Nothing is perfect.
The U.S. is too imperialistic, people are selfish and Teach for America Corps members aren’t the most fantastic teachers on the planet.
But imperfection is never a reason to completely destroy a good thing.
After all, as a whole, the U.S. really is an awesome country; people are often more empathetic than you’d expect.
And Teach for America addresses an immediate need ““ it provides teachers for lower-income inner-city and rural schools that are desperate to hire them.
Teach for America is a program that takes recent college grads from top universities and places them in teaching jobs for two years. Prior to being sent into their own classrooms to teach, these recent grads undergo a five-week summer training session and often continue taking classes in order to get a proper teaching credential either before or while they’re teaching.
In a country that has such an education divide between ethnic minorities and the more privileged majority, this sounds like an ideal program.
But Teach for America has faced increased scrutiny recently. While some of this criticism is nitpicky, a recent study conducted by Linda Darling-Hammond, a professor of education at Stanford University, is well-thought and constructive.
Darling-Hammond’s study concluded that, contrary to previous studies, Teach for America Corps members are no better at teaching than other noncertified teachers.
This study was done in response to previous studies that had compared Teach for America teachers to other teachers employed at the same schools, many of whom also didn’t have proper certifications.
Darling-Hammond’s study specifically compares Teach for America Corps members with qualified and certified teachers and found that certification had a significant impact on the quality of teaching.
Unfortunately, Teach for America’s response wasn’t as constructive as the study.
It responded rather harshly, contending that the sample sizes were too small, the groups that were compared were unfair, etc., as opposed to actually addressing the conclusions of the study.
In its attempt to debunk the study, Teach For America simply succeeded in making it seem like it couldn’t handle criticism.
After all, the study never mentions that Teach for America shouldn’t exist. In fact, in a response to the criticism from Teach for America, Darling-Hammond even mentions
that she agrees with a claim that Teach For America makes ““ that Teach For America teachers could bring stability to inner-city students for at least a couple of years.
Teach for America isn’t the definitive answer to the education problem in the United States. Darling-Hammond likes to call it the program “a Band-Aid on a bleeding sore.”
That may sound harsh, but it’s accurate. Teach for America helps schools that are in need of teachers, but while it might be enlightening some people on the state of the American education system, it does little else to help end the education divide in the long run.
And there’s nothing wrong with that.
It’s going to take multiple projects and solutions to create change. Teach for America has its place in this mix ““ it’s providing the teachers that are needed immediately.
While they may not be the best teachers, they’re no worse than the untrained teachers that are already working in these schools.
In fact, because of the stability Teach for America Corps members provide, they may even be better.
Teach for America recognizes that its program is a temporary fix, but it also likes to claim that it’s a long-term solution because it is teaching college grads about education inequality.
While this has some merit ““ many Teach for America Corps members go into an education-related career ““ this still doesn’t mean they should have to teach before they are fully qualified, especially if there could be a system to provide more qualified teachers.
Maybe Teach for America will step up to the plate and recognize that maybe its program isn’t all that it’s purported to be. Maybe they’ll recognize what should be their ultimate goal ““ to not have a reason to exist.
Either way, it’s still an amazing program that does fill a gaping hole.
However, let’s hope lasting solutions won’t be long in the coming, which is when the need for Teach for America will begin to disappear.
E-mail Loewenstein at lloewenstein@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.