IT SOUNDS as uncontroversial as apple pie. Teach for America (TFA), a not-for-profit organisation founded in 1990, places young “corps members” at schools in poor areas to teach for two years. Recruits work in 35 states, most come fresh from college, and they learn mainly on the job. Fair enough; but TFA has many critics, particularly among teachers who have spent years becoming qualified and whose jobs are now contested.
Minnesota’s Board of Teaching caused a furore this summer when it refused to give a band of TFA members group permission to teach in the state. It had done so every year since the organisation first arrived there, in 2009. The state assessed 35 applicants individually instead–eventually granting licences to all of them.
Ryan Vernoush, a board member and a former Minnesota teacher of the year, believes placing inexperienced young people in front of “marginalised students” only serves “to perpetuate the status quo of inequity”. Elisa Villanueva Beard, the co-chief executive officer of TFA, counters that her organisation is just “one source” of teachers among others. She wants principals to have a choice when looking for employees.