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Enlarge By Jack Gruber, USA TODAY Teach for America alumni Jace Goodier, 24, left, and Nathan Carlberg teach in Baltimore, where about 25% of new teachers this fall will be from TFA. BALTIMORE  In 2007, fresh out of the University of Massachusetts Amherst , Chris Turk snagged a coveted spot with the elite Teach For America program, landing here at Cherry Hill Elementary/Middle School in a blue-collar neighborhood at the city's southern tip. For the past two years, he has taught middle-school social studies. One recent afternoon, during a five-week "life skills" summer-school course, Turk tells his five students that their final project, a movie about what they've learned, has a blockbuster budget: $70. "We can go big here," he says. "We can go grand." He might as well be talking about the high-profile program that brought him here. Despite a lingering recession, state budget crises and widespread teacher hiring slowdowns, Teach For America (TFA) has grown steadily, delighting supporters and giving critics a bad case of heartburn as it expands to new cities and builds a formidable alumni base of young people willing to teach for two years in some of the USA's toughest public schools. Baltimore Superintendent Andres Alonso — who says he has seen "fewer retirements, fewer resignations and just greater stability in terms of our teaching ranks," much of it because of a reluctance to leave a secure job in a recession — has doubled the number of TFA teachers, known as "corps members," in city schools over the past two years. Next week, more than 160 new TFAers arrive in Baltimore, up from 80 in 2007. They'll make up about one in four new hires. Nationwide, about 7,300 young people are expected to teach under TFA's banner, up from 6,200 last year. TFA is expanding from 29 regions to 35, including Dallas, Boston and Minneapolis-St. Paul. But critics say the growth in many cities is coming at the expense of experienced teachers who are losing their jobs — in some cases, they say, to make room for TFA, which brings in teachers at beginners' salary levels and underwrites training. FULL COVERAGE: Latest news, in-depth reports at schools.usatoday.com TWITTER: Follow reporter Greg Toppo @gtoppo In Boston, TFA corps members replaced 20 pink-slipped teachers, says Boston Teachers Union President Richard Stutman. "These are people who have been trained, who are experienced and who have good evaluations, and are being replaced by brand-new employees." This month, he met with about 18 other local union presidents, all of whom said they'd seen teachers laid off to make room for TFA members. "I don't think you'll find a city that isn't laying off people to accommodate Teach For America," he says. In March, Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C., schools Superintendent Peter Gorman told board members he was laying off hundreds of teachers but sparing 100 TFAers because the district "made a commitment to this program." Gorman noted that TFA teachers "are placed at schools with high populations of underprivileged students where the placement of personnel has proven to be difficult." TFA spokeswoman Kerci Marcello Stroud says it's a mistaken notion that corps members are displacing experienced teachers. "In every region where we send teachers, we're just one source," she says. Once they land, corps members must interview for jobs just like everyone else. Tapping passionate graduates Supporters see TFA's rise as a boon for low-income students. Founded in 1990 by Princeton University senior Wendy Kopp as part of her undergraduate thesis, it was her bid to "mobilize some of the most passionate, dedicated members of my generation to change the fact that where a child is born in the United States does a great deal to determine his or her chances in life." TFA began with 500 teachers culled from 2,500 applicants. This year it received 35,000, including applications from 11% of seniors at Ivy League schools. How better to get earnest, whip-smart young people into the classroom to improve the education of low-income students? Not so fast, says John Wilson, executive director of the National Education Association, the USA's largest teachers union. Last May, he sent a memo saying union leaders were "beginning to see school systems lay off teachers and then hire TFA college grads due to a contract they signed." Wilson says TFA hurts children by bringing "the least-prepared and the least-experienced teachers" into low-income schools and making them "the teacher of record." TFA, he says, has "done a marvelous job of marketing their program and branding their program — you cannot take away from their business model. But what they're doing to poor children is malpractice." Only 29% still teaching Detroit teachers union President Keith Johnson also put it bluntly last April, calling TFAers "educational mercenaries" who "ride in on their white horses and for two years share the virtue of their knowledge as a pit stop on their way to becoming corporate executives." Actually, only 4% eventually go into business, according to a 2008 survey. About two-thirds remain in education — mostly in administrative or political jobs or working with policy or charitable groups — though overall only 29% of alumni are still in the classroom. That's a bit lower than the USA's overall teaching force, about one-third of whom quit within the first few years. By the end of five years, recent research shows, nearly half of new teachers leave the profession, though overall about 40% of teachers' college graduates never enter the classroom — period. TFA says its high attrition rate may be misleading, since only about one alumnus in 10 would have considered education without that two-year teaching stint. In Baltimore, 365 alumni call the city home, says Omari Todd, TFA-Baltimore's executive director; of those, 72% are still in education. They include 11 school principals and Alonso's deputy chief of staff. Nationwide, TFA boasts 293 principals and five superintendents, including Washington, D.C., Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and the founders of the KIPP charter schools. TFA also says more than 10% of D.C. public schools are run by its alumni. But critics such as Wilson — as well as a few alumni — have long pointed out that TFA seems more interested in becoming a political force than providing teaching ground troops. Its growth plan, posted online, foresees 800 alumni as principals and 100 as elected officials by 2010; but nowhere does the word "teaching" appear. Todd says he doesn't see a problem. "We need people in all sectors if we're going to close the achievement gap." A political agenda as well TFA alumni Nathan Carlberg, who for two years has taught alongside Turk at Cherry Hill, agrees. He says TFA's push "into the political side of education" could make a huge difference. "Once we get people who have experienced and gone through TFA as union heads and secretaries of education and presidents of school boards," Carlberg says, "then we will see the large systemic change that is needed in this system." On its website, TFA prominently displays research on its effectiveness — and faithfully includes unflattering findings. Among the most favorable: a 2004 study by Mathematica Policy Research. It found that TFAers blow away their peers when it comes to attending a "most, highly or very competitive" college: 70% vs. fewer than 4% for all others. But the study shows "only slight gains in math for (students of) corps members and none for reading," notes researcher Megan Hopkins, a TFA alumna and doctoral student at the University of California-Los Angeles. She says her TFA experience and corps members' "uneven" achievement overall suggest that they "do not receive enough training to be effective. Of course, TFA would argue that they provide excellent training and mentorship after teachers enter the classroom. My own experience says otherwise, although TFA is constantly working to improve itself." Turk, the Baltimore teacher, says TFA's training effort is "genuine" but could be improved. "I think that there is no level of training you can receive, whether it's Teach For America or any non-profit organization, that's going to adequately prepare you for a low-income public school system," he says. Turnover in low-income areas Like 70% of corps members, Turk is white. He says he'd add a crash course, tailored to each region, on race relations. "I think a lot of corps members are unaware of those things — I'm still figuring it out." After two years in the classroom (and a planned third this fall), he's training to be a principal — but not until he masters teaching. He says the charge that TFAers perpetuate chronic turnover in low-income schools is "a fair criticism." But Alonso, the Baltimore superintendent, says schools can't expect all — or even most — young teachers to devote decades to a teaching career anymore. "Like all professions, my sense is that we're in a different place than 30, 40 years ago, and young people are trying for the right fit," he says. 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