Teach for America is attracting more followers, but is it actually helping close the gap?

I still am confident that recruiting inexperienced teachers isn't necessarily helping our education system. In the Teach for America annual report, TFA claims that 2006 corps members met their "significant gains" criteria at a faster pace than 2005 corps members. According to the annual report, 40 percent of corps members this year met TFA's "internal operating standard" which shows 1.5 years of academic progress. This is up from 27 percent of 2005 corps members (Teach for America Annual Report, pg. 11). First of all, 40 percent is not an incredibly striking figure. Second, what is the internal operating standard? For next year's corps members, it appears that corps members will be able to define significant gains themselves. Corps members will create a big goal at the beginning of the year, and if they accomplish the big goal then they will have made significant gains.
The goal can be measured by any method the corps member uses, including a self-created test. For an organization that is so data centered, there is little data that demonstrates that Teach for America is closing the achievement gap. The alarming part about all this is that more and more college undergraduates are signing up for the corps. There were 2,176 corps members in 2005. That number increased to 2,426 in 2006 and TFA's goal is to have 4,000 incoming members by 2010 (Teach for America 2006 Annual Report, pg. 4). Teach for America has a wonderful mission, but before it expands its corps, the organization needs to make sure it is actually helping students achieve. Are teachers with no education training who are incredibly overwhelmed the best teachers to put in our schools? Teach for America teachers may be filling slots in schools that principals are having difficulty filling. Principals may stop trying to address recruitment issues and may stop looking at teacher qualifications because they know they have a ready supply of teachers with good reputations. This is already happening at the school I teach at, and test scores aren't going up as we get a higher proportion of TFA teachers. We've got to start thinking about whether or not our schools our improving with Teach for America's help.

Reflection

I think reflection is an integral part of handling all the stress related to being a first year teacher in a school like most Teach for America schools. Unfortunately, there isn't usually much time for reflection. So, my blog is going to become my reflection hot spot. This morning, I taught measurement. It was probably the fourth time I have tried to teach how to measure on a ruler fourths and eighths of inches. I failed for the fourth time. It was utter failure in the worst way. I tried having my students divide the 0 to the 1 into four equal parts. They didn't get the connection. I tried explaining that there are often 16 dashes on a ruler between 0 and 1 and every other dash is an eighth. They stared at me blankly. I had pictures and posters, but I couldn't even understand what I was saying. I just KNOW where 1/8 of an inch is. I don't remember how I learned. I wish I could say that I am going to teach this better next year, but I have no idea how.
I felt like such a bad teacher. Why am I unable to explain these concepts? I think that's part of the problem with being a first year teacher and with Teach for America. Just because you know something does not mean you know how to convey that information to a third grader. I spent my planning tutoring students, trying to explain the concept. A few more seemed to get it. In the afternoon, my lessons were poorly planned and I felt like I was improving which made me feel like an even worse teacher. But there just doesn't seem to be any time. Maybe I just need to find a way to MAKE time. Then, I tried tutoring again with measurement after school and failed utterly. One of my students got a 3 out of 16 on the test and he has been doing that all year on math tests. I don't know what to do about it. I recommended him for Student Support Services but they didn't really DO anything. His dad and I are both really concerned. The kid's mother died this year and that's related, although he was struggling before then. It's hard because I really love this kid, but he never pays attention in class. I feel like I should be hard on him about that to help him, but it breaks my heart to be hard on him. He always seems so depressed. After tutoring, I tried to meet with another teacher at my school about a unit plan. I have to put together a social studies unit and we don't have textbooks. My units this year have been terrible, but this is for a class, and I want to make sure to improve it. (Especially because I will use it next year). But it seems a daunting amount of work. I don't know where to look up texts on the subject it will be on. Where can I find my grade level documents that will teach them about this subject? I have no clue. I already looked this year when I taught the unit so poorly. All in all, I am discouraged. I want to be better. I want to serve my students well. I also want to make the people in my life who are not in Teach for America happy. I don't want them to feel like they are second place to my job. Yet, they are so many times. They are. I don't know how to function any other way. As it is, I am not doing an adequate job. I want to spend time with the people I care about outside of work, but it is difficult. And they never really seem to understand how difficult. The sacrifice that I feel is made by hanging out with other people... they can't understand that. But, it's not like I don't WANT to hang out with them either. Well, anyway, it helped to write about it. Now, I had better get my act together so things tomorrow aren't as haphazard and sporadic as they were today!

