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Friday, November 9, 2012

Jersey Jazzman: Why TFAers Don't Stay in Teaching

Jersey Jazzman: Why TFAers Don't Stay in Teaching:


Why TFAers Don't Stay in Teaching

You're one of the best and the brighest. You attended an elite four-year college and went into serious debt to do so. But after graduation, you weren't quite sure how to turn that degree in Art History into a job. Needing some resume padding, you signed up for Teach For America, and made a two-year commitment to teach.

Now you're finished... and you're leaving teaching, just like the vast, vast majority of your TFA peers.

Why is that?
In the midst of a continuing recession, beginning K-12 teachers are considerably more likely to be working multiple jobs, according to new data from the National Center for Education Statistics.
The data show that 22 percent of secondary teachers and nearly 24 percent of elementary teachers worked multiple jobs simultaneously as of 2009, compared with only 14.5 percent of those not in teaching. Teachers were also more likely to be enrolled