Teach for America
I missed the interview with Wendy Kopp on KUOW today although I can imagine all the sound bytes and hype. It now seems like an appropriate time to bring up a study that was done by the Great Lakes Center, Teach for America: A Review of the Evidence. Below are excerpts from the:
Executive Summary
(Notes in italics are mine.)
Teach For America (TFA) aims to address teacher shortages (which we do not have in Seattle with three colleges of education and graduates from these universities teaching part-time as substitute teachers in hopes of teaching in our Seattle Public School system) by sending graduates from elite colleges, most of whom do not have a background in education, to teach in low-income rural and urban schools for a two-year commitment. The impact of these graduates (churn) is hotly debated by those who, on the one hand, see this as a way to improve the supply of teachers by enticing some of America’s top students into teaching (which we already have graduates in education from the University of Washington, Pacific University and Seattle University) and those
