Teach For America and the Problem With One-Dimensional Research

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session 4
  In Roundtable Session: Alternative Routes and Teacher Residencies in Urban Education: Critiquing, Sustaining, and Redesigning

Abstract

This paper situates Teach For America (TFA) within the larger landscape of teacher education research. I begin with a discussion of the current debates in teacher education, including arguments both for and against TFA’s mission. After defining the criteria used to merit inclusion in this review, I outline the research on TFA’s measured outcomes, which includes student achievement, principal satisfaction, and alumni impact. I then supplement this limited base by reviewing additional research, including theoretical, qualitative, and quantitative studies that TFA omits from its own internal research overview. To conclude, I discuss how TFA’s emphasis on this limited base of research provides a partial picture of the organization’s practical materiality by glossing over the larger realities that inform its implementation.

Author

• Ashlee Anderson, The University of Tennessee - Knoxville