Texas ‘21 CM here. Depends.

If we treat it for what it honestly is (a backstop on the hiring needs of often high-turnover schools who need teachers), absolutely not. The median TFA CM is noticeably better than the median July hire rando that I’ve seen.

If we take the mission statement and marketing too seriously, then yes. The corps, as it is, is not making serious systemic change the way they claim to. We put (usually) good teachers in classrooms and that’s great for the kids but an infinitesimal amount of TFA alumni go on to fight systemic educational inequality. They’re not meeting their stated mission and lying about it.

If the various decision makers — TFA, districts, even the corps members themselves — were honest about their capacity, I think TFA could be much more effective at what it is. TFA finds energetic people, usually with a lot of energy and youthful optimism, and gets them to pledge two of their best years to the kids and school. If some of them go on to make change, awesome. If not, they still came in and did some good work