marked improvement over the fourteen full-time teacher vacancies the year before.
There are excellent, experienced teachers at Locke. There just arenât enough of them, and there never have been. Seasoned teachers in general have always tended to gravitate to advantaged areas where working conditions are more favorable. And lousy teachers, not wanted at high-performing schools but protected by tenure, have too often ended up at low-income schools. School districts have been complicit. Unwilling or unable to expend the considerable time and resources required to fire a tenured teacher protected by a powerful union, they have allowed subpar teachers to shuffle from post to post in a practice known within LAUSD as the âdance of the lemons.â Union laws have bound principals to accept any tenured transfer seeking an open position, regardless of past performance. The result: low-income schools became repositories for bad teachers. (In 2006, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger pushed through a law that permits principals to reject transfers of underperforming teachers.)
Even without the new law, poor-performing schools have little control over the quality of the staff, because beggars canât be choosers. Without a large pool of applicants seeking tough inner-city posts, principals have had no choice but to take less experiencedâand often less effectiveâteachers.
Ironically, TFA represents both the problem and the solution to one of the thorniest issues facing Locke. On the one hand, in 2005 TFA had become the schoolâs primary hiring source, supplying nearly 20 percent of the teachers on staff. On the other hand, by the end of that year, nearly a dozen TFAers at Locke had resigned. Two never completed the first year of teaching; eight others left after fulfilling their two-year commitments. In one fell swoop, some of the schoolâs most capable educators were gone. TFA fans and foes alike acknowledged the loss.
Dr. Wells felt betrayed. âTFA teachers are leaving in large numbers,â he said bitterly. âThe other teachers are always telling me to forget TFA; they are not committed to the community. I used to brush it aside as jealousy. But you invest in them, get them to a level of skill, and then they leave. I have to look for stability at the school. Last year I hired all TFAers for my vacancies. This year, Iâm going to be looking for a significant number of non-TFA teachers.â
Things didnât work out that way. Wells ended up gobbling up as many TFA teachers as he could at the Teach For America hiring fairs over the spring and summer. Reason trumped anger. He found the quality of the thirteen new TFA candidates he hired to teach in 2006 much higher than that of those from other, more traditional credentialing programs, and he thought the passion they displayed for the mission could not be faked.
Wells began to rethink his take on TFA. He started to see it as the educational equivalent of the U.S. Army. Enlistment in the military was for a finite period, he reasoned, but that didnât mean the countryâs highly trained volunteer army wasnât successful in battle. Quite the contrary. The United States boasted the finest fighting force in the world. TFAers were like soldiers: carefully selected volunteers who were well trained and, for the most part, highly effectiveâoften more effective than the lifers. Wells decided he could live with the fact that he got them for only two years, as long as he knew there would be another crop of highly skilled, bushy-tailed recruits to replace them.
âTeach For America has literally saved this school,â he said, acknowledging that recruits were among Lockeâs best teachers. âIf it were not for TFA, Locke would be a school the state would refuse to take over, and be nationally recognized as the epitome of why public education doesnât work. TFA teachers fill the holes and offer kids the kind of
There are excellent, experienced teachers at Locke. There just arenât enough of them, and there never have been. Seasoned teachers in general have always tended to gravitate to advantaged areas where working conditions are more favorable. And lousy teachers, not wanted at high-performing schools but protected by tenure, have too often ended up at low-income schools. School districts have been complicit. Unwilling or unable to expend the considerable time and resources required to fire a tenured teacher protected by a powerful union, they have allowed subpar teachers to shuffle from post to post in a practice known within LAUSD as the âdance of the lemons.â Union laws have bound principals to accept any tenured transfer seeking an open position, regardless of past performance. The result: low-income schools became repositories for bad teachers. (In 2006, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger pushed through a law that permits principals to reject transfers of underperforming teachers.)
Even without the new law, poor-performing schools have little control over the quality of the staff, because beggars canât be choosers. Without a large pool of applicants seeking tough inner-city posts, principals have had no choice but to take less experiencedâand often less effectiveâteachers.
Ironically, TFA represents both the problem and the solution to one of the thorniest issues facing Locke. On the one hand, in 2005 TFA had become the schoolâs primary hiring source, supplying nearly 20 percent of the teachers on staff. On the other hand, by the end of that year, nearly a dozen TFAers at Locke had resigned. Two never completed the first year of teaching; eight others left after fulfilling their two-year commitments. In one fell swoop, some of the schoolâs most capable educators were gone. TFA fans and foes alike acknowledged the loss.
Dr. Wells felt betrayed. âTFA teachers are leaving in large numbers,â he said bitterly. âThe other teachers are always telling me to forget TFA; they are not committed to the community. I used to brush it aside as jealousy. But you invest in them, get them to a level of skill, and then they leave. I have to look for stability at the school. Last year I hired all TFAers for my vacancies. This year, Iâm going to be looking for a significant number of non-TFA teachers.â
Things didnât work out that way. Wells ended up gobbling up as many TFA teachers as he could at the Teach For America hiring fairs over the spring and summer. Reason trumped anger. He found the quality of the thirteen new TFA candidates he hired to teach in 2006 much higher than that of those from other, more traditional credentialing programs, and he thought the passion they displayed for the mission could not be faked.
Wells began to rethink his take on TFA. He started to see it as the educational equivalent of the U.S. Army. Enlistment in the military was for a finite period, he reasoned, but that didnât mean the countryâs highly trained volunteer army wasnât successful in battle. Quite the contrary. The United States boasted the finest fighting force in the world. TFAers were like soldiers: carefully selected volunteers who were well trained and, for the most part, highly effectiveâoften more effective than the lifers. Wells decided he could live with the fact that he got them for only two years, as long as he knew there would be another crop of highly skilled, bushy-tailed recruits to replace them.
âTeach For America has literally saved this school,â he said, acknowledging that recruits were among Lockeâs best teachers. âIf it were not for TFA, Locke would be a school the state would refuse to take over, and be nationally recognized as the epitome of why public education doesnât work. TFA teachers fill the holes and offer kids the kind of
Similar Books
