Teach for America May Have to Compete
Teach for America is a often-praised nonprofit group that for 20 years has been training and placing recent college graduates into schools in some of the country’s most distressed districts. It’s also been the recipient an uncontested $18 million Department of Education annual grant, the Washington Post notes. That money, plus several million it receives from other federal agencies, comprised more than 10 percent of its $189 million budget. Last year, Teach for American placed 4,100 new teachers, double the number of five years earlier, the paper says. But under a plan proposed by the Obama administration, Teach for America would compete with other organizations that train teachers for troubled schools for a share of a $235 million pool of grant funds.
Arne Duncan, education secretary, says the group could ultimately wind up with even more funding under the plan: “There’s a big, big opportunity out there for high performers,” he told the Post. Would that include Teach for America? Duncan’s praised the organization before. But it has its critics, who have called its teachers illprepared and claim they perform no better than those from traditional teacher colleges. Teach for America says it would prefer a dedicated sum, even if that means passing up a chance for more money. Congress, where the group has many fans, will ultimately decide the fate of the administration’s planned competition.
Filed under: K-12 Education News
