Monday, February 18, 2013

Teach for America

In class this past week, the topic of Teach for America was brought up. I knew only a little bit about this program, and after hearing both positive and negative comments about it, I wanted to learn more about it. According to Teach for Americas website their mission "is to build the movement to eliminate educational inequity by developing such leaders." Basically what TFA does is take recent college graduates, put them in urban and rural public schools, and have them teach for about two years.

Some of the positives of this program include new teachers who are eager and excited to teach in these schools. They bring fresh energy to the schools and are really committed to helping these kids. And probably even more importantly, TFA is doing something to try and help change our public school system that is failing. According to the TFA website, "8% of kids growing up in low-income communities graduate from college by age 2" which shows how much change is needed.



However, this program is definitely not perfect and not everyone agrees that it is doing that much. People argue that placing new college graduates into struggling classrooms is just a recipe for disaster. These teachers have no experience and are replacing teachers who have worked at the school for years. Whats your opinion on Teach for America? Comment below.

1 comment:

  1. I don't think that Teach for America is as bad as they make it seem. You said that "placing new college graduates into struggling classrooms is a recipe for disaster." However, by saying "new college graduates," you make it seem like TFA uses graduates who have absolutely no training. the Teach for America website says that they "train and develop these corps members." Before they send teachers to schools, TFA makes sure that the teachers are prepared to do their jobs. Maybe these teachers aren't the most experienced, but Teach for America isn't sending incompetent teachers.

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