Teach For America: More Canary than Coal Mine

From its earliest days, Teach For America has been in a constant process of reinvention. The summer training institute has been revamped multiple times. The recruitment strategy has shifted over time. Now, as they’re working on reforming their model yet again, the organization has attracted some extra media attention. But, as I note in a new Daily Beast column today,

[Recent articles on TFA] present [alternative certification] in general—and TFA in particular—as a problem, as a project that urgently needs fixing. Read them, and you’re called to consider whether alt cert programs are worth having, and to wonder whether they can be saved. Admittedly, the quality of alt cert programs varies quite a bit. But it seems to me that these articles miss an opportunity to put these programs—TFA in particular—in the proper context.

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