always the hardest piece even for trained teachers. Teacher Education programs are more theoretical than practical for use in poverty settings. So I’m not convinced the newly-minted “trained teacher” with a masters degree is necessarily better prepared than Teach for America’s young adults. </p>
<p>I’d say that a person needs an inner core that is very strong and confident, without being rigid or arrogant, to handle what the students bring. Be ready to be made humble, but you will surely grow through the job. It will be stressful. Some students will love you and others disappoint you. All of it will teach you important lessons but you won’t have time to figure them out as they are happening, more likely later.</p>
<p>Something of concern is that the wages are so low that you must take care with where you live, in relation to the assigned school. Try to live with others and not alone; get good advice before renting an apartment.</p>
<p>Many teachers’ unions oppose TFA. TFA gives jobs to kids right out of school, when veteran teachers are sometimes losing theirs. Watching a friend’s daughter start out with TFA, I would say that some of these problems with unions can delay or complicate placement.</p>
<p>I’ve had a large number of students participate in Teach for America. Their experiences have been very mixed - from life-changing to completely miserable. If I had to generalize (based on my students’ experiences) those in rural areas had better experiences than those in urban areas (the types of students, support from their school’s administration, support from other teachers seems better in rural areas). </p>
<p>There was at least one case I know of (not my student) where there were immense problems in a DC school which resulted in unfounded criminal charges (and a civil suit for millions) being brought against a TFA student. It was a very unfortunate situation and I know a number of faculty members who warn students away from TFA as a result.</p>
<p>Well, my d is a first year TFA corps member and a member of the union. 
She saw no discrepancy there. So far, her experiences with fellow teachers as well as school administrators have been almost completely positive. Then again, she’s not one to waste her time on negative experiences or relationships, so I don’t know that everyone in her position would see things the same way. And she’s fortunate to be teaching in a district with a long history of TFA placements (the assistant superintendent is a TFA alum, as well as several principals).</p>
<p>There was a long, contentious, and certainly eye-opening (for me, anyway) thread about this earlier this year: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/667640-parents-experience-teach-america.html?highlight=Teach+for+America[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/667640-parents-experience-teach-america.html?highlight=Teach+for+America</a> I’ve been waiting to post an update on my d’s experiences until she’s been in her classroom longer, but I can say that almost none of my initial concerns have proven to be the applicable ones! D has received support from her fellow teachers, including non-TFA members/alums. She has gained their respect by working hard (yes, many many hours) and being willing to take on additional responsibilities.</p>
<p>And she loves it. She is not afraid of the classroom management issue (could have told anyone that :)) and has received praise for her skills there. She is strongly considering, not just a third TFA year, but a career in the classroom.
If I could just point out - TFA doesn’t give kids jobs, school districts do. And very often these are jobs that veteran and newcomer teachers alike do not want, because the schools are in danger of failing and the surrounding neighborhoods are dangerous.</p>
<p>^^ frazzled is right. School districts (actually school principals) have to hire TFA corps members and corps members have to go on interviews just like anyone. They can and often are turned down (my friend didn’t get her position until barely a week before school opened, after going on many, many interviews) and they are also laid off/fired. I had another friend in TFA who worked in the Oakland school district, and when California laid off a bunch of teachers as part of budget cuts, all of the TFA corps members got the axe so that veteran teachers could stay on (and it should be noted that veteran teacher and good teacher are not always the same thing).</p>
<p>There are basically three knocks on TFA. </p>
<p>The first, and most serious, is that it offers future lawyers and investment bankers a two-year Peace Corps-like experience teaching the underprivileged without producing a lot of career teachers, and that its corpsmembers leave teaching just as they acquire enough experience to be effective. The organization is very, very sensitive about that charge, and has a rash of statistics to counter it. It is also working to improve its teacher retention. </p>
<p>But TFA is never going to have the teacher-yield of traditional education programs and other alternative-credentialing programs because it is not solely focused on producing teachers. Part of its purpose is to create a cadre of, yes, lawyers, investment bankers, and policymakers who have a personal connection to public education and education policy issues. And many of its alumni remain in education but not in schools. As time passes, the early TFA alumni corps is racking up an impressive list of achievements in education. Michelle Rhee, the DC schools superintendent, the founders of numerous successful charter schools, including the KIPP schools, the people who founded and run other alternative-credentialing programs, and increasing numbers of state and federal education policy officials and staff are TFA alumni.</p>
<p>The second is that it is elitist and arrogant. There’s fire where that smoke is, too. The basic proposition behind the organization is that the education system needs, and lacks, the benefit of Type A Ivy League (and similar) graduates, and that the traditional education career path does not produce enough people with the critical thinking skills and drive to reform a system that is clearly failing. That IS elitist, and it’s not hard for it to come across as arrogant. Add to that the fact that it often takes a top-down approach, dealing with governors and superintendents, while bypassing mid-level administrators and unions. And it encourages its corpsmembers to try to shake things up in the schools where they teach. So, yes, where TFA goes there is often resentment in its wake. It is worth remembering, however, that the existing structures are generally not doing a great job of educating at-risk kids, so even if its methods were perfectly calibrated TFA would be making lots of people in the education system uncomfortable.</p>
