SEATTLE — A national organization that recruits recent college graduates for careers in teaching is hoping to place 50 of its new teachers in Seattle area schools.
The Federal Way School District has already agreed to hire four to 10 Teach for America corps members. Seattle Public Schools is considering 20 to 25 of the Teach for America corps.
The organization’s recruits are typically non-education majors who go into the classroom after five weeks of summer training.
The program also provides mentors who track the young teachers’ progress. As they teach, they also study nights and weekends to earn a permanent teaching certificate.
Teach for America officials told The Seattle Times if they succeed in getting a total of 50 placements in the next few months and raise some more money, they will open operations here next year. The Seattle area would be the 40th site across the nation and its first in the Pacific Northwest.
The organization has grown tremendously since its beginnings 20 years ago and is in the middle of a major expansion effort, fueled in part by a recent $50 million grant from the federal government.
Teach for America is probably the best-known path for training new teachers outside the traditional college-based preparation programs, but critics question its approach.
Some local education officials wonder why Washington would need to bring in less-experienced people to fill teaching jobs, when the state already has plenty of fully qualified teachers.
“Why is it necessary at this time to bring in a different group of teachers who are trained for five weeks, have a two-year commitment and then, in a lot of cases, they are gone?” asked Glenn Bafia of the Seattle Education Association, the union for Seattle teachers.
The union, he said, does not support a proposal to bring the organization to Seattle, which was scheduled to be discussed at a Seattle School Board meeting Wednesday.
Supports of the organization praise its success in attracting top college graduates into a profession most would not have pursued on their own.
Teach for American says one-third of its alumni keep teaching after two years, and two out of three remain in the field, some in as public-policy analysts or school administrators. It points to studies that show its teachers are at least as effective as those who enter the teaching profession in more traditional ways.
Washington state already has a handful of other programs that allow people to become teachers in nontraditional ways, allowing 120 to 200 people to prepare to enter the classroom each year. Federal Way Assistant Superintendent Sally McLean said her district is excited about the organization’s ability to recruit at more colleges than the district could do on its own. The organization mostly recruits on college campuses.
Last year, it received 46,000 applications for 4,500 spots. The University of Washington is one of its top sources for applicants.
In Washington state, about 50 Teach for America alumni work in schools and colleges, including 33 teachers, a few principals and Tom Stritikus, new dean of the UW’s College of Education. In Seattle, district leaders say they’re impressed with Teach for America’s track record.
“We’ve had strong applicant pools in the past. We just think that having Teach for America candidates will broaden and deepen the pool,” said Holly Ferguson, director of policy and government relations.
Unlike Federal Way, Seattle wouldn’t hold any spots for Teach for America members.
Under its proposed agreement, Teach for America recruits would compete with other applicants for Seattle jobs open to outside candidates.
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