First off, thanks again to everyone who helped out with/showed up at the Teach for America Controversy on Thursday. I think it’s really important to evaluate a program that attracts so much attention, particularly on college campuses.
At the discussion, panelist James Campbell from the Africana Studies Dept. read a few excerpts from Bil Johnson’s sharply critical opinion piece “Why I Don’t Like TFA.” Professor Johnson was a professor in the Education Department at Brown, and now he’s at Yale. We invited him to come down to see the panel, but he had to attend another conference that night (although he did say that he heard about how the discussion went, and was sorry to have missed it. But I digress). However, below I’ve pasted the entirety of “Why I Don’t Like Teach for America.” It’s funny, but it’s also very incisive. He raises some excellent points and asks very important questions.
Why I Don’t Like TFA, Version 1.1 - By Bil Johnson
#1) As a professional teacher/educator, I find it denigrating to the Profession of Teaching to say that people can be prepared to teach in 5 to 6 weeks. Simply b/c people have attended Brown or Yale or wherever may mean they are intelligent, it does not mean they have some innate understanding of the complexity of teaching and learning that genuine teacher preparation programs instill in their candidates. It is offensive and pretentious to think otherwise.
#2) Equally denigrating to the profession is the notion that teaching is something you can “dabble in.” Oh, do it for a couple of years, assuage your (usually white/suburban/privileged) guilt and then get on with your “real life” in law school or business school or wherever. Teaching, you see, isn’t all that important and anybody can do it for a couple of years (which, by the way, their own statistics don’t particularly bear out — check out what their attrition rate is in the first year – and consider it’s their statistics, so adjust for reality). How do we feel about “Nurses for America?” Or, better, “Doctors for America?” The lack of respect for teaching as a profession is historic — based on seeing it as a “feminine” profession and one that does not pay what “real” jobs pay. Teach for America continues to support that historic disrespect for the profession by treating it as something one can do until something “better” (read high paying, more prestigious, etc.) comes along.
#3) I find TFA patronizing, patriarchal, and colonialist. It continues a “wonderful” tradition of upper class noblesse oblige which says, essentially, “Well, we will take a little time out of our (important) lives to help you poor children of color (briefly) and then we’ll leave (because we can!).”
#4) Little or no decent support is supplied to the Novice Teachers who go out into some of the most difficult and stressful schools in our cities. Anyone who knows teaching will tell you that support and genuine mentoring are essential in the first few years of teaching.
#5) Many districts see TFA “volunteers” as fodder (there’s a wonderful piece in The Onion, online, about this) and shift them around willy-nilly to “fill in” gaps they have in staffing. How does that help anyone — and, particularly, how does it help the students these “volunteers” are supposed to be serving?
#6) TFA perpetuates the miserable conditions in urban schools. It allows politicians to claim, “Look, something’s being done” when, in fact, no significant change is occurring. In all its time in existence TFA has NEVER made a policy statement that their real goal is to improve urban schools to the point of making TFA unnecessary. Their motto, if they were sincere in improving schools, should be “Put us out of business.” But that’s not their goal. TFA has become a cottage industry, and a self-perpetuating one at that, which allows the mass of society to look the other way and essentially say, “See, there’s really no hope for those urban schools (and those children who are, clearly, “unteachable”). Teach for America keeps trying and there’s no progress.” TFA is, at best, a medicated band-aid but a band-aid nonetheless. Our urban schools are hemorrhaging and TFA is a band-aid — and that’s fine because in the world of Fox News, that looks as if an effort is being made. It’s clearly the fault of the children and their families if there’s no decrease in the “achievement gap.”
#7) For those who survive TFA and then join their ranks as recruiters or “Executive Directors” or whatever, their allegiance to the organization is cult-like. It is not a Learning Organization whose goal is to better the schools. Like some evangelical sect, their goal is to recruit more members, receive more recognition (usually from right-wing “do away with public schools” types), and continue to sing their own praises as saviors of some sort (“If we weren’t there, who would be?” Which begs the deeper questions about “How can we actually fix the system instead of putting our TFA finger in the dyke?”).
