Teach For America v. Grad School

[nyed4]

Hi guys! I've recently been accepted into TFA but have also applied to grad schools for secondary education at Teachers College and HGSE. I would like to teach secondary social studies and then my long term goal is to move into educational policy. Any advice if TFA or a grad school degree would be better long term?

[thdus82]

I am a second year Teach For America corps member who applied for a PhD in high education.  Are you interested in pursuing a doctorate degree in ed policy down the road?  Or just a master's degree and working in the field?  I'd be happy to chat if you'd like.  Feel free to PM me!

[ctcpx084]

I know people who are teaching burnouts (literally left half-way through the year) who have worked on the staffs of representatives and are still ascending through policy circles. thdus82's question is an important one. If you aspire to the doctorate, your teaching experience may mean very little in Ed Policy; as an aside, I'm a curriculum and teaching doctoral student, and teaching experience doesn't mean much there, either. 

[mpb]

I did TFA and would agree that you don't necessarily need teaching experience to go into policy. Many people who have done TFA are doing ed policy work though, so joining TFA would connect you with a large network of people in that area, which could be helpful for your long term goals. I also think that getting teaching experience would offer insights that would be helpful with policy work--teachers would appreciate there being more policymakers who have actually taught.

 

I definitely wouldn't get a master's degree though if you don't want to teach long term. Unless someone is paying your tuition, you will be taking on a lot of debt for something you may only do briefly, and you're taking an extra year that could be spent teaching or gaining other experience. I think that a master's degree only makes sense for career teachers, or if you want to work in schools that may care about their teachers having ivy-league pedigree (elite private schools perhaps?).

[nyed4]

I currently live in NY so I would need to get a masters if I choose to teach and didn't accept my application for TFA.

 

@thdus82 Thank you, I'll PM you

[prospectiveTC]

When do masters applicants hear back from TC?

[JusCon]

Posts are correct in that teaching experience is nominally, and negligently, unnesessary for Ed policy work. I finished my corps commitment and am currently teaching abroad, en route to grad school in edu next school year.

Like you, I toggled between grad school right after or TFA. Part of my SoP actually details my thought process. I was super anxious about grad school, but I had already finished my cert to teach secondary social studies as an added major during undergrad. I figured TFA, with all of its cultural incompetency and faults, would offer me unmatched insight into the world of edu I wanted to one day help improve--- so I went with TFA and don't regret it.

Honestly I think it's best to have some classroom experience before braving Ed policy. Too many policy issues exist now that could have been mitigated or completely avoided provided the people creating policy had some actual experience. Personally I find it incredibly problematic that people are allowed to advise education lacking experience. That's unacceptable in most other professions that society considers important, teaching shouldn't be any different.

[allinduetime]

Honestly I think it's best to have some classroom experience before braving Ed policy. Too many policy issues exist now that could have been mitigated or completely avoided provided the people creating policy had some actual experience. Personally I find it incredibly problematic that people are allowed to advise education lacking experience. That's unacceptable in most other professions that society considers important, teaching shouldn't be any different.

 

This is 100% spot on. You wouldn't expect to be able to write policy for lawyers or doctors had you not been one before, so I don't understand why people believe it should different for education. But I've been a student and in education my whole life, you say! That's the misconception that has led to the abysmal education policy related to NCLB, Race to the Top, and the "reforms" of today. Teaching primary/secondary school is humbling for anyone. The whole first year of teaching is about realizing all of your misguided assumptions surrounding teaching. Anyone doing the first year right has multiple identity and existential crises regardless of your intelligence or theoretical expertise. 

 

There's just so many nuances, paradoxes, and social factors in education that you really cannot appreciate or understand without significant experience as a classroom teacher. For that reason, I don't believe any truly effective policy maker could go without classroom experience. 

Edited February 11, 2015 by allinduetime