Inside Information and Reflections from a Former TFA trainer
I spent many years training new Teach For America (TFA) recruits. I was responsible for accessing TFA’s classroom practice and reviewing real-time student math test scores.
Lack of Preparation
The bare truth is that way too many TFA’s are assigned to teach math, but are not qualified to do so. They are teaching out of-field, which means that merely because of one’s association with TFA, they are suddenly deemed as math experts when they enter the classroom. How can this be valid when corps members report that they either never took a math class in college, or didn’t complete more than a general college mathematics course? Couple that fact with limited practice actually teaching math to children, and doubts surface regarding math studies and TFA’s effectiveness across all populations of children in public and charter schools in the United States.
What’s generally taken as fact is that Teach For America’s novices graduate in the top 10% of their highly selective institutions. But, not all corps members hail from “elite” universities. The organization’s website notes this admission criteria: “In order to apply to Teach For America you must satisfy the following prerequisites: Your undergraduate cumulative GPA is at least 2.50 on a 4.00 scale.” So, in effect, candidates can apply with a 2.5 GPA and still be admitted. Regardless, neither GPA, nor corps member elite profile necessarily translates to a CM’s classroom effectiveness.
Moreover, way too many variables, with respect to one’s placement, debunks the guarantee that suggests that corps member’s attributes transfer to their students’ math scores in the classroom. Teach For America’s expectation of high performance, often places “blame” squarely on the shoulders of novice corps members when they burn out or fail, who are not adequately prepared when they arrive in their placement classroom, and have no definitive way in determining their teaching assignment (other than selecting a general region where they would agree to be relocated to).
I have coached and come to know very determined and dedicated CM’s who faced challenges in their site-based realities that were obscured from policymakers, corporate funders and philanthropists who drop in for photo Inside Information and Reflections from a Former TFA trainer | Cloaking Inequity:
