Boston Public Schools Says No To Unqualified, Inexperienced Teachers

Do you want your children taught by people who are not certified teachers? Are five weeks sufficient to learn how to command classrooms full of troubled kids? Should inexperienced, uncertified teachers be paid the same as those with years of training and experience? Teach for America says yes; Boston Public Schools says no. In an apparently controversial decision, BPS has refused to employ Teach for America recruits, asserting that the district already has enough qualified, experienced teachers. Teach for America is a somewhat ironic endeavor: the organization's own literature lauds the superior power of experienced teachers, yet the two-year program involves no certification, no experience, and often does little more than Ivy League grads something to do for two years between college and graduate school. The corps members may be educated, but that doesn't mean they can educate, and throwing them into a classroom for a brief amount of time does a disservice both to the corps members and their students. Additionally, Teach for America does nothing to solve the troubling problem of insufficient teacher training in America; it's merely a band-aid that falls off when its corps members move on. BPS is right to hold its ground and stand out for teachers who will commit to a career of education, not a brief stopover on the way to "better" things.