To Whom does Teach For America Give Power and Influence?
A new peer-reviewed article in the Journal of Education Policy reveals the relationships between Teach For America (TFA) and federal charter school “reform” to interrogate how policy decisions are shaped by networks of elite individuals, organizations, and private corporations.
Mapping the Terrain: Teach For America, Charter School Reform, and Corporate Sponsorship provides evidence that TFA is a central and important node in a network promoting the rapid expansion of charter schools, a reform effort that amplifies the voices of an elite network of privately sponsored organizations and individuals, while potentially disenfranchising the voices of community members and educational professionals.
Each year, TFA places over 4,000 recent college graduates, the vast majority of whom have not studied education, in classrooms in low-income communities. TFA teachers are trained in a five-week summer institute before being hired as teachers of record for two years by school districts. TFA founder Wendy Kopp started the organization with the stated dual missions to fill teaching shortages in urban and rural districts and develop leaders for a movement to close the growing “achievement gap.”
Most research on TFA focuses on its effectiveness and impact as a teacher preparation program. Researchers