

Why I Stopped Writing Recommendation Letters for Teach for America - danso
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2013/10/teach_for_america_recommendations_i_stopped_writing_them_and_my_colleague.html

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stevekinney
My wife and I joined the New York City Teaching Fellows—a NYC-based spinoff of
TFA—in 2006 at the tender age of 22. I taught in the New York City public
school system for seven years and earned my masters in special education and a
school building leader license along the way. Much of the article jives with
my experience.

Not only is there little to no support for teachers, but it sometimes feels
like because there are a few bad teachers floating around in the system, that
everyone needs to be punished and inconvenienced. I like job security as much
as the next person, but I was a huge advocate for getting rid of tenure as a
result.

I'm still incredibly passionate about education, but suspect that being a
teacher is the best way to create change. Even in my short tenure, the amount
of bureaucracy had increased exponentially. When asked for advice on becoming
a teacher by a college student recently, I recommended against it—which broke
my own heart, because I believe that it's an incredibly important
profession—just not one I would give my twenties to again knowing what I know
now.

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mathattack
Edited to add a citation.

At many universities (certainly my undergrad) the mean and median students in
the Education department are weaker than students in other departments. Taking
the weakest to bring out the best in our students seems very odd. There is
some research that suggests teacher certification can actually be
counterproductive. [1] If we were in the situation of Finland (teachers are in
the top 10% of their class) then we would not need this type of intervention.

 _An increasing amount of research shows that TFA recruits perform at best no
better, and often worse, than their trained and certified counterparts._ I do
not believe this to be conclusive. TFA teachers are being tossed into failing
schools and systems and meeting or exceeding their supposedly more well
trained peers.

 _Would a biology professor write a recommendation to medical school for an
English major who’s never taken any core science courses? That would be
strange. It would be even stranger if the professor knew the English major was
just going into medicine for a few years, as a way to boost his resume, before
ultimately going on to a career in public relations._

This is the one true, and serious complaint. TFA has turned into a place for
smart high achievers to spend two years before going to grad school. Ideally
many stay involved in education, but not all of them. But... It still does
more for society than sending another couple percent of our best and brightest
into banking and consulting.

[1]
[http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/fryer/files/dobbie_fryer_re...](http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/fryer/files/dobbie_fryer_revision_final.pdf)
Bottom of page 2, top of page 3.

~~~
dethtron5000
>> At many universities (certainly my undergrad) the mean and median students
in the Education department are weaker than students in other departments.
Taking the weakest to bring out the best in our students seems very odd. There
is some research that suggests teacher certification can actually be
counterproductive. [1] If we were in the situation of Finland (teachers are in
the top 10% of their class) then we would not need this type of intervention.

To the degree to which this is accurate,this flips the cause and effect.
Finland, as a society, invests in its teachers and in teaching as a
profession. In the US teaching isn't a terrifically paid job and isn't
respected as a profession. If we invested more in teachers and teaching then
we'd see those ratios start to change, maybe generationally. As it stands,
though, teachers tend to get the brunt of the blame for "failing" schools - by
both the right and the left politically now.

~~~
mathattack
My understanding of Finland isn't that teachers are paid more, it's that they
are highly respected. (Similar to Singapore) They are in a positive cycle:
Teachers are respected -> The elite want to become teachers -> Teachers are
respectable.

We are in the converse of that: Teachers are not respected -> The bottom want
to become teachers -> Teachers are not respectable.

I'm not putting all of the blame on teachers. Some part of the problem is
individual teachers. Some is the stupidity of their unions. Some is poor
administration. Some is society for not demanding more out of everyone
involved in education.

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smoyer
"For humanities majors, TFA is a clear path to a job that both pays a living
wage and provides a stepping stone to leadership positions in a cause of
national importance."

Universities have no incentive to steer students away from their areas of
interest, but if it's this hard for a humanities major to earn a living wage,
we're producing too many of them. Humanities departments have a vested
interest in maintaining their output but I can't help but think that they're
hurting themselves in the long run.

Humanities are an important part of a well-rounded student, and there are lots
of instances where a humanities minor with a technical or business related
major is a powerful combination. I'd hate to see the humanities die, but can
they keep living like this? There should be more outrage among their graduates
... when that happens (and I've seen a few articles), things will get much
harder for them.

As an aside, making 0xx and 1xx level introductory classes in the humanities,
which are required as part of the GenEds or BDRs (Basic Degree Requirements)
too hard is in many cases teaching students in other disciplines to hate you
... you should draw those students into your minors programs.

~~~
homosaur
As someone who took enough history classes to ALMOST get to major reqs while
an undergrad, I agree with you about class difficulty. There was actually very
little difference in the difficulty of a 100 and a 400 class. The difference
was in depth. Your 100 would be a European History class while your 400 would
be about Postwar Germany. I loved history so I was biased toward enjoyment but
I can see how those who had little background in history having real
difficulty.

There's another side to that--the cool thing about history as a major was that
the dept. structure was flatter. It was basically about doing interesting
research. You could take 600 level classes with your TAs if you thought you
could hang with them in reading. Definitely not the case in the more skill
based fields.

Research, of course, is a skill, which is probably what they ought to be
teaching more of in 100 level classes. Most kids when they get to college have
not been asked to say, write a paper only from primary sources.

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homosaur
I was taking education classes late in college considering what's known as an
alternative certification, which is actually quite similar in structure for
TfA, the difference being of course is that the teachers are TRAINED IN
EDUCATION.

I had a late class and overlapping the end was a TfA class next door for
people who were currently teaching. We did some joint work occasionally and I
could almost always at least hear what was going on in their sessions. It was
far more like going to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting than a class. Students
basically sat and traded horrible stories every day for at least half the
class or more. There was very little instruction in proper discipline. I'd say
25% were not visibly overwhelmed by their teaching jobs and almost all of them
were involved with education or they were psych majors who had been heavily
involved in schools.

