[Ohiogift] Fwd: News from the NEPC: Report Examines Teach For America

Tue Jan 7 08:50:36 EST 2014

Here's a report on the Teach for America program and its value. What with
the talk by the Ohio politicians about TFA, this might be a valuable
resource for talking points.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: National Education Policy Center <nepcnews at colorado.edu>
Date: Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 8:02 AM
Subject: News from the NEPC: Report Examines Teach For America
To: jpiirto at ashland.edu

*Research and analysis to inform education policy and promote democratic
deliberation*
  Is this email not displaying correctly?
View it in your
browser<http://us4.campaign-archive2.com/?u=b4ad2ece093459cbf2afb759f&id=085f3870f9&e=739eee7dc3>.

      <http://colorado.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b4ad2ece093459cbf2afb759f&id=36d0030d33&e=739eee7dc3>
Report Examines Teach For America *Scholars conclude the program has some
strengths, but smart policy should focus on reforms that create stability
and with stronger track records for improving student achievement*
Contact:  William J. Mathis, (802) 383-0058, wmathis at sover.net Julian
Vasquez Heilig, (512) 471-7551, jvh at austin.utexas.edu

URL for this press release:
*http://tinyurl.com/k745er7*<http://colorado.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b4ad2ece093459cbf2afb759f&id=3b2d4c6977&e=739eee7dc3>

BOULDER, CO (January 7, 2014) -- Teach For America (TFA) is almost a
quarter-century old. Since its launch, the program has experienced
phenomenal growth, both in the numbers of participants and in the financial
support it has received, and it has enjoyed extensive favorable publicity.

*Teach For America: A Return to the Evidence*, a report authored by
professors Julian Vasquez Heilig of the University of Texas and Su Jin Jez
of California State University, Sacramento for the National Education
Policy Center, challenges the simplistic but widespread belief that TFA is
a clear-cut success story. In fact, Heilig and Jez find that the best
evidence shows TFA participants as a group are not meaningfully or
consistently improving educational outcomes for the children they have
taught.

Teach For America recruits college graduates, typically from elite
universities, to serve in short-term (two-year) positions teaching in
low-income communities. According to Heilig and Jez, the program is a mixed
bag, with some benefits and some harms. But, they conclude, it is hugely
oversold and it risks being a distraction from alternative strategies for
which research evidence provides much stronger support for improving
teaching and educational outcomes, especially for children living in
poverty.

Teach For America and other organizations have produced studies asserting
benefits provided by TFA teachers. Those studies, however, have only rarely
undergone peer review – the standard benchmark for quality research, Heilig
and Jez observe. In contrast, the available peer reviewed research has
produced a decidedly mixed picture. For example, the results attributed to
TFA teachers varies both by their experience and certification level. The
results also fluctuate depending on the types of teachers to whom the TFA
teachers are compared; TFA teachers look relatively good when compared to
other inexperienced, poorly trained teachers, but the results are more
problematic when they are compared to fully prepared and experienced
teachers, Heilig and Jez report.

Because of these differences, the question most frequently asked—*Are TFA
teachers “as good as” teachers who enter the profession through other
routes?*—is not the question we should be asking, Heilig and Jez contend.
Whether one or the other group is better is “a question that cannot be
answered unless we first identify which TFA and non-TFA teachers we’re
asking about,” they write.

Even more important, “The lack of a statistically and practically
significant impact should indicate to policymakers that TFA is likely not
providing a meaningful reduction in disparities in educational outcomes,
notwithstanding its explosive growth and popularity in the media,”
according to Heilig and Jez. Moreover, despite its rapid growth, TFA
remains a tiny fraction of the nation’s teaching corps; for every TFA
teacher, there are 50,000 other teachers in the U.S., Heilig and Jez note,
and the small numbers and small impact of TFA point to a needed “shift in
thinking.”

“We should be trying to dramatically improve the quality of teaching,”
write Heilig and Jez. “It is time to shift our focus from a program of
mixed impact that, even if the benefits actually matched the rhetoric,
would not move the needle on America’s educational quality due to the fact
that only 0.002% of all teachers in the United States are Teach For America
placements.”

The authors conclude with a series of recommendations. For example, they
urge policymakers and school districts to invest in evidence-based
educational reforms and to undertake a detailed understanding of “the
peer-reviewed research literature on the impact of new, promising
innovations.”

