Despite objections, Teach for America will continue in Seattle

The Teach for America program will continue in Puget
Sound.

The Seattle School board voted to continue the three year
contract and TFA teachers couldn’t be happier.

TFA teacher Lindsay Hill told KING 5 principals in the area have been
asking that they be included in the hiring pool. Hill says
people who have had personal experience with TFA are
“incredible supportive.”

In Seattle, there are six TFA educators in Aki Kurose and
Washington Middle Schools, South Shore K-8, and Rainer
Beach High School.

Teachers’ unions aren’t happy about the move, and say it’s
a slap in the face to teachers with college degrees.

The chair of the Seattle School Board’s curriculum and
instruction committee had recommended ending the Teach for
America contract. “There is no shortage of fully-certified
teachers, both experienced and novice in the Seattle area.
Novice teachers, with only five weeks of training, in high
poverty, high-minority schools are serving our most
vulnerable students and the contract has been strongly
opposed by our Seattle Education Association labor
partners.”

The union said its biggest concern is placing uncertified
and inexperienced teachers in classrooms with “some of our
most challenged students.”

Regardless of where the teachers come from, students and
parents alike can identify bad teachers, and it often
doesn’t have to do with a lack of experience or a lack of
certification.

Seattle Morning News’ Linda Thomas said that in
her 12 years as Seattle Public Schools mom, her family has
only had one teacher that could be described as “awful.”
That educator had the most experience in the building in
terms of hours served in the classroom, but set kids in
the class back at least two years. According to Thomas,
“An eager college grad with five-weeks training would have
been better in that case.”