Way up above someone mentioned KIPP schools as an example of a high-achieving high-poverty school, what perhaps is most interesting about this, is that KIPP was FOUNDED in Houston by two Teach for America alum, who’s experience in the classroom guided them to start KIPP schools. I also know that many KIPP schools are staffed by former Teach for America teachers who are aware of what a great model KIPP schools are.

Just some thoughts…

My comment about Teach America is, you need to get your success stories out into every newspaper and on every radio and TV program in the US. Why haven’t I heard about you before???

People do respond to evidence of success, and if you have had the successes you spoke of during that interview, you should be broadcasting them much more than you are doing.

If you study the successes that some other grass-roots social entrepreneurs have had (for example, Muhammad Yunus, Karen Tse, Inderjiy Rhushika, you will find that the key to having an idea adopted on a wide scale is replication. If you want to really change the system of education in America it will take firstly, enough replication so that everyone knows that your system or technique, or approach, or whatever it is, works. This is the only way you will be able to overcome an ENORMOUS entrenched system which will oppose you at every turn. When I took teacher education courses, I was amazed at how much absolutely useless garbage I was required to learn, none of which made me a better teacher. You are facing a system that is entrenched, from school bureaucracies, to teacher-training programs. Just like the opposition of the American Medical Association has been a major force in jettisoning various health plan initiatives, this will be a major obstacle for you. You either have to go around them, or recruit them as allies (divide and conquer is one technique). The reason I suggested talking with Bill Wise is that he is already thinking about how to approach the question of system-wide change. And I thank you for your work.

Sometimes I wish I was still teaching. I am haunted by the memories of my past students. Kids who were being failed by the system whether they were striving in class and reading on grade level or five years behind. Like Robert, I found that it was the high achieving students who were failed the most. I saw that they weren’t being challenged, I tried to find better ways to engage them, and yet I had so many other things I needed to tackle as well. I taught middle school, what many consider the hardest placement. I constantly consider whether each student I taught will be able to make it through high school. The graduation rate in their community is 40%. I’m not sure I did enough to alter my students trajectory and this certainly bothers me.

I have met corp members who have had incredible gains with their students; but they are certainly not the norm. I like Robert’s idea although I do recognize that college students would not flock as rapidly to this Fellowship. I heard last year that Uncommon Schools and KIPP were forming their own program to certify teachers and I truly wished that such a program had existed when I graduated. I observed a first year TFA who was placed in a KIPP school and was 100% supported by veteran teachers. He didn’t teach a full course load until mid year. He was given time to develop the skills he needed. I would have loved to start in a school like that. But I feel that way now; I’m not sure what I would have thought when I applied.

That being said, I embrace the idea of creating more opportunities to bring quality educators to low income schools.

Before TFA, almost everyone in education insisted that the best teachers come through education schools and the traditional development pipeline. After TFA, we have learned that such a contention is not necessarily true. That is the power of what if?.

So here is the next what if? Do years of teaching experience really matter more than motivation and subject matter knowledge? TFA data would suggest not, but TFA has the ability to provide education researchers with a real world experiment. TFA corps members could be paired against experienced teachers in the same school or similarly situated schools with similar demographics and achievement levels. The hypothesis would be that teachers with 20 years of experience in classrooms with successful students should do better at improving the grades and test scores of low income, disadvantaged school kids than some rookie teacher from TFA.

If the hypothesis is true, what has TFA lost–nothing. TFA will no doubt continue with its mission and wonderful opportunities. If the hypothesis turns out to be false then TFA will have achieved something new again–radically altering the concept of teacher training and the value of credentials and experience. Think of the possibilities.

This is a brilliant idea that doesn’t have to be adopted wholesale, just on a large enough scale to provide reliable data.

So how do you recruit “as many people as possible” when they are so rare? Answer: you develop a formula for the “successful teacher.” While recruitment programs claim to evaluate teachers individually, they can’t possibly, when they are trying to recruit so many. So they develop a profile for success, and accept those who fit it.

