The reason why TFA and NYCTF can place these unprepared people in these classrooms is that there’s no one objecting to it- or at least, no one vocal enough or powerful enough to stop it and propose a more viable, long-term solution to the inner city education crisis (better school funding?? better teaching salaries??)

I’m a TFA alum, joined in ‘95, and still working in education in the district in which I was originally placed. Although some of the most amazing educators I know are TFA, now that I have a big picture of the needs of urban schools, I’m horrified by TFA. How can this program be allowed to go on?

I think I need some kind of TFA survivor support group. It did and does feel cultish at times, in the way that cults see nothing at all wrong with what they’re doing. This is a brilliant solution.

In more affluent communities, I also found that variations in student performance were frequently taken for granted. Instead of being seen as a challenge to teachers’ practice, these differences were used to classify students as more or less talented. Access to high-level courses was intentionally limited, reinforcing the view that talent, not instruction, was the basis of student achievement.

What (So-Called) Low-Performing Schools Can Teach (So-Called) High-Performing Schools
by Richard F. Elmore

This is what I’m talking about.

There is no reason to assume that teachers in high-performing schools are better than teachers in low-performing schools.

High-performing schools depend heavily on parents “helping with homework,” which often means reteaching the content and tutors.

Basically, high-performing schools often have a ghost-teaching force.

A Scarsdale tutor told me she estimates half the kids there are tutored. I wouldn’t be surprised.

That’s why NCLB requires that schools “disaggregate the data.”

In my own high-performing school district, now up to $25,000 per pupil funding, the pass rate for black and Hispanic students on last year’s 8th grade ELA & math tests was 0.

ZERO

Not one black or Hispanic student passed.

We are a very high performing district. High school in the top 100 or 200, depending on which list you’re looking at.

Time to read Richard Elmore on nominally high-performing schools.

Or Sanders on slide-and-glide.

Rather than bemoan the lack of an established curricula, lets take inventory of all the great national curricula we already have. Look at the institutions that wrestled with the problem of providing adequate background information while telling great stories, NPR, PBS, the Smithsonian and other great museums, our National Parks, and others. What if every high school had a teacher trained by NPR to use their amazing resources? Why not pay PBS to train another teacher for every poor school. Think of the multimedia resources that have been created by the great museums to help tell their story and the energy that would be released if they showed talented young people how to use their materials.

Since NCLB, our small and poor school has invested in a half dozen teaching positions per year that try to implement whatever learning package that the central office decided to impose on us, and its been a waste of money. What if we had been able to hire a half dozen young teachers trained by some of the most dynamic learning institutions in America?

Perhaps the TfA model could evolve to this approach — but it would mean recruiting with an eye on longer term commitment.

And, separate from anything TfA could do, it requires the structural/funding changes that would help make a move to a more challenging school an upwards career step, rather than the reverse.

I’m not sure how much we disagree. If we do, that’s fine! But let me explain my point a little.

Like you, I started teaching around the age of 40. I had taught in temporary situations before (in addition to other jobs): two summer stints, a year-long fellowship, and a teaching assistantship. All of these were temporary, so, while I never quit, I never had the experience of persevering, until I entered public school teaching.

When I started teaching, I was driven by a desire to teach. I wanted to stick it out in order not to close the door on it. I loved (and love) it and felt it would be worthwhile to weather the difficulties. But I don’t take this state of mind for granted. A person can get discouraged and quit. And when one does quit, it can be hard to return.

Now, consider how different the position of a veteran teacher at an excellent school. Already established, he or she has no need to prove anything in a rough urban school–not to self, not to others. Yes, such veteran teachers may well show some spine, as you say, but–would they really want to spend that much energy on battles they knew shouldn’t be necessary in the first place? Even if they did try to bring changes to the school itself, how much could they do in two years?

It’s like a veteran musician who for years has been practicing in a quiet place, working on the minute details of phrasing and tone. Then the musician moves to a place where there is endless construction noise. Being a master musician, he or she is able to practice nonetheless, and even improve. But playing well against the odds is not enough. There is no comparison with those days of being up against the art.

I have to disagree with you somewhat. I was about 40 when I started teaching, and I tend to believe that one of the factors that worked in my favor was that I was not 22 years old and in my first full-time workplace. Many young new teachers, I feel, tend to be cowed by administrators, co-workers, parents, etc. Once you’ve been around the track a few times, I think you’re more likely to show some spine, as it were, and not reflexively defer. Hence an experienced pro would be more likely to succeed in such a difficult environment. Not that they necessarily would succeed, of course. The “curriculumless, fad-driven” environment, as you suggest, is still a problem.