In the last few weeks, the 4,500 college graduates who entered Teach For America after graduation have finished their intensive five-week teacher training crash course. Training for this year's TFA corps, which includes 20 members of the Dartmouth class of 2010, coincided with the release of a new study which found that in their first two years, TFA-trained teachers do "significantly less well" in raising reading and math test scores than beginning teachers with traditional teaching certifications. The finding adds fuel to an already heated debate about whether TFA actually benefits underprivileged students.
Despite the controversy surrounding TFA's effectiveness, however, this year's applicant pool was the largest in the program's history, with 46,000 graduates and young professionals vying for positions. These numbers raise the question why are so many students from elite universities interested in a program that has thus far failed to prove itself in quantifiable terms? The less cynical among us might argue that it speaks to the sense of civic duty and global citizenship that liberal arts institutions instill in their students.
Unfortunately, for those of us who have spent our lives competing to be at the top (and there are few Dartmouth students who don't belong in this category) the cynic's answer is more credible TFA's miniscule acceptance rate and the resulting prestige that comes with an acceptance give top students a reason to pursue work in a field they would otherwise consider beneath them. TFA has taken advantage of competitive students' thirst for recognition and esteem to attract new talent to underserved school districts. While their motives are admirable, potential applicants should question the outcomes of this approach.
Policymakers and academics have argued for a long time that the key to a thriving public sector is to transform public service into an occupation that attracts the nation's best and brightest. TFA, which competes with the private sector for America's top graduates, has thus succeeded where many efforts have failed after Goldman Sachs and McKinsey, TFA was the biggest employer of Dartmouth's Class of 2008.
Unfortunately, this success is short-lived. TFA only requires its participants to commit to two years of service in disadvantaged communities, and only 50 percent of TFA teachers sign on for longer tenures at the end of this period. After three years, 80 percent have left the classroom.
This is not surprising when most participants see teaching as a stepping stone for their future careers, rather than an ultimate goal. TFA might confer status on its participants during their two-year commitment, but its cachet does not last forever. As the TFA badge of distinction fades, so too does participants' commitment to teaching. Ultimately, the program fails to make a lifetime teaching career prestigious in the eyes of elite graduates.
The short-term incentives of the program are highly problematic for school districts who employ TFA-trained teachers. The recent study, "Teach For America: A Review of the Evidence," finds that the high turnover rate among TFA teachers requires school districts to expend extra resources on constant recruiting and training. Experience is also a factor in teaching outcomes; while experienced TFA teachers do as well, or slightly better, than traditional teachers, inexperienced TFA teachers simply do not compare to the experienced teachers they are replacing.
Mandating a five-year commitment rather than the current two years could give TFA teachers time to grow into their positions, but a more sustainable solution would be to cultivate a teaching corps that is both talented and willing to make a long-term commitment to education. Emphasizing longevity might decrease TFA's applicant pool, but it would also increase the program's impact by allowing it to focusing 100 percent of its resources on the 20 percent who remain in teaching after three years.
In the meantime, these findings should give potential TFA applicants pause. For the last several years, TFA has dominated the not-for-profit sector in terms of recruitment and name recognition, resulting in driven individuals flocking to the program in large numbers. The rarity of a TFA acceptance appears to have distracted applicants from asking hard questions about whether the program is truly a worthwhile outlet for their time and energy. Unless and until the TFA model proves itself, its large applicant pool speaks more to this generation's need for status and prestige than to any laudable sense of civic duty.
