Closing the Classroom Door and the Achievement Gap

English-only language policy

For the past 10 years, Arizona has required English as the medium of instruction in kindergarten-through-twelfth-grade (K-12) classrooms. In 2000, Proposition 203 effected the near elimination of bilingual education and languages other than English in the classroom (Arizona Department of Education [ADE], 2000). To comply with the Lau v. Nichols ruling (United States Supreme Court, 1974), which requires schools to support second-language acquisition in classroom instruction, Arizona declared that ELLs would learn through Structured English Immersion (SEI). Proposition 203 defined SEI as “an English language acquisition process for young children in which nearly all classroom instruction is in English but with the curriculum and presentation designed for children who are learning the language” (ADE, 2000).

Due to the limited direction provided in the original language policy, Arizona district and school administrators’ interpretations of SEI varied. Differing appropriations of the language policy led to contrasting policy manifestations in the instruction of ELLs. When ELLs did not show improvement on standardized language assessments over multiple years, the state looked critically at the language policy. With the vague definition of SEI as teaching in English with scaffolds for ELLs, state officials determined that “few people seemed to know what SEI should look like” (Clark, 2009). Six years after the passage of Proposition 203, Arizona House Bill 2064 called for a more prescriptive approach to ELL instruction and gave responsibility to a task force to develop a cost-efficient SEI model to implement in Arizona schools (ADE, 2008). Attempting to standardize the English-only language policy and hold schools accountable for carrying out state-mandated English language instruction, the ADE released a more detailed description of SEI, paired with strict compliance expectations and consequences.

Currently armed with more structure since the inception of the original legislation, the English-only policy in Arizona schools is constructed in such a way to move students to English use as quickly as possible through 4 hr of daily skill-based language instruction (ADE, 2008). Schools implemented the 4-hr model, or English language development (ELD) approach to English-only instruction, at the beginning of the 2008-2009 school year. In the ELD model, students are grouped in classrooms based on language proficiency, which is determined and classified by the Arizona English Language Learner Assessment (AZELLA) standardized test. Teaching and learning does not include the typical subject-matter content areas, such as science or social studies; instead, the 4-hr ELD block is broken into strict time increments to cover five different English-language-specific content areas, including reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary, and conversation. The ELD directives provided a new context for teachers to implement the policy in the classroom.

Past studies have recognized teachers’ agency in language policy implementation and have pinpointed specific attributes that determine how monolingual language policy plays out in the classroom. Teachers’ bilingualism has affected policy implementation as bilingual teachers carried out English-only policy distinct from mainstream teachers and continued to ground instruction in bilingual pedagogy and advocacy for ELLs (Alamillo & Viramontes, 2000; Valdez, 2001). Stritikus and García (2000) observed implementation variance based on individual teachers’ characteristics and language ideologies; those teachers outwardly defiant to the English-only policy typically had bilingual certification, had strong ideological and political beliefs, and taught in a school context that continued to use bilingual programs and pedagogical approaches. According to Stritikus and colleagues, teachers differed in their negotiation of the demands of Proposition 227 based on their beliefs about students’ needs, ideological orientation to the students’ language and culture, and structure of policy implementation at their schools (Stritikus, 2002); furthermore, the sense of professional identity as bilingual teachers, personal histories, and entries into the field of teaching affected how teachers carried out language policies (Varghese & Stritikus, 2005).

Whereas previous research was largely conducted after the passage of Proposition 227 in California, the present study contributes to the literature by focusing on the teachers’ appropriation of the latest modification to English-only language policy in Arizona. Researchers of Arizona language policy implementation have documented programmatic issues of English-only policy (Combs, Evans, Fletcher, Parra, & Jimenez, 2005), differing ideologies and SEI interpretations of teacher trainers (Moore, 2008), and the effects of policy directives on university teacher education (de Jong, Arias, & Sanchez, 2010). In an investigation on Arizona language policy negotiation at one urban Arizona school, Heineke (2009) found that teachers unknowingly used deficit-based assumptions about ELLs inherent in the language policy to simplify the complexities of teaching in an ELD classroom; however, one teacher in the study, a TFA alumna, used an affinity identity (Gee, 2000) with the TFA organization to mediate her discourse and reject the language policy directives in her classroom. According to an affinity perspective, commitment to a social group is integral to identity and focuses on “distinctive social practices that create and sustain group affiliations” (Gee, 2000, p. 105). The TFA alumna used the mission and teaching framework of the organization to shape her appropriation of language policy.

