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Speaking of the wisdom -- or lack thereof -- of relying on young participants in national service programs like Teach for America as stopgaps in struggling schools, Negar Azimi's New York Times Magazine story probes deeply into the practice and ideology of TFA. So, exactly how effective are TFA teachers? It depends on who you ask:
The question of what it takes to be a good teacher has inspired a series of spirited data wars between T.F.A. and its critics. Most often cited (by the critics) is a 2005 study examining the links between student achievement and their teachers’ certification status. In a study of more than 132,000 students and 4,400 teachers in the Houston public-school district, Linda Darling-Hammond, a professor at Stanford University’s School of Education, and three colleagues found that students taught by certified teachers outperformed those taught by noncertified teachers in reading and mathematics. Uncertified T.F.A. teachers had negative impacts on student achievement on five of six tests. Tellingly, their effectiveness improved when they gained certification.T.F.A. has called the Stanford study flawed, arguing that its sample sizes were small and questioning whether it was subject to adequate independent review. (The organization’s P.R. team is formidable.) Teach for America points to a 2004 study carried out by Mathematica Policy Research that shows T.F.A. teachers’ student scores matching those of a comparison group of novice and veteran colleagues in reading and slightly better in math. Over two months of talking to T.F.A. staff members, I was referred to this study no less than 13 times. Another study points to the fact that principals clamor for T.F.A. teachers; 74 percent considered T.F.A. teachers more effective than other beginning teachers.Darling-Hammond’s explanation for the numbers is not exactly flattering to T.F.A. “The principals who are saying ‘I love T.F.A.’ are responding to the fact that teaching standards in schools that hire uncertified teachers are typically low,” she told me this summer.Some other interesting numbers on the program: Over 40 percent of TFA-ers leave the profession within 3 years. And 70 percent of the young teachers are white, although many are placed in almost completely non-white schools. It feels heartless to criticize a program that's, well, so good-hearted. Of course America's most elite college graduates should be giving back. But while it appears that TFA is very effective at connecting business leaders and young professionals with the public school reform movement and imbuing them with a sense of commitment toward public education, it's unlikely TFA is impacting student achievement in any broadly-defined way. It is not a substitute for larger, more systemic pushes to get the best teachers into the most difficult classrooms.--Dana Goldstein
