Problems, Politics, and Possibilities: Imagining a Teach for America that really is for America
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14288/ce.v4i13.183937Keywords:
Critical Pedagogy, Democracy, Teach for America, Cultural Capital, Achievement Ideology, Achievement Gap, InequalityAbstract
Teach for America (TFA) charges its recruits with an important mission: ensure that children in low-income communities receive an excellent education. Underlying this charge is the assumption that educational inequity is a problem that can be solved by putting the right teacher in every classroom. A former TFA corps member and an education professor combine memoir and theory to argue that TFA starts the wrong conversation about inequality and demeans traditional teachers in the process. We identify problematic aspects of TFA’s “savior model” by analyzing some of the organization’s practices and values. We also describe how TFA is rooted in neoliberal ideology and supported (both financially and politically) by the corporate education reform movement. Together, these initiatives hide the complex causes of inequality and contribute little to its resolution. We propose changes, recommending TFA better prepare corps members, cooperatively partner with existing teachers, and increase resources for schools.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with Critical Education agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).