Teach for America’s Mission to Displace Rank-and-File Educators in Chicago

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Teach for America’s Mission to Displace Rank-and-File Educators in Chicago
Why are thousands of experienced educators being replaced by new college graduates?

BY Kenzo Shibata


First appeared at Jacobin.

Teach for America has come under heavy scrutiny in recent months. The organization was imagined over twenty years ago by Princeton undergraduate Wendy Kopp to combat the teacher shortage in urban and rural communities. TFA was to bring recent graduates from elite universities to teach in needy schools.

The idea was pretty simple. TFA was not better for students; it was better than nothing. Providing staff in these schools alleviated overcrowding and research shows that class size does matter in a child’s education.

Twenty years later, school districts are firing huge swaths of educators due to budget cuts. These dedicated teachers lose their jobs through no fault of their own, but find themselves competing for a dwindling number of open teaching slots. One would think that at this point, TFA is no longer necessary. We have a surplus of teachers and until politicians make education a priority and fund more teaching positions, this trend will continue.

Yet in Chicago

The district has committed to more than doubling its investment in the TFA program that trains college graduates for five weeks then sends them into schools for two years at a time. The Board of Education voted to increase its payment to TFA from $600,000 to nearly $1.6 million, and to add up to 325 new TFA recruits to CPS classrooms, in addition to 270 second year “teacher interns.”

This information was revealed after Chicago Public Schools announced layoffs of over 3,000 school personnel due to budget cuts. .....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/15367/teach_for_americas_mission_to_displace_rank_and_file_educators_in_chicago

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1. Better title: Schools use TFA to Displace Rank-and-File Educators

TFA is TFA. It's mission has morphed from providing the bare minimum--which was what the original purpose was--to giving top college grads a service opportunity, one that might encourage them to stay in the field to help rural and urban kids.

It was a good idea. Not sure if it should have been a Federal idea. Some viewed it as condescending--a bunch of usually white, fairly well-off college grads going into failing urban schools "of color."

TFA morphed from just providing warm bodies to trying to be place change agents in schools. Urban schools, esp., needed them, the common wisdom went. Often they had teachers who were dedicated to helping that population, but as often they had teachers who really couldn't get a job elsewhere. They'd start there and be stuck; or they'd start elsewhere and only get hired at what most job-seekers consider schools of last resort. I know districts that give a hefty bonus to current in-district teachers who transfer to their low-achieving schools, in addition to the stipend that all the teachers get. If "job" isn't enough of an attraction, "higher-paying job" might be.

Some principals are desperate and once you wind up with desperate principals and school boards, they do really stupid things. It takes a few years for a principal to redirect a school--but they may only get 3 years. First year you say what you want; year two you train the teachers; year three you see the results, but by then your position's opened again. Then a new principal with a vew "vision" comes along. Nothing's ever stable, by the time the teachers are with the program the program's changed. Or old teachers are replaced but the new teachers are the "old teachers" when the new principal shows up. And the morale plummets because the politicians blame the schools, the school board blames the administration, the administration blames the teachers. But as one guy puts it, if you're making blueberry muffins and have no control over the blueberries, you don't have control over the muffins.