March 16, 2012
Seattle Board of Directors
Seattle, Washington 98124-1165
Dear Mr. DeBell, Ms. Smith-Blum, Ms. Patu, and Executive Committee Members,
Thank you for your interest in children and your advocacy for education in Seattle. I have had the pleasure of preparing teachers at Northern Arizona University who are Seattle natives and are teaching in your schools. I have also been privileged to work with Seattle Public School teachers and administrators in the capacity of professional development presenter over the last two decades.
While in your city, I felt the commitment of your teachers and administrators, who not only participated in faculty development sessions (Thematic Teaching with Sports…Baseball), but also were hungry for new ideas, innovative teaching methods, and ways to motivate and engage their elementary and middle school students.
I write to you now because I am very concerned about what appears to be the national erosion of the professional educator. I am eager to offer my expertise on a program that I have spent nearly a dozen years examining. By chance, I became the mentor, coach, instructor and university liaison for Teach For America’s novice teachers and they have become the primary research area of my professional work.
Like many Americans, who appear impressed with the patriotic sounding name, Teach For America, and their work, I assumed that I knew about the program, even though I had no firsthand knowledge or information about the organization. I never imagined that I would learn about the corps experience, recruitment, training, professional development, grade level placement, and why recent college graduates even apply to an organization that suggests that their two-‐year commitment is a type of “service” directed at poor, children of color.
Over seven years of consecutive interactions with alums, corps, administrators and current corps members, I found out through direct observation in classrooms and as an invited presenter at TFA’s All-‐Corps Meetings and the even small gatherings that TFA teachers requested I attend, when things began to unravel, that TFA teachers do not have a command of what it takes to execute the necessary classroom skill sets.
My book’s title, Learning on Other People’s Kids: Becoming a Teach For America Teacher chronicles the corps experiences from application through the conclusion of their commitment. The title is taken directly from the data record, because hundreds of corps members shared with me, {and still do] through e-mails, journals and audio taped interviews, that they were not prepared to teach and felt very guilty about learning how to teach on the children who were most at-risk for academic failure. Many, who were not lucky in their placement that aligned somewhat with their content knowledge and academic background, that what they were doing in classrooms would never count as ‘teaching’ in the communities around the country where they attended school. Their teachers were prepared, experienced, committed to teaching as a career, and were there to provide them, rookie TFA teachers, with guidance, as well as lesson plans and classroom management strategies when they called asking for help!
As my book notes, many of the corps shared what I term, “Flashback Theory of learning how to teach” which entailed recalling a project that their own 4th grade teacher employed during their own school days, some ten‐twelve years prior.
In other words, the TFA teachers who come into your district would not be hired to teach in Redmond, Kirkland or Bellevue. Schools in more affluent communities do not regularly encourage teacher turnover every two years, nor pay salaries and benefits for new teachers who are not trained and not proven.
Contrast the TFA training with the regulations outlined by The State of Washington or cosmetology students. One must be enrolled full time in an accredited program that mandates 1600 hours of practicum, that run concurrently with instruction from licensed cosmetologists who hold certification as career and technical teacher educators. [Idaho and California require 2000 hours prior to one applying for licensure.]
When 8 months of training is required for cosmetologists, how can five weeks of TFA training, where corps report less than 20 hours spent teaching children, be considered legitimate?
During the summer of 2011, I had the occasion to speak with several newly trained TFAers who were about to move from Phoenix’s training, to their assigned teaching region. The corps shared that they were headed to Denver, Oklahoma City, and yes, to Seattle.
The corps I talked to (at a Thai Restaurant) did not know which grade level they would be assigned (this is July mind you), for the new school year, nor the ability levels of the students awaiting them in their placement school. This caused heightened anxiousness as their TFA training was: a) generic (one training fits all students K-12), and b) limited in practicum experiences. How could you go from teaching 7th graders for 4 weeks to teaching 7 year-olds for the academic year?
For most of the corps heading to Seattle both grade level of students and subject areas, were, even as late as July, unknown.
Jeff shared, “ I taught high school Math at Institute and mind you, I never had a college level Math class, so that was a stressor, but my grade level placement in my permanent location was 5th grade. We didn’t have enough kids so after a month, I was moved to 2nd grade. Barb, I never even met one 7 year-old, but I was responsible for teaching a class full of them! I’m not cut out for the little kids, and I expected to be teaching older students. Needless to say, my management was terrible and the kids were crying for their teacher. It was a mess.“
How can time spent team-teaching in summer school settings (that are not indicative of what corps will experience once they assume their own classroom) be a suitable replacement for Seattle’s prepared and credentialed teachers?
