Despite what you may have read, Teach for America (TFA) is the most innovative, successful, and enviable example of social entrepreneurship in a generation. We should continue to scale up its operations and support similar programs that encourage young people to go into teaching.
About 10 years ago it became clear that our current pool of teachers were aging and we were not attracting talented young people into the teaching profession. It also became clear that there were too many bad teachers out there, and that the current bureacratic structure made it difficult to retrain or fire some of our weaker teachers...or to reward some of our better teachers. Because lets face it: a significant percentage of teachers suck at teaching! If you can't admit that, then you don't have children in school. I went to a top flight public school (we sent 15% of my graduating class to ivy/elite colleges), and half of MY teachers SUCKED. They were either dumb, lazy, or generally incompetent. There are many reasons for this (the #1 reason is low pay), but it is also clear that the system for training, recruiting, and retaining teachers is broken.
TFA is a model for restocking that pool of teachers with energetic and talented young people, chosen through a HIGHLY competitive application process. Yes, it's true that TFA's teachers are rough around the edges and are learning on the job, but they make up for that with their enthusiasm, intelligence, and flexibility to apply innovative approaches in the classroom.
The most important thing that TFA has done is encourage young people to pursue their teaching careers in distressed communities as a way to serve their country. It's "cool" to go into education again, and it's even "cooler" to teach at a struggling school in a disinvested community.
I have countless friends who were corps members at TFA, and almost all of them chose to continue teaching in economically challenged communities after their stint with TFA completed. All now have advanced masters degrees in education. They're going to be AMAZING teachers for the rest of their lives, and that's thanks to TFA. Without TFA, many of them wouldn't have pursued careers in education. TFA convinced them to commit their lives to children.
I don't know what else to say. I can't believe anyone would attack TFA or actually imply that TFA is part of the problem with our education system. Tens of thousands of young people chose to become teachers because of this organization. These young people REALLY CARE, and they're uniquely attuned to the problems in our most challenged school districts. We should be creating MORE programs like TFA, not less. I can't believe I'm writing these words. I feel like I should add in some other facts about how "1+1=2" and "the sky is blue".
UPDATE: The Urban Institute, Mathmatica Policy Research, Inc, and an internal TFA study provide some great information about how TFA improves educational outcomes.
UPDATE #2: Great comment by Wisper:
TFA recruited Michelle Rhee who taught in Baltimore and then founded her own organization called "New Teacher Project" and is now the very first person ever in my entire life that has taken the helm of the Washinton, DC School System with the dedicated mission of actually improving the education of children.
The woman is a warpath ninja of efficiency and the sworn kryptonite-style enemy of bureaucratic bullshit. I half suspect that if the Corrupt DC Council makes one more attempt to pass some overblown "let us get our greedy little hands back on the Schools" bill she will openly shank once of the Council members right in the hearing room just to make a statement.
If TFA produced Ms. Rhee, then I'm on board with TFA.