Senselesss complaining

I know there's no point. But if you don't think you really want to be a teacher long - term, it is not a good idea to try and be a teacher short - term just to support a cause. It's too hard to spend all of your time doing something you don't enjoy. I'm complaining because I want to have hobbies again! I want to do anything else but lesson plan on the weekends. I hate lesson planning! I want to not feel stressed every time I go out and do something that isn't related to school. But unfortunately, I think everyone feels that way. Life is a lot of hard work and work is not always fun. There are tedious parts of every job. I don't really know where all this is going except to say sometimes it is really really hard to stay motivated. So much of my free time seems to be me forcing myself to do things I know I must do if my classroom is to remain functional at all.

Teach for America: 2 years

Teach for America is a two year program. Most teachers get the hang of teaching at the end of their second year. That's a problem. My principal told me during my mid year review, "the learning curve is just so high. Two years. That's about what it takes and then you will be a good teacher. You are growing so much, but you start out with nothing." I smiled and nodded and thought to myself, "I am so glad I will be good at this as soon as I am finished with it." My principal is one of many experienced educators who have told me that it takes two to three years before a teacher can get the "hang of things."
This week, I also had an interesting conversation with an expert data analysis coach. She explained, "Well, most of your students came from classrooms where teachers were inexperienced. They were in their first or second year. So, you can expect your test results to be lower. First and second year teachers almost never get their students where they need to be. Their students are guinea pigs. Unfortunately, someone has to be. What makes it all worthwhile is that they will become good teachers after those first two years and then really make a difference." So, I don't need to worry about my low standardized test scores because the administration will automatically take into account that my students came from classrooms where first and second year teachers were messing things up. That doesn't bode well for the students in my classroom. They have now had a first year inexperienced teacher for two years in a row.

Teaching is lonely

It's weird. I am surrounded by kids all day long, yet I feel completely alone most of the time. I don't talk to any other adults during the day. I see adults in the hallways during bathroom breaks, but the most we exchange is "hi." At lunch and planning, I am usually scrambling to get something done, especially when I have recess duty. Even on the weekends when I am lesson planning, I rarely am working with anyone else. Yes, I often get ideas from other teachers. However, there are so many lesson plans each week that most of it is just me, making up things as I go along.

Link

Here is the other link from the first article I posted. This is the study done by Berliner.
http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v10n37/

Attrition Rates, Experience, and Transparency

At my last meeting with my Learning Team leader for Teach for America, he told our group that corps members were failing to meet achievement goals across the nation. He also told us that "first year teachers are never good teachers," and that most leaders in Teach for America have little teaching experience. (The number of years he cited was two to three). My Learning Team leader has fifteen years of experience. He felt free to tell us all this information because my Program Director was unable to attend our meeting.
I am interested in discovering whether or not what he told us was true. If anyone knows where this information might be available, please post it. As a current corps member, I find it very difficult to look into any of this. When I broached the subject of attrition rates over the past few years with my Program Director, it was clear that it was not permissible to talk about. A week after our conversation, I received an e-mail from several higher ups in the Teach for America network. I don't feel comfortable asking about teacher experience, attrition rates, or the academic success rate of TFA teachers.
College students who are interested in joining Teach for America should be able to easily find data on the organization so that they can make an informed decision, and corps members are entitled to know exactly how the movement they are a part of is doing. Again, if you have access to any information about attrition, TFA leadership experience, and how the corps has performed in the 04-05, 05-06, or 06-07 school year, please share it. Perhaps I am not looking in the right places. Here is a link to the article and study I cited in my first post. This study concluded that TFA teachers do not significantly out perform uncertified teachers. http://www.ncate.org/documents/EdNews/StanfordTeacherCertificationReport.pdf