CHARLESTON, SC (WCSC) – An organization that has received millions of dollars in taxpayer funds to recruit teachers in South Carolina is receiving criticism from the state treasurer.
Curtis Loftis says Teach For America is “financial nonsense” for taxpayers in the state of Palmetto, citing a new report from the Office of the Inspector General of South Carolina that says the group has received $ 23 million in state funding since 2012.
TFA is a national organization that describes itself as recruiting “outstanding and diverse leaders at the start of their careers and asks[ing] to make a commitment that begins with two years of teaching in a public school, in partnership with children and families most affected by educational inequality. “
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“When this program started, Teach for America was supposed to be self-financing,” said Loftis. “They would raise their own money. That changed quickly. “
Loftis says TFA’s operations in South Carolina ended up receiving not only funds from the state government, but also from individual school districts. The report lists that partner school districts sent $ 402,500 to TFA in fiscal year 2019-20.
“School districts didn’t know that we were paying and we didn’t know that school districts were paying,” he explained.
The OIG report said, for example, that a district official “found this news disturbing as a taxpayer and added that it was ‘almost like paying double'”
The minutes of a 2010 State Education Council meeting indicated that “a total of $ 3.6 million in private financing will be sought to offset the costs of recruiting, training and supporting members of the corps in South Carolina” and that a appointed by the council thought at the time that TFA had “the potential to transform our rural districts”.
However, the report shows that, during the past academic year, TFA recruited far fewer teachers than the Department of Education’s Alternative Educator Certification Program itself, which allows graduates to teach in classrooms while completing an education program. three-year teaching certification.
The $ 315,000 PACE initiative issued 1,147 certificates, costing the state about $ 274 per teacher, while TFA issued 112 certificates, costing more than $ 26,000 per teacher, according to the report.
“The state is paying 100 times more for the TFA to recruit a teacher than for the state to recruit a teacher,” said Loftis. “This is a time when the lack of teachers is paralyzing the state. Therefore, we have to spend our money wisely. “
The report is launched amid ongoing concerns over the shortage of teachers in South Carolina. State Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman said in December 2020 that the COVID-19 pandemic has only “intensified the teacher crisis”.
This is one of the reasons why alternative programs like PACE are essential to help fill places in schools, explained the Director of Educator Services, Mary Hipp, from the SC Department of Education.
“They have some real business experience,” she said. “It is a challenging and rigorous process. You are learning to teach while you are teaching. It is not for the faint of heart. “
When asked how PACE differs from programs like Teach for America, Hipp told Live 5 Investigates that PACE teachers are trying to become full-time educators. Many already live in the communities where they teach, she said, so they can invest more to stay in the long run.
“TFA works a little differently, as these individuals are usually recruited for two years,” said Hipp, adding that in South Carolina, “they have the option of staying more than two years … but there is no requirement to do it ”.
TFA has a regional office near Hampton Park in Charleston, but the organization is based in New York. The report says that in the 2019-20 fiscal year, the TFA program in South Carolina paid $ 851,000 in fees to the New York office.
The executive director of TFA in South Carolina explained that these fees, which totaled 20 percent of total spending for the year, “went to support services, including human resources, legal support, technical support, recruitment / marketing and finance.”
Live 5 Investigates requested an interview with TFA, but the organization instead sent a statement reading in part that “we appreciate a rigorous evaluation of our program and we appreciate the contributions that will help us to continuously improve opportunities and results for our students. as we continue our commitment to this critical work. “
TFA also says that its teachers in South Carolina have served more than 55,000 students in more than 2,200 classrooms since 2011.
However, Loftis believes that the group’s time in Palmetto state needs to come to an end.
“If you promise us X, you better give us X, or you will have to pay a fine,” said Loftis.
The following is a statement from Teach for America South Carolina.
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