Originally
from an op-ed piece by Jesse Hagopian
After
graduating from college, I headed for the Bronx, N.Y., where I underwent Teach
for America's (TFA) "teacher boot camp." With just five sleepless
weeks of on-the-job training teaching summer school to fourth-graders, team
meetings and night classes, I was given the stamp of approval and shipped off
to Washington, D.C.
The
Seattle School Board is expected to vote Wednesday whether to bring TFA to our
school district, and before they decide, they should consider the lessons of my
experience.
At
21, I found myself in a public elementary school in the ghetto of South East
Washington, D.C. — in a classroom with a hole in the ceiling that caused my
room to flood, destroying the first American history project I ever assigned
the students.
One
lasting memory came on my third day of teaching sixth grade.
I
had asked the students to bring a meaningful object from home for a
show-and-tell activity. We gathered in a circle and the kids sat eagerly
waiting to share their mementos. One after another, each and every hand came
out of those crumpled brown lunch sacks, clutching a photo of a close family
member — usually a dad or an uncle — who was either dead or in jail. By
the time it was my turn, all I could do was stare stupidly at the baseball I
pulled out and pick nervously at the red stitches.
Working
in the "other America" was a personally powerful experience and made
me decide to dedicate my life to finding a solution to transform public
education and the broader society that would allow such neglect to occur.
But
while TFA allowed me this window into the problems of our country, it didn't
prepare me to address these challenges. With only five weeks of training, it
wasn't just that I was not equipped to differentiate instruction to meet the
needs of students with a wide range of ability levels, create portfolios that
accurately assessed student progress, or cultivate qualities of civic courage —
it was that I didn't even know that these things were indispensable components
of an effective education.
As
well, TFA often overemphasizes the importance of test scores, driving corps
members to narrow the curriculum to what's on the test to prove that they are
effective teachers. Yet even by this measure, TFA-ers don't make the grade.
Consider
a six-year study of TFA out of Stanford University that looked at more than
4,000 teachers and 132,000 students on six different tests and found not one
case where TFA educators performed as well as certified teachers. Moreover,
TFA's own statistics show that a mere 33 percent continue teaching after their
two-year commitment — creating high turnover in the very schools that most need
the continuity and stability.
Seattle
has an abundance of teachers with teaching certificates and master's degrees
struggling to get a teaching position in the local public schools — West
Seattle Elementary School, a target school for TFA, had some 800 applicants for
a single job. Why bring in undertrained TFA recruits when we have so many young
teachers in Seattle who have spent years developing their skills?
TFA
is being presented as a solution to the problems in our public schools. But the
reality is, in this era of cash-strapped school districts, officials are lured
not by the quality of TFA-ers but by the fact that young teachers who leave the
district and make room for more young teachers provide an inexpensive
alternative to investing in more experienced teachers who will earn a higher
salary.
Yet,
if the Seattle school district truly wants "excellence for all," it
will need highly trained teachers who have a lasting commitment to the
profession — not the revolving door that has come to be known as "Teach
for Awhile."
Jesse
Hagopian teaches history at Garfield High School and is a founding member of
the Social Equality Educators (SEE).
E-mail article
The prospects for healthcare reform may be chillier than DC weather, but Democrats in the House and Senate are turning their attention to another warmer but still significant national issue: the increasing number of runaway and throwaway youth who are being forced into prostitution. In response to the growing concerns that desperate, runaway teens will be forced into prostitution in a sluggish economy, Congress is pushing several bills to improve how runaway kids are tracked by the police, fund crucial social services, and prevent teens from being caught in sex trafficking. Here's the gist of what the new legislation is trying to accomplish:
