Teach for America reviews

Let me be clear. If you are looking to join Teach for America, you are a qualified, intelligent human being who has the potential to be much more on your own. TFA is prestigious because it accepts so few based off of how many apply. But this is NOT prestige. TFA is so hated among actual educators-- and with reason, because the implication of the organization is that it takes 5 weeks of training to become an educator in the nation's most struggling schools. I came in with a masters, and have years of experience in another field. I kept thinking to myself "how would I feel if someone was trained in my field for 5 weeks and then thought they came in and thought they could fix everything?" Pretty appalled and offended. Institute is meant to break you. It is cult-like. There are rituals scheduled every day, my institute had extra staff hovering over us, silent during group discussions, to make sure that we 1. stayed on track, and 2. didn't disagree with anything or question what we were learning! I once asked about data to support some pretty strong claims, and was told that statistics is rooted in eugenics (a principle to create one 'strong' race, eliminate minorities, etc), is inherently racist, and that we should rely on--- BIASED--- stories instead. So much for evidence-based! Do not join. I cannot stress this enough. I didn't want to have this opinion, I came into it wanting to help the public's perception. I defended it to real educators for months before coming in. But you will be controlled, helpless, and underpaid for years.

They try to brainwash you with incredibly far-left ideologies. If you even have a hint of disagreement, they will sit you down to talk to you. TFA staff take certain liberal and extreme-left assumptions and ideas to be law, there is no room for debate. TFA promotes open discussions on these sort of topics, and then they give you a "talking to" if you ever disagree with them and support your own answer. They'll tell you to share your experience with them with 100% confidentiality, and then tell their managers to set a meeting with you about what you said if it doesn't align with their ideology. You basically just have to pretend to agree with everything they say during training so you can finally go on to do the job after. Yes, all of your co-workers at your actual job will then hate you for being trained to be a pretentious "safe-space" educator. Most people are just trying to pad their resumes so they can go into politics or law school. Others are just bleeding heart "save the kids!" teachers who are ready for a life of poverty. Pay is 40k and teachers are treated like peasants. If you are qualified to join TFA, you're probably qualified to find another opportunity and make 3 times a teacher's salary.