Teach for America drives me nuts. The teaching profession is NOT the Peace Corps! We need people to stay longer than a 2 year commitment. The below reading seems to share my opinion. (And don’t get me started on the ex-military that was teaching for a time, want to talk about bad classroom management…)
And I’m the anthesis of the studies, as I started out teaching 4 preps, and have never taught less than that. However, I was and am "highly quafilied" when it comes to the subjects I teach, since I am certified in both computer science and math. Most of the years I have taught, I have taught both math and CS. I’d also like to see the CS breakdown and how many stay. They lumped CS with science.
All of these articles concerning TFA are interesting.
Quoted from http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/eduwonkette/2008/12/survival_the_tfa_edition_ii.html:
eduwonkette: Survivor: The TFA Edition, II
One thing seems clear, however. If we want novice teachers to stay in their initial schools and to stay in teaching, they need adequate support as they learn their craft in the first years of teaching. Asking teachers to teach multiple grades, multiple subjects and/or subjects out of their college major fields is a peculiar way of supporting them.