Follow the Yellow Brick Road: Teach For America and the Making of Educational Leaders

Trujillo, Tina; Scott, Janelle; Rivera, Marialena

doi:10.1086/691232

Cited by 25 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…TFA alumni and other synchronous-service teachers are increasingly becoming educational leaders and policy makers (cf. Trujillo et al, 2017), and TFA is quite proud of alumni accomplishments. Indeed, this is part of its theory of change: give "the best and brightest" citizens some teaching experience so they can effect change at the highest levels of education policy (Clement, 2018;Maier, 2012), and subvert long-standing structures and institutions (Baxendale, 2020).…”

Section: Synchronous-service Teachers In Teacher Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching Synchronous-Service Teachers: Traditional Teacher Education at a Crossroads

Thomas

Lefebvre

2020

Teachers College Record

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Background/Context Teachers enrolled in alternative training and licensure programs may have experiences that lie outside what is considered typical for both preservice teachers and in-service teachers. This article explores the experiences of a growing cadre of “synchronous-service teachers”—including, but not limited to, Teach For America (TFA) corps members— who are teaching full time while also completing coursework in teacher preparation programs. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of the Study This study considers how synchronous-service teachers perceived the education and training they received while enrolled in traditional teacher education coursework, as well as how they interpreted their broader interactions with the teaching profession and teacher education writ large. Research Setting and Participants This research was conducted in the Midwestern United States in a major metropolitan area with a TFA regional presence. Thirty-six corps members who completed coursework at a traditional teacher education institution opted to participate in this study. They were primarily White and female, and most entered TFA immediately following completion of their undergraduate degrees. The majority had little previous exposure to the education discipline. Research Design The thirty-six corps members were interviewed about their experiences while participating in TFA, teaching at their schools, and, especially pertinent to this article, learning at a partner university where TFA corps members in the region completed teacher education coursework. Findings/Results The findings suggest that corps members held primarily negative views about the teacher education coursework they experienced. They complained that the teacher education programming failed to provide immediately applicable insights and lacked rigor and relevance. Yet they also maintained paradoxical expectations about what teacher education, particularly for synchronous-service teachers, should or should not entail. Conclusions/Recommendations The article concludes by suggesting the potential utility of synchronous-service teachers as a conceptual category, noting that these teachers should be considered distinct from others. As such, providing synchronous-service teachers with teacher education programming designed for either preservice or in-service teachers may lead to missed opportunities in terms of professional learning and exacerbate negative sentiments about teacher education. The experiences and opinions of synchronous-service teachers can have considerable significance, particularly when these teachers go on to affect education leadership and policy. In sum, teacher education institutions are at a critical crossroads concerning how and whether to proceed with similar partnerships, especially as alternative recruitment and training programs continue to grow in the United States and beyond.

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Section: Synchronous-service Teachers In Teacher Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching Synchronous-Service Teachers: Traditional Teacher Education at a Crossroads

Thomas

Lefebvre

2020

Teachers College Record

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“…housed mainly in the teacher preparation institutions, professional associations, and state agencies that have shaped the existing regime" (Hess, 2005, p. 193). Although they could legitimately view themselves as outsiders two decades ago, EEPN members have become institutional insiders and currently occupy leadership positions in the public, nonprofit, and private sectors where they wield considerable influence over educational policymaking (Denvir, 2014;Easton, 2014;Jacobsen et al, 2016;Mead et al, 2015;Ravitch, 2013;Trujillo et al, 2017). "Entrepreneurial," "innovative," and "reform-oriented" nonprofit organizations form the EEPN's operational core.…”

Section: The Entrepreneurial Education Policy Networkmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Meritocratic Mystique and Mathematical Mediocrity in Hard-to-Staff Schools: A Critique of the Best and Brightest Teacher Agenda

Brantlinger

2019

Urban Education

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This article presents a critique of a teacher quality agenda promoted by a network of elitiste organizations in the United States. Network leaders posit that gaps in teacher quality cause achievement gaps. Their solution is to incentivize the graduates of the nation’s most selective colleges to teach in hard-to-staff schools. Summarizing prior results from secondary mathematics, this article argues that selective college graduates do not make particularly effective teachers and, given their high rates of attrition, do more harm than good. It concludes with the recommendation to invest instead in the development of community teachers to teach core subjects like mathematics.

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“…While that teacher shortage helped facilitate TFA’s initial spread in the 1990s, the organization continued to grow in both the size of its corps and its larger policy influence even after the teacher shortage dissipated (Goldstein, 2015; Labaree, 2010). While recruitment numbers to TFA have dropped off in recent years, TFA alumni continue to hold prominent policy positions and hold an outsized policy influence (Trujillo, Scott, & Rivera, 2017).…”

Section: Historical Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching for America Across Two Hemispheres: Comparing the Ideological Appeal of the Teach for All Teacher Education Model in the United States and Brazil

Straubhaar

2019

Journal of Teacher Education

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The last several decades have seen significant growth among private options in alternative teacher education and certification. In this article, I draw on two parallel ethnographic studies of the experiences of participants in variants of one particular alternative teacher education model, developed by Teach For America in the United States and spread internationally by Teach For All. Through analysis of interviews with recruits from Teach For America and its Brazilian sister organization Ensina!, I explore the thinking processes that leads young people to join these organizations, as well as how that thinking changes after 2 years of teaching in the classroom. I find that while participants in these studies joined because they admired the Teach For All teacher education model, many left their 2-year commitment questioning the underlying theories of change driving it.

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Follow the Yellow Brick Road: Teach For America and the Making of Educational Leaders

Cited by 25 publications

References 11 publications

Teaching Synchronous-Service Teachers: Traditional Teacher Education at a Crossroads

Teaching Synchronous-Service Teachers: Traditional Teacher Education at a Crossroads

The Meritocratic Mystique and Mathematical Mediocrity in Hard-to-Staff Schools: A Critique of the Best and Brightest Teacher Agenda

Teaching for America Across Two Hemispheres: Comparing the Ideological Appeal of the Teach for All Teacher Education Model in the United States and Brazil

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