by Maneesh Arora
This week, The CIHA Blog is presenting a series of posts on interventions in education, both in Africa and the United States. Today’s, the last of our series, by Maneesh Arora, is one take on inequality in education and to what degree public systems in the United States are in need of an overhaul, echoing many of the problems highlighted by our previous piece on Malawi.
For the two years prior to beginning a PhD program in political science, I worked as a middle school special education teacher in Dorchester, Massachusetts, as a Teach For America (TFA) corps member. The two years I spent teaching were personally transformative, rewarding, and incredibly challenging. I saw firsthand the merits of TFA and the positive effects that the organization is capable of having. But also I found many aspects of the mission and practice problematic, particularly the oftentimes-contradictory humanitarian intentions that turn into imperialistic practices. TFA has become controversial for many of the same reasons that have been shown in the blog concerning humanitarianism in Africa.
Throughout TFA training and meetings there was an ever-present message that we, as corps members, need to give our all to these children and help them overcome difficult situations. The goal of TFA is that one day all children will receive a quality education. It is a worthy mission and an inspiring message. However, the way the message is presented and carried out can be detrimental to students and to the education system.
The message at times portrayed corps members as educational superheroes trained to save poor, predominantly Black and Latina/o, children who are depicted to be unsuccessful without our assistance. Implicit in the message is that the communities corps members are working in are unable to solve the educational problems themselves and need outside aid from TFA. It can be inspiring to work in an organization where strong commitment, hard work, and unconditional love for the children is the norm. These are important qualities for teachers to have, especially given the difficult situations that so many youth face in this country. But we need to understand and respect the different backgrounds and cultures of people and recognize the strong qualities within all communities.
High rates of TFA corps members leave after their two years of service feeling content with the years that they gave to the education of students in impoverished communities. It is difficult to measure the utility of a corps member and the opportunity cost of hiring a corps member, but an important consideration is what the purpose is of the two years of “service”. Are those years about improving the educational opportunities for kids, or is this about feel-good volunteerism and a resume-booster on a law school application? The answer will undoubtedly vary depending on the corps member, but the organization itself should not incentivize feel-good volunteerism. While this can be a problem in any service oriented organization, the education system will benefit from TFA looking beyond achievement in academics and extra-curriculars and focusing on commitment to education, teaching skills, and a desire to end educational inequality during recruitment drives.
The racial and ethnic makeup of the TFA corps members is significantly different than that of the students in the districts corps members are placed. Diversity among the TFA corps is improving, but as of 2013 about 75% of corps members were White or Asian (Perry 2013). The demographic populations in the communities that TFA places corps members are majority Black and Latina/o. Having such vastly different racial and ethnic makeups further problematizes the role of corps members as “saviors” and the communities needing to be saved.
Another issue that is not exclusive to TFA, but is emphasized by TFA, is the standardization of the American education system. The direction that the American education system seems to be heading is toward greater levels of uniformity through standardized testing and the Common Core. While there are virtues to greater consistency, uniformity ignores the individual characteristics of a community and assumes that one method can work for evaluating all communities. Standardization is seen as a solution to our educational problems, ignoring the histories, cultures, and present circumstances of individual communities. During my two years of teaching, I was shocked by the amount of standardized testing that we subjected students to. It felt as though my teaching abilities were limited due to the frequent administration of district and state tests. I was further mystified when my TFA supervisors requested that I administer more tests in order to track the progress of my students. It was as though a number could fully represent the educational progress that my students were making, rather than a more encompassing evaluation.
I spent two years teaching at the Lilla G. Frederick Pilot Middle School in Dorchester before leaving for graduate school. I am not an outlier; it is the norm for TFA corps members to leave after their two years of commitment. Much more work needs to be done to better recruit quality teachers who are part of the community they are working in and who are committed to teaching as a career. There are failing schools all across America in which students do not receive the quality education they deserve. Understanding the situational contexts of the communities these schools are in and building leadership from within the communities can help bring about positive change in the American education system.
Maneesh Arora is a PhD student in the political science department at the University of California, Irvine. He studies race, ethnicity, and immigration and is a Teach For America alum.