Gauging the Dedication of Teacher Corps Grads

[tonysam]

The future of public education: revolving door teachers with "careers" of only 2 or 3 years.

TFA:

Teach for America, a corps of recent college graduates who sign up to teach in some of the nation’s most troubled schools, has become a campus phenomenon, drawing huge numbers of applicants willing to commit two years of their lives.

But a new study has found that their dedication to improving society at large does not necessarily extend beyond their Teach for America service.

In areas like voting, charitable giving and civic engagement, graduates of the program lag behind those who were accepted but declined and those who dropped out before completing their two years, according to Doug McAdam, a sociologist at Stanford University, who conducted the study with a colleague, Cynthia Brandt.

The reasons for the lower rates of civic involvement, Professor McAdam said, include not only exhaustion and burnout, but also disillusionment with Teach for America’s approach to the issue of educational inequity, among other factors.

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[tonysam]

1. Further down in this article it says

63 percent of TFA graduates surveyed remain in "education," yet only 31 percent are in the classroom.

Where the hell are the rest? They can't all be administrators.

[FBaggins]

4. I suppose they could be

I've always been shocked at how small a percentage of county school staffing is actually made up of classroom teachers.

The stat I found most interesting, however, was that 20 years of the program only represented 17,000 teachers. That's a tiny percentage of teaching jobs nationwide. Reading posts here I've gotten the impression that it's far higher.

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. Step right up kids! You too can save the world! It's just like joining the Peace Corps!!

Makes me want to :puke:

Throwaway careers. It's all our abandoned kids deserve.

[FBaggins]

5. Is the dropout rate significantly higher?

Last I read, roughly 35-40% of teachers don't stay beyond five years. The cited stats in the article appear comparable.

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. Higher than teacher retention rates?

Probably not.

[FBaggins]

7. Then how are they any more "Throwaway careers"

than others who choose teaching careers?

[tonysam]

8. They can't be. TFAs last only two years on their assignments.

They are temps. Only 31 percent of those studied stayed in the classroom presumably getting regular teaching jobs, yet 61 percent stayed in the field.

A far higher percentage of REAL teachers stay in the classroom longer, but NYC and many, many other school districts are trying to subvert tenure laws to make sure new teaching hires never get it and to throw out older, higher-salaried teachers illegally.

It sounds like a bunch of the TFAs are turning into unqualified administrators.

[FBaggins]

9. The cited statistics aren't quite so clear

That 31% isn't broken down by the number of years... it's participants in the program over a 20 year period.

So, for instance, if someone was a teacher for a decade and left last year, they would still be outside of the 31% figure. The stat I remember reading recently for "real teachers" was 35-40% leave within five years.

There isn't enough information in these two stats to clearly identify whether their lengths were substantially longer/shorter on each side. My presumption would be that they are, but this doesn't give us enough to say for sure.

[JDPriestly]

3. Interesting because my father was in the WPA and associated

youth employment programs. Her remained dedicated to serving the poor all his life. Many in the generation that fought WWII were, in part, inspired by the spirit of giving, sharing and volunteering of the FDR era.

I think this change may be due to the general cynicism of our society.

Conservatives encourage that cynicism because it makes young people more self-centered and ready to believe the right-wing propaganda. Just watch most TV. Cynicism at work.