Guided by Heineke’s findings (2009), we embarked on this study to determine the role of TFA’s organizational training in teachers’ appropriation of language policy in ELD classrooms. We looked at a specific subset of teachers—TFA alumni teachers in classrooms in the Phoenix metropolitan area—and investigated whether teachers’ appropriation of language policy reflected their professional background with the national organization and alternative-path-to-teaching certification program.

TFA teachers

TFA is a recognizable name on the contemporary stage of educational policy and reform. For the past 20 years, TFA has placed corps members in low-income classrooms across the United States. Founded in 1989 as a result of the undergraduate thesis of Princeton senior Wendy Kopp, TFA has grown into an educational enterprise that annually places more than 4,000 new teachers in 39 urban and rural regions across the country (TFA, 2010a). The growth of the organization has attracted the attention of leaders in the public and private sectors. Arne Duncan, President Barack Obama’s Secretary of Education, has expressed support and provided federal funding for TFA; the organization recently received a 50-million-dollar scale-up grant to grow the size of their teacher corps by 80% over the next 4 years (Education Week, 2010). Five other organizations founded or run by TFA alumni—Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP), The New Teacher Project, New Schools New Orleans, Idea Public Schools, and the School of One—also won grants through the same U.S. Department of Education’s Investing in Innovation competition (TFA, 2010e). In addition to federal funding, TFA received approximately 167 million dollars in contributions from the private sector in 2009 (TFA, 2009).

TFA’s mission as an organization is to close the achievement gap that exists along racial and socioeconomic lines by providing children in low-income communities the same educational prospects as children in privileged communities (TFA, 2010b). To reach this mission, TFA recruits top college graduates from diverse degree programs to teach for 2 years in low-income communities (TFA, 2010c). TFA emphasizes the flaws in the educational institution and acknowledges that low-income schools are unable to provide effective, well-rounded instruction and hold students to high expectations for academic achievement. Aspiring toward the goal that “one day, all children in this nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education” (TFA, 2010c), corps members are charged to reject the status quo of the current educational system, hold high expectations for academic achievement, and make significant gains with low-income students. The aims of TFA are such that, because of their first-hand experience of teaching in a low-income community, corps members will continue to work to end educational inequity through their future endeavors (TFA, 2010d).

TFA’s mission and theory of change guide the preparation of corps members. Through a 6-week summer training, followed by 2 years of ongoing professional development, TFA works to provide training and support to their teachers to be successful in low-income communities and schools. Grounded in research on teachers who have shown significant academic achievement with students in low-income settings, TFA’s teacher preparation revolves around the Teaching as Leadership (TAL) framework. The framework includes six pillars of sound instructional practices: (a) set big goals, (b) invest students in working hard to achieve those goals, (c) plan instruction purposefully, (d) execute instruction effectively, (e) continuously increase effectiveness, and (f) work relentlessly to close the achievement gap for students (Farr, 2009). Embedded throughout the preparation of corps members, the TAL framework outlines the organizational approach to what teachers can do in the classroom to make significant academic gains with students.

In addition to the presence of the organization on the national education scene, TFA is an integral constituent in Arizona education, specifically in the Phoenix metropolitan area. TFA has placed teachers from around the United States in the Phoenix area for the past 16 years, and the organization has made substantial ties to the educational community in Arizona over time, including strong partnerships with Arizona State University (ASU) and the ADE. Due to ASU’s partnership with TFA, philanthropist T. Denny Sanford recently gave ASU a gift of 18 million dollars to transform their traditional teacher preparation programs to align with the mission and approach of TFA (ASU, 2010). During the 2009-2010 school year when this study was conducted, 318 TFA corps members were teaching in classrooms throughout the Phoenix metro area. With alumni in classrooms, in administration, and on school boards throughout the state, TFA maintains a presence in educational policy and reform in Arizona.

