What kind of teacher would you want in your child’s classroom? One that has studied his or her subject and knows how to teach it. One that is certified and experienced. And if a first year teacher, this person has completed a practicum, classroom observations and supervised student teaching before taking over his or her own class.
Be wary of all the folks who talk about “great teachers” and "school reform". They can be code word for many other things. All of the programs Romer mentions put very inexperienced teachers in their own classrooms, almost always in schools with a lot of students living in poverty.
This is what Denver candidate for mayor, Chris Romer says about education from his website:
Great schools begin with great teachers in the classrooms and great principals who create a culture of success. Chris believes that we must reward our great teachers, help make our good teachers great and not shy away from holding everyone accountable – including parents and students. Chris will work to make sure students in Denver are taught by great teachers and schools in Denver are led by a great leader, empowered to make decisions for students and staff.
Recruit and retain the best professionals
Chris will work with education, civic and business leaders to attract and keep the best and brightest teachers in Denver classrooms. He will ensure that exceptional individuals are educating our children by partnering with teacher recruitment and training organizations like Denver Teaching Fellows, Denver Teacher Residency, and Teach For America. By supporting the expanded use of high-quality alternative licensure programs, Chris will cut red tape and place excellent teachers in our classrooms.
According to Romer, the great teachers are not the ones who majored in the subjects they are teaching, learned about education and teaching methods, and got certified to teach specific grades and subjects. They are teachers who will learn on the job, practicing on students who deserve better.
From the Denver Teaching Fellows website:
Fellows will participate in an accelerated alternate route to licensure program at Metropolitan State College of Denver, teaching full-time while completing licensure requirements. Licensure coursework is generally completed within 2 years. In order to begin licensure coursework, Fellows must successfully complete summer training that is specifically designed for Denver Teaching Fellows and is free of cost, before then completing additional academic licensure (also known as certification) requirements while teaching full-time. Upon successful completion of licensure coursework, Fellows are eligible to earn their 3-year Initial License from the Colorado Department of Education.
When I was teaching summer school in another state, I had a woman in a similar program in my classroom. She was in one of my classes for about twenty days that summer, helping out without preparing lessons or assessments or grades. She was taking classes in the afternoon. On her last day, she taught one class while being observed by one of her teachers. It was a game she made up with a variety of literary terms. It was cute but it didn’t ask much from the students and I thought it had too much material without context to be meaningful learning. I was certified to teach English, grades 5-12 and I had recently gotten an MA in applied linguistics for my ESL certification. Ironically, the state was giving me a hard time because they were questioning whether I had taken a course covering assessments (which I did, and they finally certified me by the end of the summer after submitting several course descriptions, syllabi, and a letter from the university).
Denver Teacher Residency pays a person who wants to teach to do a one year residency with a mentor teacher. From their website:
An Affordable Way into Teaching.
Joining Denver Teacher Residency is a big commitment. That’s why the program is equally committed to making your journey into teaching affordable and attainable. DTR offers a generous stipend during your residency year as well as full tuition reimbursement when you successfully complete the program.
• Stipend: During your residency year, receive a $10,000 stipend, disbursed in 10 monthly payments of $1,000.
• Degree Discount: You pay approximately $26,000 for the entire master’s degree (University of Denver has discounted typical tuition rates by 50% for DTR residents).
• Competitive Salary: As a full-time teacher of record in Denver Public Schools (DTR years 2-5) you earn a competitive salary as defined by ProComp, the district’s groundbreaking pay-for-results salary structure ($38,000-$41,000 starting salary with the potential to earn up to an additional $6,560 in bonuses for achieving student growth objectives, serving in a hard-to-staff position and/or a hard-to-serve school).
• Tuition Reimbursement: Receive full tuition reimbursement through key federal- and district-based sources including, but not limited to:
• Year 1 – AmeriCorps 900-hour service term ($2,363) and TEACH Grant ($4,000)
• Year 2 – English Language Acquisition Coursework ($3,080)
• Years 2-5 – ProComp payment for professional development ($4,000); DTR reimbursement of tuition costs not met through other means
• Health Care: You will have access to health-care benefits through the University of Denver’s Morgridge College of Education.
There are many qualified, certified teachers available who have already completed and paid for their education.
Teach for America is a program with an incredibly bad track record. It began as a program to provide educators to schools with teacher shortages. It puts recent college graduates in classrooms, in some cases replacing experienced teachers. Now it is getting massive taxpayer funding.
Teach for America:
• Recruits are not certified teachers.
• Students of TFA recruits perform significantly less well in reading and math than those of credentialed beginning teachers.
• Taxpayers fund a third of Teach for America’s operating costs. On average, a TFA amateur costs $70,000 more than a professional teacher over a two-year period.
Fifty percent leave after two years and more than 80 percent leave after three years.
From an article in the Washington Post:
"What's terrific about it is that it makes teaching sexy for a group of people for whom teaching would not ordinarily be sexy. And it attracts bright people," said Arthur Levine, former president of Teachers College at Columbia University.
But he said five weeks of training is not enough. Nor is it adequate, he said, to know the subject matter: Teachers also must know how to connect with children.
"For inner-city kids, it's a huge disadvantage to have a teacher who doesn't know how to teach," Levine said. And even if the teachers rapidly improve, they just as rapidly quit. Almost half of Teach for America instructors leave the profession after their two-year commitment, according to a 2008 Harvard study. Such turnover, Levine said, "ensures a continuous array of rookies."
Increasingly, however, critics say, the program’s good intentions are overpowered by its problems. According to some TFA alums, the organization often seems less like a “shining example” and more like a way for school districts to replace experienced, more expensive teachers with people who will work for far less, most of whom end up leaving after their two-year commitment is up. Some, like Baideme, don't even make it through their first year. http://www.campusprogress.org/...
Romer also touts his experience as superintendent of a charter school for students learning English. I don’t know where they get their teacher’s from but their posted test scores (which he considers important) are far below those of the Denver public schools.
Throughout the country experienced teachers are getting laid off and replaced with untrained educators like TFA teachers with a two year commitment. Romer is really talking about creating a less experienced, less secure, and less expensive (for the district) public teaching force for other people’s children.
(Rethinking Schools has a very thorough article about TFA "Looking Past the Spin:Teach for America")