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<p>NYC is currently in a hiring freeze. With talks of layoffs this spring, it will probably be very hard for someone to get a TFA placement in the city this fall.</p>
<p>“…has reservations about being in a very dangerous area.”</p>
<p>If she is thinking like this, the program is not for her. It’s not that the places are that dangerous really. But this program is not a good fit for people with that fear.</p>
<p>levirm, I have been combing throught the many posts here on TFA , and I don’t think that all areas are the same in terms or safety for the teachers.
poor districts in Appalachia or smaller cities would probably be less dangerous that places like Detroit or Harlem. I have read that some teachers have had their lives threatened in some of the rougher areas.
My daughter has lived in three large cities , so it isn’t like she is afraid of her own shadow, just wouldn’t want to be put in a place she would fear for her safety</p>
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<p>Actually, Harlem is pretty safe. Probably safer than a poor districts in Appalachia or smaller cities. NYC is amongst the top safest big cities in America.</p>
<p>Agree - Harlem is safe!
Just saying - this fear/attitude will come through in interviews and on the job. TFA is NOT for people who feel this way, no matter where their assignment is.
If you want TFA, it is best to demonstrate in the resume and interviews that you have stepped outside of your comfort zone in a major way, even in a way that some might consider “dangerous”.
When my daughter was applying, she had on her resume that she had volunteered for a summer as a “first responder” for the Israeli ambulance corps. It was a year when terrorist attacks had decreased, but were still happening (I think that there was only one while she was there.) I suggested that she add that she made calls to Arab, Druze and Jewish settlements (this was true!)
I think that this might have gotten her the job.
They want people who are fine with crossing cultures and who do not worry about the “danger” in this.
Remember - the assignments are places where there is a dire need for teachers - because many people do not want to work there!</p>
<p>What would possibly make you think that poor districts in Appalachia (or, more to the point for TFA, the Rio Grande valley) would be safer than anywhere?</p>
<p>Not to pile on, but as some one who grew up in Appalachia, it can be a much more dangerous environment than it seems. Pretty, yes - peaceful, no.</p>
<p>*Remember - the assignments are places where there is a dire need for teachers - because many people do not want to work there!
*</p>
<p>True in some places- but in others not.
We don’t have a qualified teacher shortage in Seattle. People who live in the Puget Sound area have attained ( not to say our K-12 schools are among the best) a higher level of education than in many areas- at least 70% have attended " some" college with about 37% with a B.A. or higher.</p>
<p>Seattle parents & teachers don’t want TFA, the community is skeptical about " outside funding" being used to pay the $4,000 yearly " finders fee" to TFA
[Education</a> | Teach for America plans to put recruits in area schools | Seattle Times Newspaper](<a href=“http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2013969632_teachforamerica19m.html]Education”>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2013969632_teachforamerica19m.html)
and while the candidates for TFA may be quite dedicated & bright, knowing that they will be there for two years at most, while they are attending school to obtain their teaching certificate- is frustrating to parents who are concerned about students who already experience a great deal of transition in their lives.</p>
<p>Seattle is also quite safe, IMO. My younger daughter attended an " inner city" public high school which was excellent. ( I doubt TFA recruits will be assigned there however)</p>
<p>TFA is marketed to recently graduated students who will add it to their resume- good for them- IMO, not so great for the schools.</p>
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<p>If your child is considering TFA, they should go in with both eyes open.