Although TFA’s mission to close the achievement gap is admirable, scholars have both endorsed and condemned TFA as an approach to teacher preparation. As an alternative path to certification, TFA places teachers typically from noneducation backgrounds in high-needs schools after a 6-week initial training. As traditional routes to certification require 2- to 4-year preparation, the alternative and traditional tracts are ideologically at odds. Studies derived from private research organizations (e.g., Credo, Mathematica) demonstrated the comparable success of TFA teachers with raising students’ achievement levels in low-income schools (Decker, Mayer, & Glazerman, 2006; Raymond, Fletcher, & Luque, 2001). Nevertheless, university teacher education faculty members have investigated the drawbacks of TFA teachers (Darling-Hammond, Holtzman, Gatlin, & Heilig, 2005; Laczko-Kerr & Berliner, 2002), such as the lack of extensive teacher preparation, the limited 2-year time commitment, and the inconsistent impact on student achievement. In a recent literature review on TFA, Heilig and Jez (2010) explained the seemingly contradictory research findings due to the varying experience levels of TFA teachers and the group of teachers with whom they are compared. The debate continues, as proponents argue that TFA provides outstanding recent college graduates who will set high expectations and go beyond traditional expectations, whereas opponents posit that TFA teachers’ student achievement results are mixed and inconsistent.

Few studies have focused on the trajectory and impact of TFA teachers after their 2-year commitment to the organization; however, TFA’s mission and theory of change extends past the 2 years that corps members must spend in the classroom. Currently, TFA has 17,000 alumni working in education, law, government, business, and other sectors to influence educational inequity (TFA, 2010d). McAdam and Brandt (2009) investigated how participation in TFA affected corps members’ subsequent civic service commitments, concluding, “TFA has made good on its promise to build a national alumni community oriented to the issue of educational equality” (p. 965). Nevertheless, no direct correlation emerged between TFA and the participants’ future civic endeavors as “virtually all applicants come to TFA attitudinally disposed to service and with extensive histories of prior service” (p. 966). Similarly, Heineke (2009) found that the TFA alumna in her study did enter TFA as a social advocate; however, affiliation and indoctrination into the organization led to the affinity identity that shaped her discourse and practices in the ELD classroom.

Unlike much of the past research on TFA, with this manuscript, we do not aim to determine the efficacy of TFA teachers in comparison with teachers from traditional paths to certification. Instead, we investigated how TFA alumni teachers describe their daily appropriation of state-mandated language policy in their individual classrooms.

Sample and participants

As we were primarily interested in a sample of TFA alumni in ELD classrooms (i.e., teaching all ELLs under the mandates of Arizona’s English-only language policy), we sent out a screener survey to locate a sample of participants. Using contact information from the TFA Phoenix alumni database, we sent a brief survey to 60 TFA alumni teaching in Arizona classrooms via electronic mail. The survey asked the following questions: (a) Are you teaching in the Phoenix area? (b) Are you teaching in an ELD classroom? (c) Would you like to participate in this study? (d) What is the best way to contact you to set up an interview? Twenty-five teachers responded to the survey, 13 teachers were willing to participate, 10 of those teachers met the criteria, and 8 of those teachers participated in the study. Table 1 contains demographic and teacher characteristic information regarding the participating teachers. The sample of participants provided us with an array of kindergarten through eighth-grade (K-8) classroom teachers around the Phoenix metropolitan area to conduct our study of language policy appropriation in the ELD classroom.

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Table 1.

Teach for America Alumni Study Participants.

Participant pseudonym	TFA corps	Years teaching	ELD placement	School location	Ethnicity & gender
Amalia	Phoenix, 2005	5	Grade 1	Central Phoenix	Biracial female
Andy	Phoenix, 2007	3	Grades 6, 7, 8	West Phoenix	White male
Ashley	Houston, 2006	4	Grade 3	Central Phoenix	White female
Jada	Phoenix, 2007	3	Kindergarten	South Phoenix	White female
Kara	Phoenix, 2003	3	Grade 1	South Phoenix	White female
Rachel	Phoenix, 2003	7	Grade 3	Central Phoenix	White female
Sarah	Phoenix, 2006	4	Grades 4, 5	West Phoenix metro	White female
Stefanie	Phoenix, 2006	4	Grades 6, 7, 8	West Phoenix metro	White female

Note. ELD = English language development; TFA = Teach for America.

