Strong and Sustainable Teacher Preparation

I originally posted the following comment on MN2020's Tuesday Talk.  The topic was TFA

"It seems to me there are two main reasons to join TFA. One is as a resume builder. There are some variations to this line of thinking such as using it as a backup to finding permanent employment, but there are clearly a large number of TFA corp members who don’t want to be career teachers, and they should not be playing teacher. Teaching takes commitment.

On the other hand, it is clear there are people who are choosing TFA because they do want teaching as a career. While I welcome them, it does a disservice to our students for them to take a shortcut to the classroom. This is why the U of MN should not be partnering with TFA.

If you were a college senior or junior and you wanted to go into teaching which route would you take—Option 1: A two year program that will take two years and cost you thousands of dollar, or Option 2: a five (maybe eight?) week summer training that has you teaching and getting paid for those same two years?

After paying for four years of college already, I know I would find option 2 very appealing. The problem, of course, is option two is good for the adult, not for the students they will serve. Dean Jean Quam of the U of M’s CEHD told me the University’s two year program is far superior to any TFA model. Which begs the question: why create a shortcut?

In the spirit of solutions, we should be talking about how we can make it affordable and even financially rewarding for college students to take the best route to the profession of teaching and not a short cut that short changes our students."

TFA is by design a shortcut to the classroom and it is a union-busting temp agency.  Those of us who are serious about education need to get TFA out of the picture and look at sustainable ways to prepare future teachers and, especially in the Twin Cities, diversify our teacher ranks.

Posted by: Rob Panning-Miller

Colleges of Education Fail When They Join with TFA

University of Minnesota, Do NOT Partner with Teach for America

On the surface, Teach for America is one of the greatest ironies of the neo-liberal education reform movement.  These so-called reformers yell and scream about the poor state of teaching in our public schools, and their greatest solution is to put the most inadequately trained, and inexperienced 22 year-olds in front of the students with the greatest needs.

The truth of course is TFA and their billionaire financiers are not here to save public schools, they're here to privatize them.  While it is somewhat understandable that idealistic young college students might believe joining Teach for America is a way to help, it is inexcusable that the administrators in charge of our Colleges of Education would share this naivete.

Teach for America's dysfunctional existence is enabled every time a politician hands them money, and even more so, when colleges of education accept some of that money in exchange for offering false credibility to TFA.

Here in Minnesota, Hamline University, a private liberal arts college, was the first to sellout to the neo-liberal reforms and work with TFA recruits.  Now the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities is looking to get in on the money. 

We are fortunate here in Minnesota to have a governor who does not subscribe to the neo-liberal agenda and who believes in public education.  He recently took the bold step of line-item vetoing a section of a bill that would have given state funding to TFA.  However, TFA is flush with cash from the federal government and wealthy foundations and they are asking the University of Minnesota to "partner" with them.

Jean Quam, the Dean of the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota appears ready to accept this "partnership" and all the funding that comes with it.  Recently, the college held a couple of meetings to discuss working with TFA.  Reports from PEJAM members who attended the meetings suggest that Dean Quam has made up her mind, and wants the College to accept the partnership with TFA.

Just as PEJAM helped in the grassroots effort to call on Governor Dayton to veto the TFA funding, we must now build the grassroots effort to call on the University of Minnesota to reject any support or relationship with TFA.

Here is our petition statement:
We call on the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities to NOT partner with Teach for America (TFA).  With greater focus on the teaching profession and greater calls for thoroughly trained teachers in every classroom, it is unconscionable to have one of Minnesota's premiere universities facilitating a short cut to the classroom.  TFA was originally said to be a stop-gap for schools and districts with chronic teacher shortages.  There is no teacher shortage in Minnesota, and TFA will never be a means to improve public education.  Minnesota deserves fully-trained and licensed teachers in every classroom, not band-aids. 

TFA recruits are inexperienced and most lack a commitment to classroom teaching as a career. Not only are these young TFA members unprepared to be effective teachers, 70% to 80% leave the classroom within the first three years, creating a revolving door of inexperienced teachers for children who need the best teachers.  TFA also infringes on students’ civil rights, and does not increase academic achievement. TFA places the most inexperienced recruits in front of students who have historically been the most underserved in schools - minority, poor, and special education students.  They mislead the public by conflating learning and academic success with a test score. While test scores may or may not be indicative of the achievement of any individual student at a given point in time; education is much more than a test score and test prep.

A University of Minnesota Partnership would only help Teach for America displace career educators. TFA destroys school and community cohesion by replacing experienced, career educators with inexperienced, ineffective recruits. TFA requires partnering districts to contractually guarantee teaching spots for its recruits, thus forcing cash strapped districts to layoff experienced, career educators.

The University's ultimate responsibility in training Pre-K - 12 educators is to the students those teachers will face each day.  To that end, we call on the University of Minnesota to reject any partnership with Teach for America and maintain its commitment to develop in-depth knowledge and teaching skills through its graduate-level program.


Please click on this link and sign our petition.  Teachers here in Minneapolis are telling Dean Quam they will not accept student teacher from the U of MN if that agree to work with TFA.  Please add any additional reasons the University of Minnesota should reject this relationship.


Posted by: Robert Panning-Miller