Borsuk: Teach for America making its mark in Milwaukee

Misa Sato was well on her way to medical school and becoming a doctor. The Whitefish Bay native was majoring in medical microbiology and immunology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and had taken the medical college admission test.

She says it was on a whim that she went to a Teach for America event in the Milwaukee area during her senior year in college. It struck a chord. She followed up with a visit to a school to observe a Teach for America teacher at work.

And in the fall of 2013, she began teaching at Reagan High School, the International Baccalaureate school that has become one of brightest spots in the Milwaukee Public Schools system.

“I loved it,” she says. “I still love education.” After her two-year commitment to TFA ended, she stayed on. She is now an International Baccalaureate program coordinator and teacher at the school, and she envisions being there for years to come.

For good reason, hers is the kind of story TFA is eager to spotlight. There are others who have had less successful involvement and less kind things to say about TFA and its high-profile effort nationwide to attract bright college graduates to work at least two years in schools serving some of America’s most high-needs students.

But, at least in Milwaukee, there is a good supply of stories such as Sato’s, enough, I suggest, to say TFA has been a success here.

Now in its seventh year of putting “corps members” into Milwaukee classrooms, TFA has become less controversial than it was at earlier points, which is almost surely a good thing. But as the program operates in a quieter fashion, I got to wondering how it was doing.

'In a good place'

“We’re in a good place,” Garrett Bucks said recently, shortly before he stepped down as head of TFA operations in Milwaukee.  “We’re doing great.”

Bucks’ opinion was echoed by Walter Bond, the new executive director in Milwaukee. Bond, a Milwaukee native, has worked for TFA in Milwaukee since 2014, after five years (two as a TFA member, three beyond that) in Washington, D.C.

Teach for America had its roots in an academic paper by a Princeton student, Wendy Kopp, more than a quarter of a century ago. She envisioned something like a Peace Corps for college graduates, almost all not education majors, to become teachers in high-poverty communities, both urban and rural. The idea boomed, drawing many Ivy League graduates and big philanthropic support.

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The bloom faded somewhat in recent years, for several reasons. To summarize what I know of research, TFA teachers overall had about the same success (sometimes a bit more) than new teachers who had gone through conventional teacher-education programs. There was criticism of TFA’s whiteness and eliteness. The market for teachers also changed, as did the job market for top-rung college graduates in general as the economy improved in recent years and two-year teaching stints lost some appeal.

With a changing landscape, TFA shifted some of its goals. Milwaukee is a good example of the changes.

A higher priority was placed on recruiting more diverse people. This year, almost half of the 130 first- and second-year TFA teachers in Milwaukee are from minority groups.

'Heart. Hustle. Humility'

Efforts were increased to blend TFA into Milwaukee education efforts more broadly and to collaborate with others. The Milwaukee TFA motto at the top of e-mails reads, “Heart. Hustle. Humility.” All worthy attributes around here.

And the organization has stepped up its efforts to get members to make education more than a two-year involvement. Bond says that when TFA started in Milwaukee in 2010, there were 30 alumni living in the Milwaukee area. There are now about 300. He said 80% of people involved in TFA in Milwaukee stay on after the two years and 80% stay involved in education, many working as teachers or administrators, some working in education advocacy or support organizations.

If you consider the list of Milwaukee schools that have or are building good reputations, there is involvement by current or past TFA members in a high proportion of them. Furthermore, while several years ago, some people considered TFA to be too closely connected with the charter and voucher sectors in Milwaukee, the organization’s relationship with MPS appears to be quite healthy currently.

MPS Superintendent Darienne Driver said so when I asked her the other day. Among things she was pleased that, for the first time, incoming Milwaukee corps members this summer will get their training in Milwaukee and not elsewhere. Driver said that will help prepare them more effectively for MPS classrooms.

Bond says his goals as the TFA chief go beyond schools in Milwaukee. He is a native of Sherman Park and a graduate of Washington High School and Marquette. Then he went to Washington, D.C., for five years.

Bond says too many of Milwaukee’s best and brightest take a route like that and don’t come back. “We need talent in Milwaukee,” he says. He wants both the organization and himself to be part of making Milwaukee as a whole a more appealing place.

He also wants to TFA to be involved in increasing the success rates at all schools in Milwaukee — including his alma mater, Washington — and not just in a limited group of higher performing schools in Milwaukee.

Everybody is looking for top-notch teachers these days. The need is bigger than what any one preparation program or organization can fill. But TFA is playing a positive role in putting dedicated educators, committed to finding ways to succeed, on the ground in Milwaukee.

A lot of education initiatives and organizations have come and gone in Milwaukee. Seven years in, TFA is moving forward, with a record that deserves respect.

Alan J. Borsuk issenior fellow in law and public policy at Marquette Law School. Reach him at alan.borsuk@marquette.edu.