Data collection

Conducted before or after school hours in the teachers’ classrooms, the authors interviewed each participant for approximately 60 min, using a predetermined interview protocol. The interview items focused on teachers’ (a) personal and professional backgrounds and experiences, (b) conceptual understandings of culture, language, and learning, (c) descriptions of instruction and assessment in the ELD classroom, (d) perceptions of the social and political realities that affect their teaching, and (e) observations on the realities of ELLs inside and outside of the classroom. After conducting a pilot interview with one TFA alumnus, we reflected on the original protocol and refined the interview questions. We changed questions that were unclear, redundant, or did not yield data to speak to the research questions. The complete interview schedule is available by request from the first author. We recorded the interviews on digital voice recorders, archived the audio files, and transcribed the audio into text.

Data analysis

Using a qualitative framework (Erickson, 1986), both authors separately analyzed and coded the data for themes. After meeting, sharing, and triangulating our separate thematic analyses, we used Nudist Vivo 8.0 qualitative research software (Richards, 2002) to conduct a detailed discourse analysis of the data (Gee, 2005). After repeated exposure to both the transcribed and audiorecorded data, we worked together to pull out the patterns of key words and phrases to understand the situated meanings teachers used to describe and make sense of their practice and policy implementation. We used TFA’s organizational literature (Farr, 2009) and websites (TFA, 2010a, 2010b, 2010c, 2010d) to connect teachers’ micro-level discourse with the macro-level discourse of the organization. We then reorganized the coded data to speak to the research questions. With this master list of codes, we reviewed the total transcripts multiple times to ensure valid and reliable findings to answer the research questions.

Authors’ roles and biases

Our professional backgrounds contributed to our interest in carrying out this study on TFA alumni teachers and Arizona language policy. Both authors entered Arizona elementary classrooms shortly after the passing of Proposition 203 as TFA corps members. As former urban classroom teachers who disagree with the English-only language policy, we recognize how policy appropriation regularly occurs for teachers to meet the needs of students in the classroom. As TFA alumni, we are acquainted with the organizational discourse used in TFA teacher preparation. By recognizing and reflecting on these possible biases throughout the study, we engaged in dialogue and writing throughout the data collection and analysis. In addition, we enlisted the help of university scholars without TFA or Arizona teaching backgrounds to analyze the data and triangulate findings.

The theory of change in low-income schools: Teachers’ evaluation of language policy

Teachers’ discourse reflected the unguarded evaluation of the language policy for ELLs. The teachers criticized the policy that resulted in the lack of mixed grouping of ELLs with English speakers, the teacher as the only model of a fluent English speaker in the classroom, the stringent blocks of time for teaching English skills that did not match how students learn, and the lack of content-area instruction. The TFA teachers conveyed more than their disapproval of the ineffective practical implications, going on to challenge the broader ideological implications of the language policy to the educational inequity that exists for ELLs in U.S. schools.

Teachers expressed disdain for the segregation inherent in the language policy. Per the directives of the policy, administrators placed students in classrooms as a function of their AZELLA score; therefore, students labeled ELLs were in separate classrooms from native and proficient English speakers. On a pedagogical level, the segregation resulted in challenges of exposing students to models of fluent English speakers and strategic grouping of students with proficient language speakers. On an ideological level, teachers expressed that the language policy marginalized ELLs and perpetuated educational inequity in Arizona schools. Due to the separation of ELLs from mainstream students, teachers perceived an unjust divide between students. Amalia explained the “outright segregation” that she witnessed while children lined up, single file, at a suburban school while doing an internship for her administrator’s certificate: “You’ve got three white lines and one brown line. It’s awful to see.” With the unmistakable racial divide between students in ELD and mainstream classrooms, the class lines on the playground provided a visual representation of the achievement gap that TFA uses to ground their mission and theory of change.

