The teach for America evaluation: herewith, the first evidence on its recruits' actual performance in the classroom

Education Next, Spring, 2002 by Margaret Raymond, Stephen Fletcher

SINCE 1990 THE NEW YORK-BASED TEACH FOR America (TFA) program has placed more than 7,000 teachers in some of the nation's most challenging school districts, The nonprofit organization recruits high-achieving seniors from top colleges and asks them to commit themselves to two years of teaching in inner-city or rural schools. TFA currently supplies teachers to 18 districts across the country, including Newark, New Jersey; rural districts in the Mississippi Delta; Phoenix, Arizona; and Houston, Texas. Most TFA recruits serve in schools that qualify for funding under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act due to their high concentrations of students living in poverty. These schools often find it difficult to fill teaching positions with strong candidates.

In number of teachers trained each year, TFA is one of the nation's largest suppliers of teachers. According to the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, which represents university- or college-based teacher-preparation programs, only 10 percent of programs offering undergraduate-level training produce more teachers each year. TFA recruits clearly help to alleviate teacher shortages in the school districts in which TFA operates. But how do these recruits perform once they are hired? The evaluation results reported here provide the first evidence of TEA recruits' actual performance in the classroom.

TFA'S underlying idea is that many smart, accomplished college graduates would make significant contributions to public education--if it weren't for the fact that they must have majored in education or be willing to spend one to two more years (and significantly more in tuition) earning a master's in education in order to get certified. Even if these bright, young, committed individuals don't remain in teaching forever, TFA posits that they can make a difference in some of the nation's most challenging schools. TFA gives what the program considers potentially excellent teachers--those with both solid knowledge of content and strong leadership skills--a low-cost opportunity to earn a teaching credential while discovering whether they have found a calling. The emphasis on knowledge and leadership is reflected in TFA's recruiting: a typical TFA corps member earned a gradepoint average of 3.4 out of 4.0, and 87 percent of recruits have leadership experience.

TFA recruits undergo five weeks of training during the summer. They complete intensive preservice coursework and spend the balance of the summer in classrooms as student teachers or team teachers. Once school starts in the fall, TFA recruits must participate in weekly TFA-sponsored professional development workshops--more than the typical new teacher, This is in addition to any coursework they must complete under their district or state's alternative certification program. In Houston, the TFA site examined for this study, all uncertified teachers must enroll in the district's alternative certification program at the beginning of their first year. It takes a year to earn a credential.

Advocates of alternative certification hail TFA for its creative response to teacher shortages and for its efforts to recruit star college graduates who otherwise might not have found their way to teaching. Many corps members leave teaching after fulfilling their two-year commitment, but they often remain in the education field-as school administrators, in government, or with nonprofits that are involved in education reform, In April 2001 Education Week reported, "It's becoming clear that Teach For America is channeling a wealth of talent, energy, and creativity into educational leadership that might otherwise have wound up in such fields as medicine, law, or business."

But TFA has its detractors as well, They point to the lack of pedagogical training and knowledge of child development theories among TFA teachers. They also tend to believe that TFA demeans teaching by treating it as a Peace Corps-style rescue mission rather than a true profession, with salaries appropriate to attracting solid candidates." A frankly missionary program," wrote Stanford professor Linda DarlingHammond in an oft-cited 1994 Phi Delta Kappan article, "TFA has recruiters and advocates who have focused much of their attention on the advantaged college graduates for whom TFA serves as something useful to do on their way to their 'real jobs' in law, medicine, or business."

Into the Breach

So far, these battle lines have been drawn with only rhetoric as a weapon, for evidence on the performance of TFA teachers in the classroom has been nonexistent. To help fill this vacuum, CREDO (formerly known as the Center for Research on Education Outcomes), an independent nonpartisan research group at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, evaluated the performance of TFA teachers relative to both new teachers and all teachers in the Houston Independent School District. Houston is the 7th-largest school district in the United States, encompassing 186 elementary schools and 34 middle schools. Houston hires approximately 350 new elementary- and middle-school teachers a year; since TFA began supplying teachers to the district, its proportion of new teachers has ranged between 5 and 10 percent (see Figure 1). Latino (54 percent) and African-American (33 percent) students make up the majority of the district's student population. The majority of students live in relatively poor households, with 75 perc ent receiving free or reducedcost lunches.