Tag: TFA Summer Institute

AB 221

I’m Julian Vasquez Heilig, a Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at California State University Sacramento. I also serve as the California NAACP Education Chair and on the Board of Network For Public Education Action.

As a scholar, I have studied Teach For America (TFA) since 2005. Our first peer-reviewed study of TFA, co-authored with Linda Darling-Hammond, State Board of Education Chair, and others was entitled “Does teacher preparation matter? evidence about teacher certification, Teach For America, and teacher effectiveness” This study is probably the most prominent peer reviewed study about TFA in the research literature— it’s been cited more than 1,200 times. We examined the achievement of students taught by TFA teachers compared to other teachers in a large, urban district. We found that TFA teachers did not perform better than certified and trained teachers. In my work as a faculty fellow for the National Education Policy Center I have probably read every single peer reviewed and non-per reviewed study during the last 15 years about TFA. While most studies show no positive effect of TFA on student achievement, some studies that do find an impact typically don’t find any benefits from TFA until their 4 and 5^th years. However, we need a big asterisk… we should consider the validity of these findings because the impact is typically only in math and the vast majority of TFA are gone by year 4 and 5 anyways— usually more than 80%. To sum up the research, choosing bad over worse is the enemy of good teaching for students in California’s Title I schools.

I also think it is important to say that TFA is not “the new civil rights movement” as they have claimed. My mother always told me, show me who your friends are, and I’ll show you who you are. I think its notably the California NAACP and LULAC, our nation’s largest African American and Latino civil rights organizations are supporting this bill. Furthermore, California’s urban teachers represented by CFT are also supporting this bill.

In conclusion, the California NAACP and the Network for Public Education support parents and other stakeholders who desire a highly-qualified teacher for every student in their neighborhood public schools.

Here is my 2-minute testimony as delivered.

Then Kiley decided to ask me some questions. Here is how that went.

If you listened to the hearing, you probably heard Assemblymember Garcia accept amendments to the bill. The changes are located on p. 11 of the AB 221 bill analysis, it was agreed in the Assembly Education Committee that the bill would be ammended to focus on longer 5-year commitments and abolish fees paid by districts to private third-party organizations for intern teachers.