School district obligated to pay teacher recruiting fees

In a year when the Clark County School District budgeted for a $140 million shortfall and contemplated teacher layoffs, it might seem odd that it spent $200,000 to recruit and retain 80 teachers with one year or less of experience.

But district officials have a contract they must honor with Teach For America, a non­profit organization that recruits outstanding college graduates who are not professionally licensed for education.

For the Teach For America recruits who started in Clark County in 2009-2010, the average college grade point average was 3.6. Only one of those 36 recruits did not need to go through an alternative licensure program. Teach For America provided the district with 44 recruits for 2010-11.

As part of the contract, the district pays Teach For America $2,500 a teacher for each year of the teacher's two-year commitment. Because Teach For America has recruited 354 teachers for the district since 2004, the district will have paid the nonprofit about $1.8 million through the 2011-12 school year.

Teach For America officials said the fees are reasonable considering that the organization spends about $40,000 to recruit and train each teacher for the classroom.

The fee charged to Clark County is about average. The New York City Department of Education pays $3,000 annually per recruit to Teach for America. School districts in the Mississippi Delta spend about $2,000 per recruit, according to Teach For America.

Allison Serafin, executive director of Teach For America in the Las Vegas Valley, said the organization is living up to its mission of bringing top talent to schools with high needs.

"On average, research indicates that our corps members are more effective than other new teachers, and in some cases, they're also more effective than more experienced teachers," Serafin said. "Also, in an independent survey last year of principals who employ Teach For America teachers, 94 percent reported that corps members have made a positive impact in their schools."

A recent national study produced mixed findings. It was performed by Assistant Professor of Education Policy Julian Vasquez Heilig of the University of Texas, Austin, and Assistant Professor of Public Policy Su Jin Jez of California State University, Sacramento.

According to a summary from the Education Policy Research Unit at Arizona State University, the researchers found that Teach For America teachers "are elite college graduates, but they receive a much shorter training process than conventional teacher education programs. They teach in hard-to-staff schools, but they generally do so for only two years. So one would expect that these TFA teachers would show outcomes better than other minimally trained beginning teachers but worse than fully trained teachers or experienced teachers. In fact, the research shows exactly these results."

The study found that more than half Teach For America teachers leave their placements after two years and 80 percent leave after three years.

Clark County has done better than that. As of last year, 59 percent of the district's Teach For America teachers who started in 2007 were still with the system.

Jane Kier, coordinator of student teaching for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said the return on the investment in Teach For America depends on "how long they're staying."

"If they're short-timers, then you have the issue, 'What are we preparing you for?' If they stay permanently, then we've probably gained some talented people and it's worth it," Kier said.

Teach For America came to Clark County when the population was booming and the district was desperate to fill jobs.

This year, 27 of the 44 new recruits are elementary school teachers, an area where the district has no shortage of applicants.

None of the 80 Teach For America corps members hired in the last two school years are teaching high school mathematics, which the district has deemed a "critical needs" area.

"We are encouraging Teach for America to bring more math teachers as we have enough elementary classroom teachers," said Superintendent Walt Rulffes.

Contact reporter James Haug at jhaug@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4686.