It sounds as uncontroversial as apple pie. Teach for America (TFA), a not-for-profit organisation founded in 1990, places young ‘corps members’ at schools in poor areas to teach for two years. Recruits work in 35 states, most are fresh out of college, and they learn mainly on the job. Fair enough; but TFA has many critics, particularly among teachers who have spent years becoming qualified and whose jobs are now contested.

Minnesota’s Board of Teaching caused a furore this summer when it refused to give a band of TFA members’ group permission to teach in the state. It had done so every year since the organisation first arrived there, in 2009. Instead the state assessed 35 applicants individually — eventually granting licences to all of them.

Ryan Vernoush, a board member and a former Minnesota teacher of the year, believes placing inexperienced young people in front of “marginalised students” only serves “to perpetuate the status quo of inequity”. Elisa Villanueva Beard, the co-chief executive officer of TFA, counters that her organisation is just “one source” of teachers among others. She wants principals to have a choice when looking for employees.

Such drama in the North Star state illustrates how TFA can polarise opinion. Some celebrities and philanthropists are right behind it: John Legend, a popular singer, serves on TFA’s national board, and the Walton Foundation, funded by members of the family behind Walmart, has given it more than $100 million (Rs.630 crore). TFA is an influential voice in debates about school reform and privatisation, particularly as many of its 32,000 alumni now hold lofty positions in education and elsewhere. One, Cami Anderson, is the superintendent for Newark’s schools; another, Mike Johnston, is a state senator in Colorado.

Unlike some other teacher-training programmes, TFA chooses its recruits with care. The 5,900 who have started for the current academic year represent only 14 percent of applicants. (In 2009-10, applicants included 18 percent of Harvard’s senior class.) TFA tries to choose young people who are organised and motivated enough to take control of difficult classrooms, right from the start.

A new report of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), released on September 10, suggests that TFA’s members excel at teaching maths (although older studies suggest they do no better than their traditionally qualified peers at teaching children to read). The report, which looked at TFA members teaching maths in middle and high schools, found the improved test scores of pupils were equivalent, on average, to an extra 2.6 months of school.

One Californian recruit thinks TFA’s model is revolutionary because normally “the best teachers are striving to get into the best-paying schools”. But she feels members can still be “emotionally underprepared” for the challenges of inner-city teaching. After their two years, only a third of TFA alumni continue in the classroom. Many more, however, emerge energised to campaign for better schools.

(Excerpted and adapted from The Economist)