Hub teachers reject public service corps

But the Boston Teachers Union has a message for those eager Teach for America recruits: Thanks, but no thanks.

With the first batch of 20 corps members scheduled to arrive in the fall, just months after probable teacher layoffs, the union has sent a letter to the popular program objecting to its help.

"We already have hundreds of good, 'surplus' teachers; we don't need [Teach for America] to provide us any additional help," Richard Stutman, the union's president, wrote in a letter sent this week. "By coming here, you will only make matters worse."

While public service is a key mission of Teach for America, the program does not provide free help. Participating school districts must pay the recruits the same salary as a beginning teacher in the district, which in Boston would be $46,291.

Recruits must make a two-year commitment and are allowed to run their own classrooms after completing a five-week training program.

At the union's most recent monthly meeting, more than 600 teachers, classroom aides, and other members overwhelmingly approved a request asking the School Department and the nonprofit to end their contract to reduce teacher layoffs.

In the first of two letters that Stutman sent to Teach for America about the union vote, he concluded, "You will do your organization no favors should you persist."

Neither Boston schools nor Teach for America are backing down.

Boston officials say the recruits will help fill 100 to 200 vacancies created by retirements and resignations in subjects or grade levels where layoffs will not occur. Those slots cannot go to the teachers losing their jobs in other program areas, they said, because they lack proper state certification to teach in those disciplines.

While Teach for America recruits are not fully certified, they often have a bachelor's degree in the subjects they are asked to teach, arming them with greater content knowledge than, perhaps, a veteran teacher who did not major in that subject in college.

"We absolutely do not plan to bring recruits into program areas where we would have layoffs," said William Horwath, acting assistant superintendent for human resources in the Boston public schools.

The argument reflects a national debate over Teach for America, a nearly 20-year-old community service program that enlists soon-to-be college graduates into the teaching ranks with the hope that they make the profession a career. This year the program has experienced a 42 percent surge in applications as college seniors, some inspired by President Obama's call to public service, confront one of the worst job markets in years.

But many teachers' unions and some education observers accuse the recruits of merely padding their resume and then fleeing the classroom at the expiration of their two-year commitment. That has prompted some critics to dub the program "teach for a while." They contend that the recruits lack proper training because most have not gone through traditional teacher training programs in college, instead receiving just five intensive weeks of summer training.

In Detroit, the teachers' union is trying to block an effort by some education advocacy groups to revive that city's Teach for America program after it shut down about five years ago amid municipal budget cuts, shrinking school enrollment, and fierce union opposition.

"We don't need educational mercenaries," said Keith Johnson, the union's president. "We don't feel people can ride in on their white horses and for two years share the virtue of their knowledge as a pit stop on their way to becoming corporate executives. Some don't last their first year."

In spite of teacher layoffs sweeping across the country, the program expects to fill a slightly higher number of slots in the fall, including its first positions in Cambridge and Chelsea. Union officials in those two cities could not be reached for comment.

Many school districts find the program extremely helpful in recruiting teachers for hard-to-fill areas - such as math, science, special education, and English as a second language instruction - or tough classroom assignments at low-performing schools, where students with a host of needs can create educational and disciplinary challenges.

In an Urban Institute study that examined North Carolina high schools between 2000 and 2007, Teach for America recruits were found to be more effective than teachers from traditional teacher training schools in boosting student achievement. The report, released this month, attributed some success to the strong academic credentials of the recruits, but acknowledged that many of the recruits teach for only a few years.

Kerci Marcello Stroud, a Teach for America spokeswoman, said program leaders were disappointed by the Boston Teachers Union vote, but remain committed to the city.

Boston had previously resisted taking part in Teach for America, preferring to invest in its own in-house training program, the Boston Teacher Residency, which Governor Deval Patrick would like to expand across the state. The program has also captured the attention of Obama. Each year, that program recruits 75 new teachers, generally people who did not major in education in college, and has them teach with a mentor for a year before taking over a classroom. During that first year, the candidates receive an $11,400 stipend through AmeriCorps.

But last fall, in an effort to expand recruitment in subject areas with teacher shortages, the Boston School Committee approved trying out Teach for America. Superintendent Carol R. Johnson had used that program while in Memphis, where she said she saw significant gains in student achievement in classrooms overseen by its members.

Most of Boston's 20 Teach for America candidates will work in hard-to-fill areas. But others will teach in the popular areas of English, elementary education, and history, which Stutman said in a phone interview was "outrageous."

He said he knows of at least two elementary school teachers without tenure who could lose their job because their principal does not have enough money to keep them on.

"We are not disturbed but furious that the department would lay off teachers with excellent credentials and bring in people with no experience and little training," Stutman said. "They are sending a very bad message to teaching staff."

Stutman is pushing for the School Department to retrain teachers in areas in which they do not have proper certification, especially if a teacher minored in one of those subject areas in college.

Stutman emphasized that his objections to Teach for America were purely budget driven.

"If times were good," he said, "we wouldn't have a problem."