[getting</a> schooled by TFA: coming clean.](<a href=“http://dontshoottheshareff.blogspot.com/2010/11/coming-clean.html]getting”>http://dontshoottheshareff.blogspot.com/2010/11/coming-clean.html)
[Eduwonk</a> Blog Archive Teach For America Alums Not Becoming Astronauts! And Other Articles
](<a href=“http://www.eduwonk.com/2010/01/teach-for-america-alums-not-becoming-astronauts-and-other-articles.html]Eduwonk”>Teach For America Alums Not Becoming Astronauts! And Other Articles… – Eduwonk)</p>
<p>Yes, they should certainly go in realizing that TFA is by no means universally admired. We’ve had numerous threads in the past questioning the effectiveness of TFA corps members as teachers. It’s fair to say that there’s a substantial amount of evidence that they are indeed at least as effective as teachers with comparable experience, and more so in many cases. Approximately 40 percent of TFA members stay on for a 3rd year. In order to teach in a given district, TFA members must complete the alternate certification process required by that district - the certification process open to non-TFA members, as well. Additionally, hiring decisions are made by individual principals and no TFA member is guaranteed placement. </p>
<p>If Seattle parents and teachers are united in not wanting TFA, I don’t imagine it will be a presence for long. Where’s the muscle coming from to push it into Seattle? It’s hardly an all-powerful, or even politically well-liked, organization. I would certainly not expect the local teachers’ union president to be a fan. (btw, my d is a teachers’ union member in her district.) </p>
<p>The $9,000 stipend at the end of 2 years is the Segal Americorps Education Award. This is the first reference I’ve ever read to it being paid by the school district and I’m not convinced that’s accurate. According to the Americorps website:
To receive this award, in addition to completing a 2-year term, corps members must also fulfill a significant additional amount of training - in my d’s case, an all-day seminar one Saturday each month.</p>
<p>Having now read Rebecca Shareff’s blog (“getting schooled by TFA”), I agree that the hiring process can be frustrating and difficult. My d experienced some of the same setbacks, mis-communication, and sense that her immediate mentors were in over their heads. She finally found the exact placement she’d originally requested, in the exact district she ranked first.</p>
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<p>Im not sure about the award either- what I was interested in was the $4,000 paid to TFA for each year the TFAer is employed by the school district.
I know that when D’s high school had Americorps people- the PTA paid for it- but I dont think that was the ed award just the stipend.
TFA teachers will get a regular salary from the district-instead of a stipend.</p>
<p>The push for TFA is coming from the Gates/Broad foundation & from the admin in the district possibly because it would be less expensive to have a brand new teacher, than one with say 10 years of seniority. ( and possibly because both Gates & Broad are interested in charters & they see this as the way to get that).
[Broad</a> Foundation: The Underground Department of Education | Seattle Education 2010](<a href=“http://seattleducation2010.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/category/broad-foundation-the-underground-department-of-education/]Broad”>Broad Foundation: The “Underground Department of Education” – Seattle Education)</p>
<p>The Gates Foundation probably carries some major weight around there! 
Just wondering, though - TFA usually only comes into an area where schools are failing in a major way (very low test scores, schools in danger of closing because of poor pupil performance, etc.). Would you say that’s the case in Seattle?</p>
<p>I hadn’t heard about the additional $4K paid to TFA by the school district - is this included in the $10K/year extra paid per recruit the union president was talking about? TFA does major fundraising to cover its costs; and I’m pretty certain that the districts where they’re well-established can’t afford to pay the organization that kind of money. Just before my d was hired, her district closed 9 schools. No way did her district come up with an extra $10K per teacher to cover TFA’s administrative costs. </p>
<p>Really hoping someone out there can point me to documentation on this point. It’s been my observation that lots of folks draw unfounded conclusions about how TFA works. </p>
<p>
If the union president isn’t privy to data on how individual teachers perform, there’s no reason he’d have this info for TFA recruits. I can tell you that in my d’s district, teacher performance is measured and evaluated every year - I don’t know if her union president has access to that data. But her pincipal and superintendent do. :)</p>
<p>" What would possibly make you think that poor districts in Appalachia (or, more to the point for TFA, the Rio Grande valley) would be safer than anywhere? " </p>
<p>Because I read about a TFA teacher who rec’d death threats in either the Bronx or Harlem , right here on cc. I don’t think that all places where teachers are needed are necessarily equal in terms of personal safety.</p>
<p>there are probably larger threats in some areas than others is what I am saying</p>
<p>[EarthLink</a> - U.S. News](<a href=“http://my.earthlink.net/article/us?guid=20110127/17e1b6ed-0674-4e74-9957-312df982d6f9]EarthLink”>http://my.earthlink.net/article/us?guid=20110127/17e1b6ed-0674-4e74-9957-312df982d6f9)</p>
<p>Four donors have contributed a total of $100 million to TFA’s endowment (which amounts to half its annual budget).
