An interesting piece of advertising was visible recently on Driscoll Green; a row of eleven yellow stick figures and one blue one were stuck in the grass next to a sign declaring that only 1 in 12 students from low-income backgrounds would graduate from a four-year college.

This ad for the program Teach For America is accompanied by application deadline reminders scrawled on whiteboards across campus. There is a much larger story behind these catchy ads, however. The program, which sends recent college graduates to teach in underserved public schools, is popular and well-regarded, yet it is extraordinarily detrimental to the public education system and smacks of paternalistic attitudes towards the poor.

While all of the applicants and eventual members of TFA are most certainly well-intentioned, their endeavor is ultimately harmful to public education. Many of those that apply and are accepted to the program do not have degrees in education and do not intend to pursue education as a career. Teachers in the program sign on for a two-year term of service.

For these people, TFA is simply a stepping-stone and experience to add to their career in a different field. But American children deserve more than a teacher that is not truly invested in education and is not dedicated to longer-term service.

The short terms of TFA teachers are detrimental to students as they are not conducive to truly high-quality education. In TFA, recent college graduates with no background in education are trained in what the TFA website calls “an intensive five-week training program” the summer before they begin teaching in some of the most underserved schools in the country. They then serve for just a two-year commitment, and most teachers will tell you that it takes a teacher at least that amount of time to really become comfortable in the classroom.

So while it is admirable that those in TFA are willing and eager to teach in these schools, they are not able to provide the highest quality education that would be the most beneficial to these underprivileged children.

One of the hidden but most serious problems with TFA is the paternalistic attitude it shows towards poor, often urban communities. Since, as TFA recently showed here at DU, only 1 in 12 children from low-income schools will obtain a bachelor’s degree, it is safe to infer that a majority of TFA teachers are from comparatively privileged backgrounds. TFA’s website claims that by applying, you can “make a difference in student’s lives and our country’s future.”

From my point of view, it’s awfully presumptuous to claim that someone from a privileged background can work in an underprivileged community for just two years and make a real impact in the community. Sure, some kids may receive a year of good education from a genuinely enthusiastic and intelligent teacher, but two years is hardly enough time to become truly comfortable in a community, let alone make lasting changes. TFA claims to make substantial changes through short-term service, without addressing the very real systemic problems that plague public schools.

Some will say that despite these shortcomings, TFA is still a valuable and beneficial program. It can be argued that TFA is better than nothing at all, that TFA teachers are better than no teachers. Some will also argue that TFA instills a love of learning in students and that some teachers will move past the two-year commitment to a career of teaching in public schools.

Unfortunately, it seems that TFA teachers make little impact on students, as they are only one in a long series of teachers that students will encounter, and teachers rarely commit to more than the two-year minimum of the program. Until reforms are made to TFA, the program will continue to do more harm than good. Changes ranging from a restriction of the program to education majors-only, a longer service term and longer training programs would vastly reduce the weaknesses in TFA.

Undoubtedly, TFA applicants and teachers have nothing but the best intentions when they make the decision to enter the program. They surely want nothing more than to improve children’s lives and provide them with top-notch education. At the moment however, the main beneficiaries of TFA are the teachers that can add the experience to their resumes.

To address the intrinsic problems in the public school system, students should instead consider working for campaigns to increase school funding and change the ways in which school performance is evaluated. Another possibility is for TFA to change the length of their service term. A five-year term would give TFA teachers enough time to become truly integrated in their communities and proficient in the classroom, while still being short enough to allow members to pursue other careers after their term is over.

I urge students considering TFA to think about what impact the program truly makes, and to consider other organizations in the public education reform movement, such as Colorado’s Yes on 66 campaign.