Is Teach for American still effective in the long run?

By Chenchen Shi, Johns Hopkins University

Previous evidence has consistently revealed that students in Teach For America (TFA) classrooms score higher on math assessments in the short run than otherwise similar students in the same schools.

In a recent working paper released by American Institutes of Research (AIR), the authors extended the existing body of evidence on TFA by researching the relationship between being in a TFA classroom in a given year on both test and non-test academic outcomes in that year and in the following year.

Based on the student-level longitudinal data from Miami-Dade County Public Schools, authors found that while students taught by TFA teachers scored higher on math and ELA assessments in a given year, these test score gains faded out by the following year. In addition, students taught by TFA teachers were less likely to miss school due to absences and suspensions both in the year of exposure and the year following. The authors also pointed out that TFA teachers who had the greatest impact on test scores were not the same ones who had the greatest association with reduced absences and suspensions; this suggests that TFA teachers can impact students in different ways and paying attention to test scores alone can lead to neglect of other important effects of TFA.