A new look at Teach for America

[Catshrink]

A new look at Teach for America
By Valerie Strauss | July 11, 2010

Around the country today thousands of young Teach for America recruits are getting a crash course in how to teach students in low-income urban and rural schools, a job they have promised to do for the next two years.

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They conclude:
*More than 50 percent of Teach for America teachers leave after two years and more than 80 percent leave after three years.
-Teach for America proponents say that the program is aimed not only at supplying teachers to needy schools but also improving the teacher labor supply and shaping individuals who will care about education in their future jobs on Wall Street, in Washington, or elsewhere outside the classroom.

*Studies indicate that students of novice Teach for America teachers perform significantly less well in reading and math than those of credentialed beginning teachers.

*Most studies find that those Teach for America teachers who stay long enough to become fully credentialed (typically after two years) appear to do about as well as other similarly experienced cedentialed teachers in teaching reading, and do as well as, and sometimes better than, a comparison group in teaching math. The study said it is difficult to know if that is a result of additional training and experience or from attrition of less effective Teach for America teachers.

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"While the small number who stay this long are sometimes found to be more effective in mathematics than other teachers, their attrition rate of more than 80 percent means that few students receive the benefit of this greater effectiveness, while districts pay the costs of high attrition. In addition, TFA provides only a (small) fraction of America’s teachers to a small number of America’s schools, and likely has little to no impact outside of its participating schools. Unless it starts admitting larger swaths of college seniors and potentially watering down the quality of its corps members, it will not ever comprise more than a small fraction of America’s teachers.

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It recommends that policymakers and school districts:

*Support Teach for America staffing only when the alternative hiring pool consists of uncertified and emergency teachers or substitutes.

*Consider the significant recurring costs of Teach for America, estimated at over $70,000 per recruit, and press for a five-year commitment to improve achievement and reduce re-staffing.

*Invest strategically in evidence-based educational reform options that build long-term capacity in schools.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/teachers/a-new-look-at-teach-for-americ.html

[Dinger]

1. K & R (nt)

[donco6]

2. We were pressured to hire these to qualify the state for RTTT funds.

We have to pay an additional stipend for each one to pay for their training in Atlanta (I think that's where they go).

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. I worked with 3 of them this year

One was pretty bad. One was okay and is going on to a charter this fall. And the third one was excellent.

[donco6]

4. We had two this year. I think they both made it.

But we have to hire 7 more for next year. We'll see. If they WANT to make it, they'll get all the help they could want.

[mzteris]

5. from what I recall, the stats on retention for

teachers from an education college are pretty similar, aren't they?


Leaving So Soon?
MULTIMEDIA: First Person: Keeping Teachers Teaching

Every year, U.S. schools hire more than 200,000 new teachers for that first day of class. By the time summer rolls around, at least 22,000 have quit. Even those who make it beyond the trying first year aren't likely to stay long: about 30 percent of new teachers flee the profession after just three years, and more than 45 percent leave after five (see charts, below).

(These stats are different from some other's I've read that have attrition at about 50% the first three years and 60% after five... though maybe that was a particular state...)

What's more, 37 percent of the education workforce is over fifty and considering retirement, according to the National Education Association. Suddenly, you've got a double whammy: tens of thousand of new teachers leaving the profession because they can't take it anymore, and as many or more retiring.

When teachers drop out, everyone pays. Each teacher who leaves costs a district $11,000 to replace, not including indirect costs related to schools' lost investment in professional development, curriculum, and school-specific knowledge. At least 15 percent of K-12 teachers either switch schools or leave the profession every year, so the cost to school districts nationwide is staggering -- an estimated $5.8 billion.

Students from the lowest-income families suffer the most. Inexperienced teachers (those with less than three years on the job) frequently land in classrooms with the neediest and often the most challenging students. Beginning teachers frequently start their careers at hard-to-staff schools where resources may be scarce -- in other words, urban schools -- simply because there are more jobs available there. http://www.edutopia.org/new-teacher-burnout-retention


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