<p>(I strongly suspect, by the way, that union-TFA tensions will be reducing sharply over time, as more TFA alumni remain in teaching and thus in teachers’ unions, and – thanks to those Type A personalities and elitist expectations – as more TFA alumni wind up in union leadership. My TFA kid is very mindful of the fact that, if she stays in teaching, the union that sometimes makes her life difficult now will be HER union.)</p>
<p>Third, TFA programs can vary a lot from place to place, and the quality of its training, placement, and support is not consistent. That’s probably unavoidable given how fast it has grown – there are more kids serving as TFA corpsmembers today than served in the first 10 years of the organization cumulatively. I think it devotes a lot of effort to improving itself in this regard. My daughter has received pretty good training and support from TFA, in addition to support from other teachers in her school. And she reports that teachers at her school who have gone through other alternative-credentialing programs believe that TFA does a better job of training and support than their programs do.</p>
<p>But anyone considering accepting an offer from TFA should know that teaching in failing schools is a tough, sometimes scary job, and no amount of training or support can make it easy, comfortable, not exhausting.</p>
<p>A fourth criticism is heard much less frequently these days – that TFA corpsmembers do not do a good job in the classroom. The organization has reams of data to show that its corpsmembers do at least as well as, and often better than, other new teachers, and that the ones who stay in teaching are significantly more effective on average than those who come to teaching through traditional channels.</p>
<p>JHS, That was a very clear and concise summation of TFA as I understand it also. My daughter is currently working at a charter school in NYC and has several TFA teachers as co-workers. She has befriended a few of them. Her biggest shock was that they were actually paid more then her but have the same job title and responsibilities that she does. She reported at Thanksgiving that as far as she knew they are not fairing much worse then she is and she has quite a bit more training and experience then any of them. Well, one of them did quit after a month, but perhaps that’s the exception.</p>
<p>
Surprised to hear this - might it be because of working for a charter school? My d and her 3 TFA roommates teach in two different school districts in metro DC; each is paid the starting salary for new teachers in their respective school systems.</p>
<p>Frazzled, the way it was explained it to me is that all the teachers in her school are co-teachers but TFA does not recognize that so their contracts have them as beginning teachers and they are paid as much as the teachers that have been there a few years. My daughter, otoh, has two years of teaching experience but was hired as a beginning co-teacher. Had she known about the TFA salary, she would have tried to negotiate a better salary. The job responsibilities of the TFA teachers are identical to hers except somehow she got snookered into writing the curriculum (not just lesson plans) for two of the subjects that she teaches. </p>
<p>Yes, I’m sure the charter schools work differently. There’s a very good chance her school will lose it’s charter after this year.</p>
<p>Yes, at my kid’s non-charter NYC school, she is paid the standard entry-level teacher rate. I believe she is the only first-year teacher at that school; there may be one other. Most of the 20-something teachers at the school were NYC Teaching Fellows, which is another alternative-credential program (created and run by TFA alumni).</p>
<p>She is required to be registered in a MEd program (which she pays for herself), and to be making progress toward her MEd degree. If she stays with the program for two years, she will get the MEd and whatever NY teaching credential that goes with it.</p>
<p>I think there is significant attrition from TFA. It is a very tough job, and I think especially hard on people who are (a) used to constant success and praise (which describes a lot of the people TFA selects), and (b) somewhat romantic in their motivations. My daughter knows of several people from her training group last summer who have quit, and I have heard of other drop-outs elsewhere among kids my friends know. On a recent visit home, she was describing what she does to a current college senior (at an elite, rural LAC), that student’s mother (a former suburban teacher and current disability lawyer), and an education policy person who is married to a current inner-city high school teacher. The college student and her mother seemed upset by her somewhat hard-nosed attitude about her students; the education policy person’s reaction was “Wow! She really gets what it takes to be effective in that environment.”</p>
<p>Yes, I think tough-mindedness is an essential component for TFA members, or for any teacher who serves in a disadvantaged district. My d is very tender-hearted about young children. However, she believes in high standards and has exacting rules for classroom behavior. She told me recently that she could cry because some of the children come to school hungry, fall asleep in class when they can’t sleep well at home, have no books or toys, didn’t grow up being read to, etc. But what good would her tears do? She can’t allow her sadness about the substantial inequities they face to interfere with what they need to learn. So she wakes them up, keeps them on task, and expects them to perform at a high level. She feels that to do otherwise would be to shortchange them yet again.</p>
<p>Much of this attitude is fostered by the TFA training program. My d wasn’t surprised about the challenges in or out of the classroom - she really does feel that her training/reading prepared her well for working long hours under tough conditions, finding it difficult to make progress, facing skeptical co-workers (which really hasn’t happened no a noticeable degree), etc.
