9 IU -W -W TFA Detroit: the $3,000 gamble /ft (b iv !f , A7; A two-year crash course By Caitlin Huston quality and that's going to outweigh everything," -° , x cl d t rW Patterson said. In Detroit, Teach for America corps members have a chance to make an impact on one of the country's most disadvantaged school districts. The school district is in such finan- cial disrepair that last May Republican Gov. Rick Snyder appointed an emer- gency manager, Roy Roberts, to over- see the school district's use of funds. Despite the lack of resources, Detroit schools that choose to partner with Teach for America pay the orga- nization an average of $3,000 for each TFA corps member employed, in addi- tion to paying corps members a start- ing teacher's salary. TFA spokesperson Rebecca Neale wrote in an e-mail interview that TFA uses the $3,000 in Detroit to cover the program's recruitment, its training program and to support its teachers. Nationally, schools partnered with Teach for America paid an average of $2,700 per corps member employed last year, according to Neale. Keith Johnson, the head of the Detroit Federation of Teachers - the union representing Detroit Public School teachers - questions why the schools don't use the extra money to give students access to more educa- tional materials. "Wouldn't that $3,000 be better served buying some additional books or supplemental material?" he asked. David Patterson, chief administra- tive officer at Woodward Academy - a pre-K through eighth grade gated charter school in Detroit - said his district decided to hire four corps. members last year and three more this year. For him, the decision was made based on quality rather than cost. "Every penny has some weight on a decision, but we're really looking for But as Joh the schools more on pro not an organi "I have no choose to d "There's absc that." The Detro Communicat repeated pho Individual D not authoriz( nson sees it, ,tttas should focus viding for the children, antee placement for corps members, ization. according to Ify Offor, TFA's vice pres- idea why schools would ident of new site development. Io that," Johnson said. Today, TFA corps members teach in alutely no justification for 55 schools across the area, reaching a total of 10,000 students. it Public Schools Office of Seventy percent of TFA Detroit ions failed to respond to teachers work in public charter one and e-mail attempts. schools, while the rest are in tradi- etroit public schools are tional public schools. Forty-five of the ed to speak without per- schools are located in metro Detroit. mission from the com- Though public schools and charter munications office. schools both receive public funding, students have to apply to attend char- Charter versus ter schools. Charter schools also often public have longer school days and a central theme, such as leadership or justice. TFA returned to One of the goals of TFA Detroit is to Detroit in 2010 after have more than a 90 percent citywide a seven year absence high school graduation rate by 2020, from the city. The orga- Annis Brown, executive director of nization originally left TFA Detroit, said. Detroit in 2003 when it At the University Preparatory could no longer guar- See DETROIT, Page 6B Applicants to Teach for America hear about how the program looks for the best and brightest in student leaders. They hear about how leadership has been carefully studied and proven to produce effective teachers in underprivileged dis- tricts in the country. What they hear less about is what hap- pens when corps members actually enter the schools. The past two years represent a peak in University applicants to TFA, with 461 students applying to the program in 2011 alone. But complaints from former corps members have been aired in terms of training, alack of support and a two-year teaching commitment that community leaders say doesn't help schools in need. How prepared are the corps members? After a five-week intensive training period in one of Teach for America's insti- tutes across the country, corps members are sent to their placement schools to teach. The corps members have had, on aver- age, one hour of classroom experience every day during the five weeks, in addi- tion to workshops and coaching from peers or TFA staff members. For many corps members, this is their first training in formal education. In 2011, only 4 percent of e incoming corps members were education majors, while 34 percent majored lp in social sciences. The inexperience that comes with the program is something that TFA founder and CEO Wendy Kopp called an "incredible advantage" for the program in a Jan. 19 speech she gave at the University. "One of the reasons Teach for America works is because we do take people who ask crazy questions and do crazy things that anyone who knows what they're doing would never do," Kopp said. But some feel that entering an inner city classroom after five weeks of training does a disservice to the students. Keith Johnson, head of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, the union repre- senting Detroit Public School teachers, said he feels TFA members entering into a classroom "marginalizes the profession" since other teachers have to go through formal training before they can teach. "Why should we settle for some- one that's providing instruction simply because they were a math whiz or a sci- ence whiz or even a foreign language whiz?" Johnson asked.- Former corps members admitted to feeling unprepared for the initial transi- tion into the classroom. University alum Mike Dobbs, a 2007 Washington D.C. corps member, said he struggled to teach in classrooms where he had to purchase his own copy paper. "A month is not enough to know how to set (a classroom) up, particularly in a place where resources are scarce," Dobbs said. University alum Rachel Rickard, a 2011 Baton Rouge corps member who left her assigned school after two months, said she faced unexpectedly large classroom sizes 'and was unprepared to manage 20 or 21-year-old high school students who were so e close to her own age. "The discipline was some- thing that I struggled with,"Q Rickard said. "And when you have 40 kids in the classroom, everything that I struggled I with was magnified." 10 Rickard said she was under extenuating circumstances, 0 however, because she was ini- ( E tially hired at a middle school but then got laid off before the ( C school year began. Therefore, she had to quickly search for a See TWO YEARS, Page 6B l~eve Ao weto~ncfs o Td 11Can 4~- e ts, (Xf . PA'Wc ach for America untral Tenets ( 2S lan 20%c a X td. eli- f )1vte. t e?4 se ee~ee \ca e e~ds V~f