It’s time for Teach For America to fold — former TFAer
TFA founder Wendy Kopp
Teach For America is one of the most controversial school reform organizations operating today. TFA recruits new college graduates, gives them five weeks of summer training and then places them in some of America’s neediest classrooms, presuming that just a little over a month of training is sufficient to do the job. Critics point out that high-needs students, who are the ones who get TFA teachers, are the children who most need veteran teachers. In fact, some veterans are now losing their jobs to TFA corps members, because TFAers are less expensive to hire, and some school teaching communities are becoming less cohesive because TFA members promise only to stay for two years and leave teaching at a greater rate than traditionally trained teachers.
With this backdrop, here is a piece by Matt Barnum, who was an eighth-grade language-arts teacher in Colorado Springs for the Teach For America – Colorado 2010 corps, who makes a compelling argument that it is time for TFA to fold. He is currently a law student at the University of Chicago, but still writes regularly about education.
By Matt Barnum
Last year, when I was finishing up my two years teaching eighth grade through Teach For America, a fellow corps member reached out, asking me to give to a TFA fundraising drive