January 6, 2010

 

The Columbus Dispatch editorial

 

Those who care about public education should know by now that long-established methods haven’t been serving poor urban or rural students for a long time. More and more effort and money have been poured into traditional approaches but yielded only modest improvement in student achievement.

 

Significant improvement is going to require, in many cases, dramatic change.

 

That alone should be reason enough to welcome Teach for America to Ohio, by making it easier for members to be certified to teach in Ohio schools. The program, founded in 1989, recruits top graduates from America’s best universities to make a commitment to teach for two years in the nation’s neediest schools.

 

But good intentions and talented recruits are by no means all that TFA has to offer. The program has a track record of success in helping struggling students catch up. It has been the backbone of most Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) charter schools, which have produced excellent results with some of the nation’s most disadvantaged students.

 

The Ohio Senate should keep this in mind and pass Senate Bill 180, which, among other reforms, would ease some of the obstacles to obtaining teacher certification for TFA teachers.

KIPP Journey Academy, Columbus’ KIPP school, has turned to Teach for America members to help improve over its disappointing first year. Some observers attributed the Columbus school’s atypically poor performance on standardized tests last year to the fact that the school in its first year didn’t follow the standard KIPP model closely enough, including the fact that it had no TFA-trained teachers.

 

This year, KIPP Journey is staffed with TFA members putting in the 15-hour days typical of KIPP teachers, but officially they’re only long-term substitutes, because Ohio law doesn’t allow them to be licensed as teachers without completing the education-methods courses required as part of the standard path to teaching.

 

Teachers unions have fought allowing anyone to teach without standard training.

 

Of course those allowed to teach Ohio’s children full-time should be subject to standards; the question is whether traditional teacher preparation is the only way. The passion and intelligence of Teach for America graduates — they’re at the top of their classes, and many postpone lucrative private-sector careers to try to make a difference as teachers — have worked wonders in school districts where they’ve been hired.

 

The program uses data on individual student performance to judge the effectiveness of each teacher. That should make a decision about welcoming TFA teachers easier for Ohio policymakers: They’d be considering not an untried new idea, but a proven program.

 

Adhering rigidly to traditional teacher-preparation programs cuts off one of the most important avenues of innovation in schools where innovation is desperately needed.

 

Lawmakers needn’t and shouldn’t let just anyone teach in Ohio’s classrooms. Teach For America graduates aren’t just anyone. They’re part of an established program that has been a boon to schools that have used it. Ohio schools should have the same opportunity.