I strongly suggest re-examining how and why Teach For America teachers happen to be hired to work in Seattle Public Schools.
You cannot ask the Seattle taxpayers to fund this, because it will further undermine education for low-income Latino, African-American, Native American and Pan-Asian immigrant students who attend your schools.
Most TFA recruits assume that their five-week, TFA Institute Training will prepare them to teach. However, for nearly a dozen years, consecutive cohorts of first year Teach For America teachers state that their preparation fell short on many levels. Many are trained by current corps members, who weeks earlier, completed their own first year of teaching through TFA. I term this practice, “Rookies training Rookies,” and I know of no organization, nor quality private school, that operates similarly. In fact, private schools hire recent college graduates without teaching credentials as “interns.” Their role as assistant teacher entails learning from and working under a veteran educator for two years, before assuming the role of teacher.
Regardless of whether the Dean of the College of Education at the University of Washington is a TFA alumnus, there is no guarantee that the Seattle public school children who are placed with consecutive novice TFAers will not be negatively impacted.
As one recruit told me, “I find myself in a constant state of quandary, streaked deeply with self –doubt. What am I doing here? Am I making any positive contribution to the lives of my students? How can I call myself a teacher?”
All across the country, educators, researchers, and a coalition of 82 agencies, from the NAACP to the Council for Exceptional Children continue to question, Why TFA?” The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that intern teachers, including Teach For America teachers, who are disproportionately placed in high numbers in schools of children who are poor and minority, are not highly qualified, and districts who do not disclose this information, are violating a parent’s right to know who is hired to teach their children.
At least four separate, large-scale studies have found that Teach for America recruits arrive in their classrooms under prepared and are significantly less effective than fully trained teachers in teaching children to read, especially those who are English Language learners, and others who are dependent upon public schools to become socialized, and learn literacy skills.
The evidence from my research is clear: Teach For America’s corps are learning the Culture (s) of the community, Culture of schools, and the Intricacies of teaching, which include managing a classroom, accommodating diverse students’ needs, and evaluating learning, when they assume the role of teacher.
At one time The TINA principle: There Is No Alternative, applied to why TFA were brought into districts. However, today, that reasoning is no longer sound. Teach For America teachers are replacing credentialed educators. They are not needed in most cities such as Seattle, because Seattle is not a “hard-to-staff district.” TFA were once hired to teach subject areas where districts were challenged to find qualified teachers. But now, most corps report that they are teaching out-of-field and in Special Education classrooms, where they arrive with about 5 hours of training.
As one corps stated, “I have been placed in a school with no books and no curriculum. I went into TFA with a realistic perspective of the difficulties ahead, but my experiences have led me to teach alongside inexperienced and idealistic teachers (many of whom come from entirely different worlds than their students), and then are expected to have our students reach “Big Goals.”
If your board has the resources necessary to support Teach For America’s teachers, it would be important to ask the following questions: What do new teachers who come to education from the unique background and perspectives of TFA need to learn, and under what conditions, to become effective teachers? This includes what kind of support program would TFA teachers benefit from, and is this different from the kinds of support programs and induction that would be best for other new teachers?
You can’t ask them, (TFA) what they need, especially since they are not experienced enough to know.
This seems quite the dialectic, as the experienced Seattle Public School teachers would be called upon to support the novice TFA teachers who are hired to replace some of their colleagues. Teachers who know the culture of the community, the culture of the school and the culture of teaching their grade level/subject areas, are the ones whose profession it is to make those quick decisions, to differentiate between what works for one student and why it is the wrong intervention response for another.
Career educators, myself included, have spent their entire professional lives thinking like a teacher, with seamless integration of years of experience that factor into the teaching of Math, History, or primary Literacy. There is no substitute for those who possess this time-honored, unquantifiable, and seemingly underappreciated 6th sense.
This knowing, is not viewed as innovative however, and appears quite different from the Teacher-As-Leader training instilled in corps members who leave Institute thinking like a TFA teacher.
In closing, I thank you for reviewing my letter and would be open to questions you might put forward. I believe that it is imperative to examine the effects of decisions on those you have not met yet, (children and their families and teachers applying for positions within your district). I sense that discernment might be appropriate action at this time: Discern between innovation and knowing how, leadership and knowing when and why, and the roles that power, privilege and philanthropy play when opportunities are presented for the “public good.”