Heilig and Jez also offer recommendations specific to TFA. They urge
districts to support TFA staffing “only when the alternative hiring pool
consists of uncertified and emergency teachers or substitutes”; to require
contractual, five-year commitments from TFA teachers, which would improve
student test-score achievement and reduce teacher turnover; to require TFA
teachers – indeed, all teachers – to obtain additional training “based on
well-supported best practices for in-service teacher professional
development”; and to better understand TFA’s fiscal impact by comparing
data such as finder fees, placement, and attrition rates for TFA teachers,
as well as the program’s various costs, by communities.

           Friend on
Facebook<http://colorado.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b4ad2ece093459cbf2afb759f&id=b659bcbfe7&e=739eee7dc3>
    Follow on Twitter<http://colorado.us4.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b4ad2ece093459cbf2afb759f&id=30d795c92b&e=739eee7dc3>
    Forward to a
Friend<?subject=New%20NEPC%20Report&body=I%20just%20saw%20a%20new%20report%20from%20the%20National%20Education%20Policy%20Center%20that%20might%20interest%20you.%20Check%20out%20http%3A%2F%2Fnepc.colorado.edu.>

<http://colorado.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b4ad2ece093459cbf2afb759f&id=10daf17048&e=739eee7dc3>
*Find the report *Teach for America: A Return to the Evidence,

* by Julian Vasquez Heilig and Su Jin Jez, on the web at:
http://nepc.colorado.edu/ publication/teach-for- america-return
<http://colorado.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b4ad2ece093459cbf2afb759f&id=aedcff2687&e=739eee7dc3>.
The mission of the National Education Policy Center is to produce and
disseminate high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy
discussions. We are guided by the belief that the democratic governance of
public education is strengthened when policies are based on sound
evidence.  For more information on NEPC, please visit
http://nepc.colorado.edu/
<http://colorado.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b4ad2ece093459cbf2afb759f&id=4f847db018&e=739eee7dc3>.
 This policy brief was made possible in part by the support of the Great
Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice (greatlakescenter.org
<http://colorado.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b4ad2ece093459cbf2afb759f&id=c06e02b8ce&e=739eee7dc3>).*

*If you are not already subscribed to this newsletter and would like to
receive it regularly, click*
http://nepc.colorado.edu/<http://colorado.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b4ad2ece093459cbf2afb759f&id=48b61ee66d&e=739eee7dc3>

*and then click the button in the upper right-hand corner that looks like
this: *
           ------------------------------

*The National Education Policy Center (NEPC) is housed at the University of
Colorado Boulder School of Education. Its mission is to produce and
disseminate high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy
discussions. We are guided by the belief that the democratic governance of
public education is strengthened when policies are based on sound
evidence.  For more information about the NEPC, please
visit http://nepc.colorado.edu/
<http://colorado.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b4ad2ece093459cbf2afb759f&id=4911f18b66&e=739eee7dc3>.*
------------------------------

   *Copyright © 2014 National Education Policy Center, All rights reserved.*
You're receiving this email because you have opted in at our website or
sent a personal request to be included. Thank you.
*Our mailing address is:*
National Education Policy Center
School of Education, 249 UCB
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309-0249

Add us to your address
book<http://colorado.us4.list-manage.com/vcard?u=b4ad2ece093459cbf2afb759f&id=8f4569c5a0>
      unsubscribe from this
list<http://colorado.us4.list-manage2.com/unsubscribe?u=b4ad2ece093459cbf2afb759f&id=8f4569c5a0&e=739eee7dc3&c=085f3870f9>
 | update subscription
preferences<http://colorado.us4.list-manage1.com/profile?u=b4ad2ece093459cbf2afb759f&id=8f4569c5a0&e=739eee7dc3>

*For all other communication with NEPC, write to nepc at colorado.edu
<nepc at colorado.edu>.*

-- 
Jane Piirto, Ph.D.
Trustees' Distinguished Professor
Director of Talent Development Education
247 Dwight Schar College of Education
Ashland University
Ashland, OH 44805
Office phone: 419-289-5379
Web site: www.ashland.edu/~jpiirto
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osu.edu/pipermail/ohiogift/attachments/20140107/8585ce81/attachment.html>