Alexander Russo, in his latest blog entry, takes on the Teach for America machine by suggesting that — when considering its hard-to-pin-down value — TFA really may be more like Enron than Google. Drawing on a recent article in Slate magazine, Russo begins to ask some hard questions about TFA and wonders whether it’s ’shaping up to have anywhere near as big an impact on public education as its accolades (and revenues) suggest.’

Lincoln Caplan, who penned the Slate expose of TFA, reports that over 15 years the non-profit has spent $500 million (30 percent from the government) to recruit a few thousand teachers who will remain in the classroom no more than two years. (Caplan’s investigation reveals that over a decade and a half about 8,000 TFA recruits remain in education, with no more than one-half actually teaching children.) It has been difficult to get the accurate numbers on TFA, but it looks like Caplan’s research would signify that TFA is spending about $125,000 per teacher! How many more teachers could be retained in public education classrooms long beyond TFA’s two-year tenure if that type of expenditure was dedicated to thorough preparation?

Granted TFA publicists point out that their program is more than a teacher recruitment program — it is about exposing its recruits to the challenges of public schools and giving them leadership training for their future education careers in policy wonkhood. To be sure, TFA places recruits in schools where few accomplished teachers teach. In fact, one reason principals may rate TFA recruits more highly than their counterparts is because their peers who teach with them are often just as unqualified or more unqualified than they are. This is not an indictment of TFA, but of the dysfunctional teacher development system our nation’s policymakers have yet to adequately address.

Teaching is very challenging, and preparation and on-going support is critical. Granted, TFA provides a service by marketing teaching and placing energetic, bright young people in high needs schools. But the program also provides a disservice by selling the message that teachers don’t need comprehensive preparation — and seriously short-changes their recruits with inadequate training in critical areas like classroom management, assessment, lesson planning, and working with diverse students (e.g., second language learners) and families. TFA’s marketing strategy sends a strong message to policymakers that they do not need to do much more to staff challenging schools than to bring in more TFA recruits.

But teachers do need serious teaching skills before they enter teaching, and the poor children they teach cannot get by with a revolving door of underprepared recruits. Ms. Bennett, a TFA recruit, candidly responds in a recent blog to a suggestion that her classroom management would improve by working more closely with the parents of the children she teaches:

“I’m just not the good teacher who has already established a positive relationship with my families. I’m trying. Honestly, I’m a little intimidated by how these conversations will go. We don’t speak each other’s language and I feel like it’s obvious to everyone that I have no idea what I am doing.”

Graduates of sound “traditional” teacher education programs, like those at Alverno College (Milwaukee), Stanford University, Bank Street College, and University of Virginia, just do not struggle like Ms. Bennett in their first few years of teaching — and they are far more likely to stay as a result. As Mr. Russo writes, “I don’t think the direct impact of TFA’s classroom corps members is nearly as long or strong as it could….and I don’t think that the cumulative effect of TFA alumni is much more than a drop in the bucket when it comes to improving public education, writ large.”

TFA has proven that teaching can be marketed and there are many more young people who would become teachers if asked. Granted, the nation’s 1200 universities that “traditionally” prepare teachers do not uniformly ready their graduates for high needs schools. However, much more is known about how to recruit, prepare, and retain good teachers for high needs schools — and a comprehensive strategy that draws on our nation’s most accomplished teachers as teacher educators and mentors must be part of the equation. (See recent CTQ paper fusing research with the voices of highly accomplished teachers.) Short-term recruits can be part of the algorithim — but not the way TFA currently factors into the equation. Ms. Bennett, a dedicated, albeit struggling young teacher, admits that she “needs serious, serious help.” The children she teaches deserve much more.