In a recent article published in the New York Post, Michelle Malkin takes aim at Teach For America (TFA).
The organization was founded in 1990 by Wendy Kopp and has produced more than 42,000 teachers in the last 25 years geared toward addressing educational inequality. It’s considered an alternate “nontraditional” education certification program.
The major argument against TFA: the amount of effort staff and alumni put into addressing that inequality.
For Malkin, actions taken by teachers to address systemic injustice that jeopardizes the lives of young people across the country is on the level of militantism.
?TFA’s most infamous public faces don’t even pretend to be interested in students? academic achievement.?
She chooses to ignore the body of evidence from recent studies instead, stating that TFA?s, ?record on producing benefits for students is mixed.?
However,?Conor Williams found that,
Some studies suggest that TFA teachers are more effective than those from other alt cert programs. Other studies suggest that TFA teachers perform better than new teachers from traditional training programs. Still others suggest that TFA teachers perform better than most other teachers, ?regardless of teacher certification route and years of teaching experience.?
So, to some degree, Malkin seems to be correct. Results seem to be mixed between good, better, and best.
By addressing social justice issues TFA Corps members, alumni and staff?are proving Malkin correct, in a way. They aren’t ?pretending? to care they are working to confound issues of educational inequality in America.
Malkin further claimed that TFA Corps Members were
?…bent on occupying themselves with anything other than imparting knowledge and academic excellence to children in the classroom.?
Yet, a recent report by Education Week found that roughly 61% of TFA teachers taught in K-12 schools longer than their two-year commitment and a substantial percentage– 42 percent– remained in their initial low-income, high-need placement school beyond their two-year obligation.
However, ignorance of reality in favor of far right-wing propaganda seems to be part and parcel to her agenda driven journalism.
