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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
One way that top students can be steered into public school teaching is through Teach for America.  It's how one of my kids -- an honors graduate of a top 10 liberal arts college -- entered the field.  While many TFA alums move on to other things, some don't -- including my kid and several others who I know well.

In the case of my kid, though, she was able to stay in the profession notwithstanding the relatively low pay because (1) she had no student loans and (2) her husband -- a graduate of the same college but with a less impressive college transcript -- went into private industry and almost immediately began making more money than her.  
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Teach for America really devalues the importance of training to creating effective teachers. I am sure your daughter and her friends have the best of intentions, but you don't learn to teach by going through a a brief course the summer before you're plunked into a classroom. And most of the TFA alumni I know didn't go back to learn how to teach. Some of them went to get MEds so they could go into administration, because those who can't do administrate.

Which gets to one of the main things that drive people from the profession: Being overseen and evaluated by things that don't reflect your ability by people who don't understand your job. That, and the low pay, are going to drain the pool of talent faster than anything else.

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Teach for America teachers are college graduates who are required to enroll in graduate school to get a master's in teaching at the same time that they are "plunked into a classroom."  You left a critical part of the program out when you were disparaging it.  How much "training" does your typical college graduate with a bachelor's in teaching have before they're "plunked" into a classroom?

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I had three 6 month long placements in three different classrooms as an undergrad. My TFA colleague had never been around kids prior to her first teaching gig. Big difference.[/quote]

Right.  And that's great.  But the question originally posted was "how do we get top students (as defined by high school SAT and GPA) to enter public school teaching?"  How many public school teachers who went your route had "high SATs and GPAs" in high school and were "top students?"  All of the available statistics would suggest that the answer is very few.  I'm not surprised you'd take offense that others ended up in your profession by going a different route.  No, TFA isn't perfect -- far from it, in fact -- and yes, the program starts its participants off with less classroom experience that the typical first year teacher who went the traditional route, but TFA participants are, by and large, more driven than most college graduates and certainly, well, if I have to say it, "smarter" than your typical traditionally trained and educated teacher.  AND, as I said, they're also required to get their master's degrees in education while they are working.  It's not like they just hire a history major from Tufts and throw them in a classroom with zero training and zero expectation that they'll get any formal education or degree in teaching.

I personally know of several high school and college superstars who got into teaching through TFA and are sticking with it and prospering in the DMV.  Honestly, and with all respect, the one issue that my daughter has sheepishly confided in me about the problems she faces in her day-to-day dealings with her colleagues and administrators is that she is obviously "smarter" than most of them.  She certainly doesn't think that makes her "better" as a human being or anything like that, but she is certainly dealing with a less intellectually capable group of colleagues on a day-to-day basis as a public school teacher than she did as a college student at an elite college.    [/quote]

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