I'm sure most of you here read Dealbook regularly, but for those that don't please enjoy. The best parts are the in comments.
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/01/02/deferring-six-figures-on-wall-st…
User comment:
"Teach for America is insidious and the premises behind it are insulting to professional educators. Privileged Ivy-leaguers with hardly any teacher training cycle through already struggling schools with no evidence that they do any better than any other rookie teachers, and many reasons to think they do worse. These future hedge fund operators would never dream of having their own children taught by inexperienced teachers with no intention of sticking around. But the worst of it is that when they "move on" they become loyal promoters of unproven education "reforms" with even more deleterious effects. The precious resources invested in mentoring them are squandered when schools are already struggling to retain teachers who intended to make a life-long career but who found themselves thrown into difficult classrooms without any support.
We need to invest in retaining teachers long enough to acquire the experience they need to actually teach competently. We need to reduce class sizes in struggling schools. We need to replace highly unequal local funding of schools with a national education financing system that guarantees actual equality of educational opportunity for all and the counteracts rather than reinforces the effects of racism and poverty that are at the root of most failed schools. Teach for America is anathema to all of these measures and for that reason is held in almost universal contempt by the permanent teaching staff wherever they operate."
Sidenote:
I have nothing against liberal and other left-minded thinkers, but why do so many of them comment on these Dealbook articles? It seems like they take time out of their day to read articles that they know will piss them off.
title is misleading...most of the people going to TFA from my school would never have gotten a banking offer. They are mediocre students at best (although still within target schools), maybe the selectivity has gone down.
Most of the people going into TFA don't even consider a career in business/finance/consulting, and never have. The article states that only 21 people out of the 5000 deferred. Also, the number of people participating in the summer internship/full-time resume drop is around 300-400, which is less than 10%.
As far as GPA/Test scores though, most people would fall within the range of the BB/MBB firms. "Mediocre students at best" seems a bit biased, as I'm sure you're viewing this from the perspective of someone interested in those firms and surrounded by extremely type A personalities. Just because you're looking at a small group of individuals, I probably wouldn't apply that to the majority of TFA members.
The contempt in the article is quite a bit extreme though. From my first hand experience and observations, most people do NOT leave the education field, although they may leave the classroom. TFA's role is not to make educators. It is to make education reformers.
Those comments are largely pathetic. If kids from top schools want to go teach in the worst parts of America, I think that's awesome. I would never want to do it, but part of the reason these schools are so awful is because of the terrible quality of the teachers. Why not let some of America's best and brightest give it a shot?
A good friend of mine was a poli sci major at UChicago, and did TFA with the intention of doing it a few years and then applying to law school. He is now in his 3rd year of teaching at a terrible middle school in Houston. He coaches football and teaches science, and he says it has been the most challenging and rewarding experiences of his life, and he wants to make a career in education reform after he finishes up his teaching career. He even just raised a bunch of money from his friends from college (ie. all people working in finance like me) to take his class on a field trip to DC. These are kids who probably have never even been to the nice areas of Houston, let alone on an actual vacation. And this is all possible because my friend had the initiative to do something like this. I am willing to bet most teachers at his school wouldn't think of putting in the effort to do something like that.
Maybe I am just overly critical of teachers because I live in Chicago and had to listen for a week to the CPS protest outside my building because they only make $75K a year instead of $80K, but I think TFA is a great program and can do nothing but help improve the quality of education in public schools in underpriveleged areas of the country.
I agree - if a school is already bad, then I don't see how sending bright and motivated kids to these schools is going to have some sort of unique disadvantage. Maybe they don't have the experience that a 'veteran' teacher might have, but they also don't have a cushy union membership to guarantee their jobs (although in some areas, possibly all areas, TFA teachers will make the same as a union teacher of the same experience... ~$50k for working three quarters of the year isn't such a bad gig.)
Additionally I have many friends from top schools like ND, NW, UChicago, and UPenn that decided to go into TFA rather than immediately start careers or go to grad school. None of them are planning on going into finance after their TFA stint. Did part of their motivation to do TFA come from the ability to put off making a firm decision on what to do with their lives, post-college? Sure, but you can't fault a 22 year old for not knowing what s/he wants to do with his life; the fact that they are taking a stab at improving education for others ought to be commendable in itself.
Also, I didn't read the article but now I'm thinking maybe I should have.
Rogersterling59: nicely said, I agree 100%.
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