TFA’s Tired Lines

Elisa Villanueva Beard, CEO of Teach for America, wrote an interesting article for The 74 last week titled “Too Many Students Say School Just Isn’t Relevant. It’s Time to Listen to Them.”

I’m no longer a big fan of Teach for America. Like most reform efforts, after making a big scene in their first 10 years, TFA has been relegated by our traditional bureaucratic K-12 system to nothing more than a “feel good” program which allows young people to get a taste of classroom teaching.

But, Beard makes some good points in her recent publication and it’s worth a read:

“We send our kids to school to get them ready for a successful future. So, it’s concerning that less than half of middle schoolers and high schoolers in a recent national survey said school challenges them in a good way or gives them a chance to do what they’re best at every day. Only about half said they feel prepared for the future.”

“Equally concerning is the recent steep rise in kids missing too much school. More than a quarter of students missed 10% of more of the school year – the threshold for chronic absenteeism – in 2022-2023, the latest year for which we have nationwide data.”

“As hard as teachers are working, school feels irrelevant for many kids. But it doesn’t have to be that way. When kids can see the connection between what they’re being taught and what the future holds, they learn.”

“It’s clear that our assignment as adults is this: Make sure our schools engage all kids, no matter their background or where they live. Every school can be a place for connection, rigorous learning, even joy. And when kids are prepared for the future, our country is, too.”

“It’s a good first step that schools are facing chronic absenteeism head on. A bipartisan coalition has declared curbing chronic absenteeism ‘school’s top priority’ this year. In that spirit, rural, urban, and suburban districts are applying what we know works to boost attendance.”

“These are important short-term efforts and can be a down payment toward a better education system. At the same time, we need a wider lens that holistically improves students’ experiences at school and how prepared they feel for future success.”

“In my 26 years working alongside many others to drive change for K-12 education, I’ve seen reform efforts tinker with discrete parts of the system. It’s not that we don’t know what kids need to succeed; we’ve got to get better at expanding these efforts and putting them in place across the board, so all kids have access. And we must take a collective approach, with students, educators, families, and other stakeholders working together.”

“We can do three things to accomplish that.”

“First, we must renew our focus, at every level of government and in every school system, on improving measurable student achievement in reading and math. We have plenty of evidence that ensuring students read proficiently in third grade and master certain math principles by fourth and eighth sets them up for success. For example, research shows that taking Algebra I by eighth grade is the strongest indicator of college readiness and graduating college within four years. Yet too many students miss these milestones.”

“By leaning into the science of teaching reading and math, we can make these subjects relevant and accessible for every student. As of this month, 40 states and the District of Columbia have passed legislation or put policies in place that promote evidence-based reading instruction. We can also fund and support promising new models. Policies, and practices that ensure all students, regardless of their backgrounds, have an equal chance to excel.”

“And schools must be able to more easily find new ways to boost student engagement and learning. To that end, states could give districts more flexibility on requirements like seat-time, length of the school day, and grade-level grouping, all while ensuring a high level of academic rigor.”

“Second, let’s reimagine the role of the teacher – in every school district. One teacher in front of one classroom is how I learned, how my kids have learned, and how most students learn today. But it’s not the best recipe in our dynamic 21^st century world for quality teaching or student learning.”

“The Coalition to Reimagine the Teaching Role – which includes the organization I lead, Teach for America – believes that modernizing teaching is key to ensuring all students realize their unique potential. Let’s give educators more flexibility to meet the high bar we set for them, change how we staff schools so teachers and students are more supported, boost teacher pay, and give educators the tools to help every child grow and achieve.”

“Already, districts from Arizona to Kansas City to Washington, D.C., are using team-based teaching, offering different pathways to become a teacher, and helping kids succeed with tutoring, such as Teach for America’s Ignite Fellowship virtual tutoring program. But we need to do more of these things, in more school districts.”

“Finally, we must truly prepare kids for life after their K-12 schooling – which would make classwork feel more relevant for many students. High-quality programs that ensure students have options after high school – whether they choose college or career – can be a part of every child’s education.”

“The Rooted School, founded by Teach For America alumnus Jonathan Johnson, provides one model for how this can be done. The school’s four locations – New Orleans, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, and Vancouver, Washington – integrate early college experience with a strong school culture and give students ‘a voice and choice’ in what they’re learning. Work-based learning starts freshman year with Friday internships. The school day includes counseling, career planning and jobs skills education. All students leave with ‘a job offer in one hand and a college acceptance letter in the other.’ These three key steps to transforming American education go hand in hand with other goals, such as ensuring students have safe and welcoming schools and that they’re building important life skills such as empathy, self-regulation, and critical thinking. Working together, we can build a better kind of education – one that meets every child’s

Typical TFA – if you just spotlight a Teach for America alum, currently running four schools across the country, and you get the rest of the K-12 system to scale what this four-school operation is currently doing, then you are bound to have a better system for all kids.

It reminds me of the evening Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach for America – congratulated TFA’s Houston operation for placing 2,000 teachers in that city’s classrooms during TFA’s first 20 years. Houston employs 10,000 teachers a year, which means over 20 years, 2,000 hires equate to a 1% market penetration for the teaching group Kopp started and now Beard runs.

This idea that our traditional school system is going to scale best practices is questionable at best.

I do like Beard’s emphasis on reading and math learning, but most of our current traditional schools allow 45 minutes to an hour for students to work on each academic discipline.

I like Beard’s call to reimagine how we use the role of the adult learning leader, but our current K-12 system underpays and undervalues the adult learning leaders currently inside the system.

Finally, Beard’s call that we must “truly prepare kids for life after their K-12 schooling” is just – well – pie in the sky idealism, spoken from a leader whose group made a big splash some time ago, but, frankly, is struggling to define themselves moving forward.

I get it. Every once in a while a leader of an organization needs to write something down that will fire up the troops and entice traditional school districts to sign on to, in this case, the Teach for America model, so that TFA morale and their bottom line improve.

But my advice to Beard is this: stop pandering to a traditional system that is never going to change. Instead, begin using all of that learning leader talent you currently possess inside TFA to create new learning organizations, away from the traditional school system, that can help kids improve their reading, writing, and problem-solving skills, let young learners build their own learning plans, and allow adult learning leaders to finally have the freedom to build quality learning relationships with those kids they work with anytime, anywhere.

Friday News Roundup tomorrow. Til then. SVB