Whom do they left out? Possibly the tescher who loves subject matter at least as much as social justice. TFA wants the teachers committed to eliminating the gap–but that is one of many goals a teacher might have. Hence, the suburban schools get the teachers who love their subject. The failing schools get the teachers who want each child to succeed. Sure, there is overlap–but that is where the emphases likely lie. How fair is that?

Now, it is noble and important to want each child to succeed–but succeed at what? We have to ensure that what we are teaching is worthwhile, and that we are teaching it well. We have to make sure that our students are reading excellent books, not bland teen novels from “leveled” classroom libraries. We have to make sure that our students leave our lessons actually knowing something they didn’t know before. We have to present the subject in a way that makes sense now and will lead them to further insights later.

Many new TFA teachers probably do this. But many others are likely to lap up “child-centered” approaches to teaching, which supposedly help each child but in reality dilute the curriculum. The ed schools promote such approaches, and the recruits in large numbers keep the ed schools going. Yes, even with that, the teachers may bring about improvements. Energetic and committed teachers often do, regardless of what is taught. But the improvements will only go so far if the students are not mastering subject matter.

Teachers who know and love their subject matter can have tremendous impact on their students. I would like to see the North Carolina TFA study controlled for educational background. How would those 69 TFA teachers fare in comparison with experienced traditional teachers with a BA or higher in an academic subject from, say, UNC? The study gives no insight into this question. The study lumps “traditional teachers” together though they come from widely varying circumstances. I am confident that if the study went deeper, its results would be subtler.

But the cry for rapid change is rarely subtle.

Apparently, experience just trains people to believe things can’t be done, experienced teachers have given up on their students en masse, and only new teachers with no preconceived notions can solve educational problems today. It’s a mystery why NYC, with more than half its teachers having fewer than five years experience, isn’t the best system in the nation.

Oddly, I find my experience helps me to quickly deal with many situations that would’ve baffled me when I began. I’ve also learned a lot of little tricks to control my classes that were definitely not in my beginner’s repertoire. Even stranger, several beginning teachers I know regularly seek my advice when they’d clearly be better off without it.

But the strangest thing indeed is that my daughter’s suburban school is full of experienced teachers. Despite this awful impediment, it’s far better than the one in which I work, which happens to be one of the very best in New York City.

Your idea deserves a more serious hearing than I think Ms. Kopp gave to it and I’d encourage you to press her more on it. If I understand her argument it consists of 3 points
1) Good suburban teacher won’t necessarily make good urban/rural teachers
2) TFA recruits don’t want to teach in advantaged schools
3) The experience of working in challenged schools is shapes the values and perspective of future leaders

The answer to Ms. Kopp’s objections is to create this rotation system not with high-achieving SUBURBAN schools, but with high-achieving HIGH-POVERTY schools. Many such schools exist including KIPP and Achievement First schools as well as some normal district schools (see http://www.hepg.org/hep/Book/65). Given this kind of rotation
1) The experienced teachers are those who understand and are committed to success for this specific student population
2) The TFA recruits would still have the chance to work with this student population, but now with a higher chance of success, thus increasing rather than decreasing the motivation to participate.
3) The experience which would shape the values of these future leaders would not be that of hopeless dysfunctionality, but rather of the success that is possible with these kind of students. This would much better give them not just desire for, but knowledge of “what it will take to ensure that children in low-income communities have the educational opportunities they deserve” and will help them understand the nature of the “systemic changes necessary to ensure educational opportunity for all.” Otherwise they will mostly leave with a lot more of what they came in with - good intentions.

What’s more having some of these successful veterans TFA recruits in the same schools that the now-less-green TFA recent grads are teaching in will mean they will have mentors there.

This idea would combine really beautifully with the (hopefully government funded) idea of having the first year be an internship.

And all of this relates the idea of transforming Teach For America from a Peace Corps, gap-year, formative experience to a long-term recruitment strategy for the teaching profession. I’d be curious what Ms. Kopp would say to this version of your idea.