Measure TFA By What It Does (Meh), Or What Its Alums Do (More)?
Finishing out what's been an informal TFA Week, TAPPED's Dana Goldstein puts it pretty well: "It feels heartless to criticize a program that's, well, so good-hearted...But while it appears that TFA is very effective at connecting business leaders and young professionals with the public school reform movement and imbuing them with a sense of commitment toward public education, it's unlikely TFA is impacting student achievement in any broadly-defined way."
Meanwhile, in The Economist: "It will be hard for even a corps of 10,000 teachers to have a large impact in a country that has 3m teachers in public schools alone. But the influence of TFA's alumni, supporters say, is at least as important as the direct impact in the classroom." Via Eduwonk.