Just seeing it from another angle - many of the folks TFA selects are used to constant success and praise because they’ve worked hard to earn those things, and don’t necessarily require them in great measure - particularly the praise - in order to stick it out at a tough task. I agree that a romantic mindset wouldn’t be much of an asset in an assignment like this one!</p>
<p>I cannot add much to these well written answers. My D did her 2 years of TFA in a middle school in the Bronx while getting her MeD from Pace U. A number of her friends quit within the first few months–two in Chicago. I was able to sit in one day each of her two years and it was amazing to watch her with her students. Some of the students had criminal records and the security at the school was tight. She got up at 5:30am and returned home at 6:30pm. She spent her own money to provide for her students. She found it very rewarding and very exhausting.</p>
<p>My DD is in her second year with TFA. First year was a bit rough as other teachers were not nice and blatantly told her that she’d better not pull down the scores they had worked hard to achieve. (I’m pleased to say that she recently found out that her kids from last year outperformed the kids in the other classes. Her kids had the highest scores and it is not a coincidence as she worked tirelessly to prepare them.) By spring she was laid off with all first year teachers in her California school district which was very stressful. TFA helped her land a job in an excellent charter school in a rough neighborhood. Her pay immediately shot up about 20% but the amount of days and hours she works also shot up significantly. Her kids have already made impressive, measurable gains this year. She is much happier in this environment because she feels the decisions made by leadership are more intelligent than when she was working for a mammoth and dysfunctional school district. By the way, it’s not hard to figure out why charter schools can pay more – at least where we are, they are not supporting layers and layers of bureaucracy along with the buildings they operate out of. She is still working way too hard and feels under more pressure in this school to make sure every student will achieve, but she is passionate and committed to what she is doing and there are TFA alum where she is and the TFA mindset basically is the school’s mindset.</p>
<p>One thing I would like to point out is that our students that go into the education field are equally as passionate about helping students achieve. For most of them, that’s why they chose to be a teacher - to make a difference. They just chose it when they were 18, not 22. My daughters charter pays less then the publics. In fact, she is making less in NYC then she did in the school district she worked in last year where the cost of living was much less. Why would she take a paycut to work at an inner city school? Because she, just like the TFA teachers, wanted to make a difference with the students that she felt needed the most help.</p>
<p>Very cool, Kathiep. I think some charters pay more and others less. It’s true with private schools as well. I know a lot of wonderful people who choose to teach for less in the private sector because there are other intangible benefits. Even if some charters pay less, there tends to be a lot more autonomy at the local level and the school can concentrate on its own students without being mired in all the politics and policies of a large district. Of course, like private schools, not all charters are equal. Some people love the charters they are working at and some aren’t as happy. In our city, charter schools may well end up saving public education because our school district is having major problems.</p>
<p>Charters are a mixed bag. Some work, some don’t, some do but aren’t easily replicable. After a decade of charter explosion, we’re finally getting to a point where I think we can learn some things that will improve education generally. Working inside the public school system has given my kid new respect for charters; she was previously – as a satisfied public school graduate – quite hostile to them.</p>
<p>Yes, charters are a mixed bag - but so are public schools in urban areas. My daughter taught last year in a large urban school district – the one she attended herself - and is now in a charter. It’s really given her a great perspective on both systems.</p>