Teach for America Study Reports Some Gains, but Obscures Failed Teaching Policies in Urban Schools

A 2004 study indicates that students of Teach for America (TFA) teachers matched students of a comparison group of novice and veteran colleagues from the same schools in reading and performed slightly better in math. The study, conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., examined a small sample of 41 TFA teachers across several urban school districts serving mostly at-risk students and compared them to 57 control teachers of whom 18 were also novices.

While the study’s authors viewed the results as evidence of the success of TFA and concluded that “the success of TFA teachers is not dependent on their having extensive exposure to teacher practice or training,” their findings illustrate the failed teaching policies that plague our nation’s urban schools. In fact, the student achievement of both TFA teachers and the control group was abysmal, students made few gains, and the novice control group teachers actually had less teacher preparation than their TFA counterparts in the study. Meanwhile, other studies show that more extensive teacher education can lead to substantial student achievement gains which, sadly, did not materialize for the students in the schools sampled in this study.

Children Are Still Being Left Behind
The study’s authors did not ask whether TFA teachers are effective teachers for the students they teach. If they had, the answer would be “no.” Students of both TFA and control group teachers scored very poorly on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. The achievement scores in reading for the students in the sample went from the 13th to the 14th percentile for the control group and increased at the same rate (from the 14th percentile to the 15th percentile) for TFA teachers. Thus their gain scores were essentially the same -- which is virtually no gain at all. These students are still reading more poorly than 85 percent of their peers nationwide and well below grade level, as well as far below expectations for improvement under No Child Left Behind.

In math, the students of TFA teachers had gains from 14th to 17th percentile, but these very low scores left the students far below grade level and way behind their peers nationally. Perhaps most striking was that there was no difference between the TFA and non-TFA teachers in the high rate at which students are retained or referred to attend summer school. The authors alluded to this fact, but did not emphasize it in their conclusions.

Despite the rhetoric that Teach for America represents a short-cut alternative to traditional teacher education, the facts of this study revealed that the TFA teachers had more background in teacher education than the novices in the control group. Most TFA teachers had earned a regular or initial teacher certification by the end of the study year, and more TFA teachers were actually certified than the novice control teachers (51% vs. 38%). In addition, 40 percent of the TFA teachers had earned a master’s degree, mostly in education, by the end of their second year of teaching, one thing the study suggests accounts for the much greater impact they had on student achievement as compared to the 1st year TFA teachers, who did much more poorly. The control group was filled with emergency, temporary, and alternatively licensed teachers. If TFA is producing slightly higher student achievement gains, perhaps it is because they are more likely to be prepared to teach than the woefully under-prepared control group of teachers. The study’s authors admit: "Compared with a nationally representative sample of teachers, the control teachers in the schools in our study had substantially lower rates of certification and formal education training."

The study’s authors did not significantly address the larger public policy question about teacher education and its effectiveness. Instead of only focusing on a minimal standard of whether TFA teachers harm student outcomes relative to an admittedly under-prepared control group, the research team could have compared TFA teachers to graduates of high quality teacher education programs. For example, in 2003, the International Reading Association released a study showing that teachers who had attended these eight teacher education programs with strong reading training were significantly more likely to have classes that made much greater than average student achievement gains.

Teach for America promotes the idea of bright, academically able young people going into teaching. This is a good thing. There is no question that their idealism and energy are much needed boosts in some of the schools in which they land. Some TFA advocates will point to the fact that the students in these extraordinarily challenging, hard-to-staff schools are better served by a TFA graduate from a highly competitive college, with a high Scholastic Aptitude Test score, and demonstrated leadership potential. But is this really the point? Most of the TFA teachers are gone well before they learn to be truly effective, leaving their former students facing a revolving door of under-prepared teachers who cannot help them reach high academic standards. Programs like TFA are serving as stop-gap measures, but they do not begin to address the root of our nation’s teaching quality issues. Studies, like the one released by Mathematica, obscure the failed teaching policies in our nation and our unwillingness to invest in the kind of teacher preparation (and other critical teaching policies) needed for our urban and rural schools. Parents and children in these schools would like the national conversation to focus on how they can be helped to succeed at the levels required by today’s society (and by such laws as No Child Left Behind), rather than on strategies that only help them tread water until they drown in the sea of poor teaching they experience.

Doing What Works
There are districts that have invested in recruiting and retaining well prepared teachers for their urban classrooms, and they have seen strong achievement gains in reading well beyond what was reported in the urban school districts participating in the TFA study. For example, San Diego's approach to improving reading achievement in high-minority schools by hiring and supporting well qualified teachers, speaks boldly to what can be done to improve learning for all students while closing the achievement gap.

We know what works in terms of quality alternative preparation programs as well. The highly effective teacher education program at UCLA’s Center X is designed to attract academically able students and prepare them deeply in a two-year program that readies them to radically improve urban schooling for California's racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse children. Similarly, The Academy for Urban Leadership in Chicago works because it provides, over the course of a year, tightly supervised internships, extensive mentoring by expert teachers, and corresponding coursework in teaching and student assessment strategies.

Some advocates for TFA may suggest that its graduates are better than others in the shallow pool of candidates from which many urban school administrators have to choose and applaud its noble effort to ensure “disadvantaged kids good teachers now.” However, the results of this TFA study do not provide any evidence of these TFA teachers are any good, and if they are slightly better than the counterparts in the study sample, it is because they are better prepared. Now, is the time to ensure that all teachers possess the content knowledge, teaching skills, and necessary support systems to serve their students well.

For example, policymakers can invest more heavily in promising new recruits by providing them more extensive preparation specifically for work in hard-to-staff schools, better mentoring from highly accomplished teachers like National Board Certified Teachers, reduced teaching loads and smaller class sizes, and additional pay and other incentives for staying in these hard-to-staff schools.

Policymakers and education stakeholders should also work to develop a much more comprehensive approach to recruiting, preparing, supporting, and retaining teachers for hard-to-staff schools based on the federal “Medical Manpower” policies of the past 50 years. Policymakers also can take some immediate steps by funding additional mentors to work in hard-to-staff schools where large proportions of under-prepared teachers often have limited access to meaningful support.

We know what to do. We just need to spread the technical know how and build the political will necessary to ensure that all students have caring, competent, and qualified teachers, in every classroom, every day.