Please feel free to share this with anyone who expresses an interest in joining Teach for America.
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Can you really “dabble” in teaching? Is TFA denigrating to the teaching profession? Has TFA become a cult-like non-profit whose goal is self-perpetuation rather than the eradication of those structural equality it claims to address?
In her paper on Teach for America (which we published in the Spring ‘07 BPR), panelist Erin Brown said it best when she argued that TFA should try to reform itself out of existence.
Oh, and finally, here’s a link to that Onion article Professor Johnson mentioned (it’s hilarious): http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30911
Cheers,
Camilla
Posted on November 16, 2007
I’m writing as an ‘07 Brown graduate and current Teach For America recruitment staff employee in Chicago. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend the panel at Brown. I’m pleased to know that the Brown community is engaging in a dialogue on the subject of educational inequality and also about Teach For America.
I know Bil Johnson from our time together as Royce Fellows, and I appreciate Bil offering comments on something that I know is dear to him. I’m troubled, however, by the pejorative, almost angry, tone of Professor Johnson’s comments and the utter lack of respect (I find it leans more towards disgust) for the people who have dedicated themselves to working with Teach For America. Surely, there are many criticisms that can be lofted at any organization which sets out to address our nation’s greatest challenges, and as an alum, I wish that Brown students and faculty would engage in this dialogue in a constructive manner. This isn’t a debate with Shell or DOW or Lockheed, and perhaps the most radical quarters would say Teach For America is worse (I simply don’t think that bears out). The people I know in this organization are committed to working towards long-term change - they work 70, 80, 100 hour weeks - not because they’re seeking a bonus, but because they are driven by the mission and they are more than willing to engage in honest dialogue about where Teach For America falls short, and how the breadth of educational inequity is beyond Teach For America’s reach.
Teach For America is not a silver bullet, it doesn’t claim that it’s impact in the short run will solve any crisis - and to fail to engage this massive organization filled with hard-working, idealistic, smart people - to write it off with a few bullet points that other Brown students will champion without engaging - is heart-breaking to me. Certainly, broad changes in education are necessary and we need a movement that is bigger than Teach For America to work towards educational opportunities in this country, but I soundly reject the notion that Teach For America can offer nothing but detriment to this movement.
I’d be happy to respond to Bil’s points one-by-one in dialogue, but I think it’s more important to note that of 12,000 current alumni two-thirds have stayed in the field of education, and one third remain as teachers today (whereas 97+% of corps members were not education majors). Teach For America alumni have founded 57 KIPP academies, some of the most successful public charter schools serving low-income communities in the country, have won National Teacher of the Year, have begun the new National Public Service Academy, and a long list could follow. Teach For America has a two-part mission that Professor Johnson doesn’t acknowledge whatsoever.
An excerpt from the website: “But thousands of hardworking teachers cannot solve the problem on their own. Many things need to happen to effect the fundamental, system changes necessary to truly realize the vision of educational excellence and equity, and we believe two things rise above the rest. First, we need long-term, sustained leadership in education; people and leadership are the most important element in making any organization work, and schools and school systems, and the social services that impact them, are no different. Second, we believe we must change the prevailing ideology around educational inequity; we need to move from a world where most people believe this is an intractable problem to one where it is commonly understood that we can solve this problem if we make the right societal choices.”
There are Teach For America teachers working today, more than 5,000 of them, many of whom are helping their students to prove that they are just as capable as any aspiring Brown matirculant when given opportunities to learn from smart, motivated, driven teachers. This is part of the message Teach For America is trying to express - that there are fundamental problems, but that those problems are not a lack of ability or motivation, which are painfully the rationales offered by most Americans.
For now, I don’t imagine that the answer is what Professor Johnson leaves us with - that we should simply allow the dyke to burst. I think it already has, and we’re in the process of rebuilding a broken system. I’d invite anyone to help me and Teach For America think through the best ways to do so. I’d also encourage anyone to talk to students who have been taught by Teach For America teachers, their families, and their principals. In an educational environment which strives to consider the reflections of the people we’re seeking to impact, I would find this dialogue wanting if it were to remain On the Hill.