TFA alumni teachers also expressed disdain for the unequal educational outcomes between ELLs and mainstream students. The language policy called for 4 hr of skill-based English instruction, which often led to a lack of content-area teaching in the classroom. On a pedagogical level, the language policy proved challenging to teachers who identified content areas like science, mathematics, and social studies as integral to a child’s well-rounded education. In addition, teachers explained that language learning required constant integration of listening, speaking, reading, and writing, not 60-min segments of grammar, vocabulary, reading, and writing. The TFA alumni teachers questioned the long-term implications of skill-based English instruction over the teaching of content. In her description of the “stupid ELL policy,” Jada asserted,

Basically, what we’re telling our kids is, “It’s more important for you to learn English than to learn content.” And the message that sends is, “You’re going to be more effective working at McDonald’s if you can speak English.” When we’re telling kids it’s okay for them to not master content, that implies that we’re not actually expecting them to, down the road, be in a profession where they’re using that kind of content. That’s something that infuriates me.

For Jada, the language policy set students up for failure long after they left her kindergarten classroom. Her discourse reflected the TFA mindset that current educational policy (i.e., in this case, the language policy which holds that fluency in English is a prerequisite to receive content instruction) traps students in the cycle of poverty and limits their possibilities for academic achievement and success.

Grounded in TFA’s theory of change, the teachers’ ideologies about education conflicted with those inherent in the educational policy (Datnow et al., 2002), which led them to challenge various pedagogical mandates of the language policy. The TFA approach is grounded in the understanding that “too many children in low-income communities are trapped in a cycle of poverty and educational inequity. Prevailing beliefs haven’t led to the policies and investments necessary to break this cycle” (TFA, 2010b). In explanations for why the achievement gap exists, writers with TFA have asserted that various challenges in low-income communities “put added pressure on schools that generally don’t have the systems, capacity, and resources to compensate” (TFA, 2010d). With this understanding, many TFA corps members enter their schools believing that current educational policies are flawed and that not enough is being done to compensate for the additional challenges their students bring to school. This critical view often extends beyond their schools and is inclusive of the larger educational system.

Individual locus of control in the classroom: Teachers’ appropriation of language policies

As TFA alumni teachers disagreed with the language policy, the study participants demonstrated agency, their capacity to take action and exercise power, by rejecting the status quo and responding in their own ways to the policy directives. When asked to describe what the ELD 4-hr block looked like in her classroom, Stefanie laughed and responded, “On paper, or how it really is?” Jada responded with a more serious tone and stated, “I don’t teach ELD the way the state mandates that I do because I disagree with much of the model that they’re trying to enforce.” Building on the criticisms of the language policy, teachers appropriated the policy to align with their theories and ideas about effective instruction. We found three themes of language policy appropriation in teachers’ discourse: advancement of policy efforts, symbolic display of policy directives, and covert resistance to policy mandates (Datnow et al., 2002).

Andy and Stefanie displayed relative alignment with the language policy directives, as they carried out skill-based English instruction. As middle school teachers, they had unique teaching contexts in comparison with the other elementary teachers in the study. With students spanning sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade levels, Andy and Stefanie each taught one class period of the larger 4-hr ELD block. For example, Andy taught the required time increments of vocabulary and grammar, whereas other teachers taught reading, writing, and conversation. Attempting to convey the complexities of teaching middle school ELD, Stefanie explained, “What’s tricky about ELD is that I’m trying to teach the grade-level content for three different grade levels and teach basic reading skills.” While teaching students who will soon go to high school, where teachers believe the ELL label makes graduation nearly impossible, the middle school teachers worked with, according to Andy, “the kids that are slipping through the gap,” and emphasized the importance of setting individualized language goals and investing students in learning English quickly to test out of the ELD tract. With multiple structures in place at the school level, the middle school teachers responded to the policy directives by advancing reform efforts (Datnow et al., 2002) while also setting big goals and investing students in learning English (Farr, 2009).

Four elementary teachers—Amalia, Ashley, Rachel, and Kara—maintained the appearance of compliance with the state-mandated structures in their appropriation of language policy. Recognizing the theoretical and practical shortcomings of the policy that included stringent blocks of time for teaching English skills (e.g., 60 min of grammar) and excluded content-area instruction (e.g., science), teachers integrated language and content throughout the school day.

