Teach For America Enhances Student Achievement

To the editors:



I read with interest Henry Seton’s thoughtful column “Conditional Love: Why Teach For America Ain’t Enough” (Dec. 15), which focused on, among other things, his belief that Teach For America corps members do not receive adequate training and thereby under-serve the students they are trying to help.

We appreciate and encourage this kind of real dialogue about the different paths to enter the teaching profession. In that spirit, I’d like to clarify a couple of points Seton raised.

First, the most rigorous study of Teach For America to date indicates that Teach For America teachers have a positive impact on student achievement. Mathematica Policy Research compared the academic gains of students taught by Teach For America corps members with the gains of similar students taught by non-Teach For America teachers in the same schools. It found that corps members’ classes made 10 percent more progress in one year in math than is typically expected and slightly exceeded the normal expectation for progress in reading. In addition, the students of Teach For America corps members achieved greater gains overall than did the students of other teachers—novice or veteran, certified or uncertified—in the same schools.

Second, Teach For America corps members receive training and support that is generally more intensive than that of the district-run teaching fellows programs Seton references. These programs were created by a spin-off organization of Teach For America and are modeled on our program.

If we are to close the achievement gap that persists in low-income communities, it is imperative that we continue this kind of rigorous debate about how best to train and support teachers in those communities. For 15 years, we have been engaged in an intense learning curve about what differentiates the most successful teachers in under-resourced environments, and we have put this learning to use in selecting, training, and supporting our corps members.

We are confident that while we can and must do more, our program is among the most substantial, and our corps members are demonstrating success in ensuring academic gains for their students.



ABIGAIL SMITH

Washington, D.C.

December 19, 2005



The writer is vice president for research and public policy at Teach For America.