Teach For America’s corps are intelligent and tenacious, but they are not prepared to teach when they arrive in urban and rural school districts with high levels of poverty. Teach For America’s corps learn on the job, and are anchored by veteran professionals who take the time to share their knowing, because kids are at stake.
Children can no longer afford to have anyone, even those with good intentions, learn on their time. That is just not acceptable.
Sincerely,
Barbara Torre Veltri, Ed. D
Dr. Barbara Torre Veltri, Assistant Professor
College of Education, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona Barbara.Veltri@nau.edu
Learning on Other People’s Kids: Becoming A Teach For America Teacher (2010, Information Age Publishing, Inc.)
Post Script:
The members of the Seattle School Board will be voting tomorrow evening on whether to continue with the contract with Teach for America, Inc. Please contact the school board at schoolboard@seattleschools.org and let them know how you feel about individuals with five weeks of training teaching your child.
And if you can, please attend the board meeting at 6:00 PM on Wednesday at the Stanford Center, 2445 3rd Avenue South, Seattle, 98134. LEV and SFC will have their crowd there with signs trying to look authentic. Folks who believe that we don’t need TFA, Inc. in Seattle should be there as well.
Dora
If I were to find out someone in my department was having difficulty keeping their personal financial house in order, I would seriously question their future at our organization.
I really like the reference to how much training it takes to be a cosmetologist.
When communicating with Barbara, she said that at least hair grows out, referring to the fact that hair has another chance but children don’t.
Dora
You can find a lot more from Dr. Veltri in this review =>
http://eduratireview.com/2010/06/learning-on-other-peoples-kids-an-important-book-on-teach-for-america/
Remember that the original plan was to have lots more TFA newbies teaching than the tiny number of “Conditionally Certificated” TFA newbies that made it into Seattle classrooms.
There is a shocking demonstration of what is envisioned by TFA taking place in Huntsville, Alabama. This entire TFA operation has more in common with Pyramid schemes for selling and Ponzie schemes than education.
Huntsville Times (editorial) =>
http://blog.al.com/times-views/2011/11/teach_for_america_a_shining_pr.html
Teach for America explained =>
http://www.rocketcitymom.com/teach-for-america-explained/
Teach for America get informed =>
http://www.rocketcitymom.com/teach-for-america-get-informed/
Huntsville Superintendent responds about TFA =>
http://www.rocketcitymom.com/tfa-dr-wardynski-responds/
Q: One of the most compelling arguments that local TFA opponents make is that the TFA program was originally intended for areas where it was hard or impossible to find state-certified teachers to teach, and that Huntsville doesn’t have that problem. In fact, over the past two years the HCS system has laid off hundreds of certified teachers under its Reduction in Force (RIF) program. While some of those have been rehired, there are still plenty in the area that are out of work. Are you arguing that HCS is not receiving enough applications from certified teachers and so you need TFA volunteers to fill a gap?
Q: A recent nation-wide analysis of TFA teacher turnover shows that while a majority of TFA teachers stay in education beyond their two-year commitment, more than half of those teachers leave their initial placement school in the third year, and by the end of the fourth year, only 14% are still in their original school. This is a troubling statistic given the fact that those placements are made at schools most in need of a stable and experienced faculty. How are you working to guarantee that our Title I schools don’t become a revolving door of inexperienced teachers?
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Like all pyramid schemes new territory is needed to keep the scam going. Which District is more likely to be able to fork over $4,000 per student to TFA? Seattle or Toppenish?
Which District has actually had a teacher shortage in some areas? Seattle or Toppenish?
If Toppenish had the $4,000 / TFA Corps Member, would they decide to spend it given the odds?
Nearly two-thirds (60.5%) of TFA teachers continue as public school teachers beyond their two-year commitment.
More than half (56.4%) leave their initial placements in low-income schools after two years, but 43.6% stay longer.
By their fifth year, 14.8% continue to teach in the same low-income schools to which they were originally assigned.
The state of Tennessee did a study and Teach for America – Memphis and In four years, the return rate drops to under 9%. That just over 91% of TFA teachers will have to be replaced every four years.
In 2010 the costs for running the TFA organization when divided by the number of Corps Members teaching in schools = $20,000+ per Core Member …. Foundations and even the Federal Gov. are funding this operation. That is a lot of coin for a TEMP agency to supply teachers that are NOT needed in either Huntsville or Seattle.