Just as one example, one of my favorite credential professors, one of two or three whose classes I found truly useful, seemed a bit lost the night one of my classmates showed up with a brand new black eye after a nonsensical brawl that day at her school. His initial response was something like “Such a shame…now on to our required reading” until several of us insisted “Whoa, whoa…can we go back to Ms. Day-from-Hell’s shiner, and give her some time to process that experience here, and discuss how we might avoid black eyes of our own?”

He was polite, as always, and patient with such a pesky and unexpected detour from the evening’s agenda, but his response was disappointing: “Well, when Oakland is ultimately restructured, the charter schools will eliminate these kinds of problems.”

(((say WHAT?)))

As for TFA, the flaw that may lead to its eventual undoing, court ruling or no court ruling, is that most of its participants have one foot out the door from the moment they arrive in the classroom. Sure, they’re brilliant, idealistic, and energetic, but one thing few of them are motivated to do is hang in for the long term.

And it’s hardly fair to blame them personally, because Teach for America sells its program as a two-year “Peace Corps” kind of a gig on the way to something else. TFA even has employer partnerships with such corporations as J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, General Electric, and Google that guarantee priority hiring status to TFA inductees once they’ve satisfied their two-year commitment. (See http://www.teachforamerica.org/after-the-corps/employer-partnerships/ )

This wasn’t as widely recognized five or seven years ago as it is now. Back then, at least at Oakland High, TFA interns experienced no lack of, um, hands-on administrative attention.

Since then, however, the OUSD has seen a parade of them come and go. If busy administrators and department heads are no longer rushing to invest a lot of time and energy in mentoring their TFA teachers, it’s likely because they know that their TFA teachers won’t be around for very long.

The court was applying a pro forma definition and “had” to rule they were not qualified, but in the real world, those teachers are some of the most motivated in the world (teach the toughest classes for the lowest pay without any real guidance?!) and just as good as the graduates of ed. schools, who simply do not prepare their charges for what they must face (I know, because I’ve since guided student teachers from Cal, Mills, CSUEB, and JFK). In teaching you learn by “doing” and “seeing.”

As for the criticism that the TFA does not prepare students for the next level, shouldn’t that be a shared responsibility with the department head and the administrator? At my school in Oakland they were MIA. Good schools provide structure for young teachers to become successful. Bad schools do not.

But teaching school full time while going to college full time left me absolutely exhausted for much of that year. Most of my credential classmates were TFA members, and it was disturbing to hear some of them discuss their plans to “keep the kids quiet” in class so they would have time during the school day to complete their own college assignments. (Let me hasten to say that NONE of these people were placed at Oakland High. The other English interns I’ve known there have been extremely dedicated and would never have behaved so reprehensibly.)

I went the opposite route and wound up re-taking a couple of my credential courses the following year. My professors were sometimes wonderful, sometimes less than, when I would say, “Look, I can turn this assignment in a week late, and it shouldn’t make that much difference. But my students will have one freshman or junior English teacher in their lives, and that’s me, so they come first.”

But even with those priorities very clear, there were a few mornings when I slept through the alarm clock. More often, there were evenings when I made the mistake of sitting on the couch after school and sleeping through my evening courses, or when I simply opted not to go because it was more important that I read student essays or make crucial parent calls which, as we all know, can turn into valuable half-hour conversations when we’d planned on only five minutes.

I don’t regret the internship, but looking back, I don’t think it’s the wisest path toward certification, so I’m glad to see the option going away. My understanding, though, is that Oakland only hires interns now for math, science, and special ed positions where the pool of credentialed applicants is not sufficient to fill all the vacancies. I wish those young people well and do hope they stay in Oakland! To my knowledge, all of my TFA classmates are long gone from the OUSD, and that’s another concern. While a revolving supply of bottom-salary-rung teachers may save the district money, I question whether such frequent turnover has best served the children attending our schools.

I was referring to the TFA teachers in general, over the last 10+ years. The Oakland High social studies dept has never had a TFA teacher.

And my main point was to express skepticism re: the court’s blanket finding that TFA teachers cannot be “highly qualfied,” but that every credentialed teacher IS “highly qualified.” I imagine that the law is written in such a way that the court’s decision was unavoidable, but that means that the law should be changed.

PS: It is true that there is no substitute for experience, but there is also no substitute for smarts, which are (is?) necessary to learn from experience. TFA teachers tend to be pretty darn smart.

PPS: None of this should be taken as an argument that TFA is the way to go; I personally think the way to go is to require a credential, but to make credential programs far, far more rigorous than they are now. (Now, there’s a story for Katy). But to say that all are not “highly qualified” but that all credentialed teachers are, is clearly inaccurate.

That may be true in your opinion in Social Science at Oakland High, but NOT in the Math Department. We are still dealing with the gaps in kids knowledge who had test driven new who teachers skipped whole chapters to teach only EXACTLY what’s on the CST (because it would make the teacher look good)

So the credentialed/veteran teachers are left making up the difference in the next course. There are topics necessary for future courses that are NOT emphasized on the CST. These new teachers don’t understand that because they are focused on the one course they have ever taught.

One year most of a certain TFA’s students had to drop out of pre-calculus the following year because they were not prepared, even though they got A’s and B’s in his class. But the district LOVED this guy because of benchmark scores. (name starts with a Z).

New, young, and energetic (and let’s not forget cheaper to hire) does necessarily not mean better …
Teaching is a profession and an art .. not something you can pick up overnight.

That number will be VERY large, as it includes nearly ALL first, second and third year teachers, not just the TFA/OTF kids.

But that’s how the decision seems to read.