Study: Teach For America Vets Are Burnt Out, Not Involved

Veterans of Teach For America — a program that assigns recent college grads to teach in some of the country's worst schools — are less likely to vote, give to charities, or participate in civic groups than program drop-outs and those who were accepted by Teach For America but declined to take part, according to the a new study. The Times reports that the low rates of civic involvement might stem from exhaustion and burnout, as well as disillusionment with the group's approach to improving the educational disparities.

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By Ben Muessig in News on January 4, 2010 5:35 PM

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ladyjane

wonder if it's the same for people in the Teaching Fellows program

pudeljung

Teach for America is BULLSHIT

Just nother way to give IvyLeaguers a year's pass on making any real life decisions while undervaluing those who have chosen education as a career path and invested their time and energy in it.

Mookie Wilson

Do you people have any idea what you are talking about? Teach for America is a scholarship program where you receive money towards your education in exchange for an agreement to teach in a low income area after school. The teachers it provides schools are young and smart, but inexperienced. Not exactly the worst thing for these schools.

The Colonel

pudeljung - I had a friend who was an education major and he would get mad anytime Teach for America came up, because he viewed it like you said - a place for a lot of people with no direct qualifications to be educating and working with children who are in very formative periods of their lives.

I have mixed feelings on the program and think its intentions are good, but I'd be curious to see the results of a long term study on the actual students who had TfA teachers in grade school vs. classically trained ones (in the same areas of course)? Which kind of teacher taught the sophomore in high school that I recently tutored who had never heard of a times table? Who knows, but it would be interesting to find out...

babyhitler

Wait, Is it the teaching vets or the veteran students that got burned out or is this whole world fucked up? This reminds me of the time my liberal stuy grad sister used to rag me and rigmarole me about her idealistic views on society and that poor urban youths needed to be taught her way. ten years later and she fucking hates everybody that she fought so gallantly for? why? Dogville, that's why.