</p>
<p>Wow, that is happy news.</p>
<p>The article linked in post #5 is excellent. Just excellent. </p>
<p>The author of that article isn’t afaid of thinking critical instead of following the herd.</p>
<p>Australia is also looking at TFA
[Schools</a> Matter: Research Findings on Teach for America: Australia, Listen Up](<a href=“http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2009/09/research-findings-on-teach-for-america.html]Schools”>Schools Matter: Research Findings on Teach for America: Australia, Listen Up)</p>
<p>[Diane</a> Ravitch](<a href=“http://www.vimeo.com/16479134]Diane”>REEP, KIPP and TFA Lecture Series on Vimeo)</p>
<p>Actually, ACCecil, I found the article linked in post #5 to be juvenile and ill-informed (albeit well-written).</p>
<p>For example, the contrast between TFA and other programs. One of my relatives was deeply involved in creating and running the largest and most successful of those other programs. After serving as a TFA corpsmember and working for TFA for six years. It was completely modeled on TFA. Sure, they tried to make it better than TFA, but they respect what TFA has done. The existence of multiple quality alternative credentialing programs is basically a byproduct of TFA blazing the way. My daughter teaches alongside and compares notes with people from New York’s other major program, and all of them seem to agree that TFA’s materials and training regimen is probably higher quality. And the Penn program – one of my kids’ best friends is in the Penn program right now. It’s great, and very expensive, and small, and his training placement has been in a school teachers kill to get into, not one in desperate need of teachers. He is far more committed to being a teacher than most of the TFAers, and far less of a leader, and if he has his way he will never be in the kinds of classrooms they are in.</p>
<p>It’s clear that there is a massive disconnect between teacher training and the training teachers need to be effective in challenging classrooms. A few programs have been trying to bridge that, and among them TFA has as much – more – success as anyone else, even if neither it nor any of the others is perfect. And when it comes to generating long-term structural education reform, not just a smattering of decent teachers, TFA might as well have a monopoly.</p>
<p>And the hand-wringing about race in that article . . . what crap! It’s a complete cop-out to say, “I’m white and privileged, so it would be condescending of me to help. Let those children wait until thousands of high-quality, trained teachers of the appropriate color magically appear.” Does the author think that TFA kids are somehow crowding out that alternative? </p>
<p>My (white) TFA daughter teaches at a school where there is hardly a white face anywhere, kids (none), faculty, administration, staff. I’ve seen her with her students – they think she’s exotic, and they are really curious (to the point of intrusiveness) about her. They don’t live in a world where they are constantly under the heel of the white power structure. The white power structure is almost invisible to them – they rarely if ever encounter it. They are interested in, and perfectly capable of handling, actual contact with people from outside their community.</p>
<p>JHS,</p>
<p>Good points. TFA has many positives but the article author has a point too. 5 weeks of training may not prepare people for resource poor teaching environments. I do not think the author was condescending the students because he didn’t have a similar background I think he was saying the TFA’s 5 week training program wasn’t going to make him effective in certain environments. That is a good point.</p>
<p>I agree with you, JHS. That article is written by someone who thinks they “know” TFA, but it’s only a surface-skimming with a lot of assumptions. Yours was a good critique of its weak points.</p>
<p>The author concludes in part that there are other ways to solve the problems faced by URBAN school districts. TFA has a substantial needed presence in many rural areas too. Something important to know before you write an article. And those rural school districts don’t have the same access to other resources that the author speaks of. For these rural schools, TFA is often the only way for a school district to have enough qualified teachers to teach all of their students. Where my D teaches - this is a fact - not an opinion.</p>
<p>My D is in her first year of TFA in rural North Carolina. She teaches high school civics. Like JHS’s D, she’s one of a few white faces in a school filled with non-white students, teachers, and administrators. It’s been a very hard journey at the beginning for her to learn how to be an effective teacher, but she hit her stride in early November. We are very proud of her. We have had some very honest discussions about race, racism, gerrymandering of school districts to keep the white schools white and the black schools black, and the like. It’s been eye-opening.</p>
<p>As to what qualifications you need to have to be accepted by TFA, I can only speak as to my D and the 3 other young women she lives with - all TFA teachers - you have got to be SHARP!! Quick to “get” things, quick-witted to respond to your students, quick to adapt when your plans don’t work out as you thought they would, quick to respond to when your students need some extra help, quick to forget your own failures and frustrations as you get up and start over the next day. </p>
<p>We visited our D two weeks ago, and we absolutely LOVED listening to these talented women talk. I’d love to live in that house for the conversation alone. The discussions would be wonderful. :)</p>