Ashley explained, “I am able to spend a little bit more time on math because we’re calling it vocabulary.” Still providing 4 hr of English language and literacy instruction, teachers “tweaked a few things” to make the language policy more effective for students. Rachel explained her time allotments. “Reading is supposed to be an hour, but it’s an hour and a half. Grammar is supposed to be an hour, but it’s a half an hour because I needed more time for guided reading.” The participants reported that in the elementary classroom where reading is a primary focus of instruction, the 1-hr time constraint was unrealistic to support students’ reading growth. Despite their practices in the classroom, teachers reported to administrative personnel their full compliance to language policy; participants described planning instruction purposefully (Farr, 2009)—writing one set of lesson plans to reflect the required minutes, adhering to policy strictly, and another set of lesson plans for the integrated instruction carried out in the classroom. These teachers responded to the language policy directives by symbolically displaying the mandates (Datnow et al., 2002).

Two elementary teachers, Jada and Sarah, abandoned the policy directives when the door to their classrooms closed. Both teachers described their theory of learning as “constructivist” and “student centered” and their theory of learning language as “holistic” and “bilingual.” With a strong theoretical stance on how students learn, Jada and Sarah refused to teach in a contradictory manner. The teachers outlined their perspectives of the shortcomings of both the ELD approach and the district-mandated literacy curriculums and then explained how they went about teaching to match both their theoretical perspectives and the needs of the students in their classrooms. In Sarah’s classroom, quality children’s literature provided students with an individualized, integrated experience.

With this workshop model, one of the focuses was really getting students to be able to pick books that are at their [reading] level so they have that knowledge [to comprehend the text], but they have control over what books they’re reading. Then I will work with them on whatever [reading] strategy we’re working on with the book that they’ve chosen.

Similarly, Jada fostered learning through readers’ and writers’ workshop, as she supported students to become “autonomous learners.” Rather than adhere to the rigid blocks of discrete language skills, Jada and Sarah used constructivist approaches to teach language and literacy.

Bilingual Spanish speakers with extensive experiences abroad in Latin America, Jada and Sarah emphasized the importance of bilingualism and biliteracy for students. Sarah called the language policy “xenophobic and unnecessary.” Jada assert her viewpoint this way:

When we tell them [students] you can’t speak Spanish, that’s something that’s so inherent to themselves. And I think even in my kindergarteners, I don’t think they would understand that. I think if I said, “You’re not allowed to speak Spanish in the classroom.” I just see them getting frowny and being hurt . . . . It’s a terrible message to send. And all this macro talk of being global citizens and all that; we’re doing nothing for that when we tell them you can only speak English in the classroom.

Ideologically opposed to English-only language policy, both teachers described using Spanish in the classroom to scaffold instruction as well as working relentlessly to fund and create bilingual classroom libraries to foster biliteracy at home. Jada and Sarah also used their own experiences as language learners to design classroom environments that met their ideological perspectives. Reflecting on her time abroad in Chile, Jada connected with classroom practice and described students’ need to engage in “authentic experiences” and “real conversations and interactions.” Using theories of learning, experiences teaching children, and personal past experiences, Jada and Sarah covertly rejected language policy directives (Datnow et al., 2002) behind closed classroom doors.

Beyond the assessment of where the language policy fell short, teachers’ discourse revealed how they used agency to respond to policy directives. Perceiving flaws in the educational system, TFA teachers are trained to reject the status quo in low-income schools and focus on their internal locus of control, which refers to what they can actively change within the four walls of the classroom. TFA’s initial preparation and ongoing professional development encourages teachers to “identify and relentlessly attack the problems that are within their control and worth solving, to avoid obsessing about the ones that are not, and to conceive of setbacks as opportunities for personal learning” (Farr, 2009, p. 10). Although all teachers’ discourse reflected their TFA preparation (Farr, 2009), the study participants attacked the language policy problems in different manners. Teachers’ appropriation of language policy varied dependent on the schools’ policy context (Stritikus, 2002; Stritikus & García, 2000) and teachers’ bilingualism (Alamillo & Viramontes, 2000; Valdez, 2001; Varghese & Stritikus, 2005). Nevertheless, all teachers demonstrated their internal locus of control in the appropriation of language policy.

The mission for broader educational change: Teachers’ proposed solutions to language policy issues

In addition to the critiques and varying appropriations of language policy, TFA alumni asserted the integral role of teachers in the plight to reform education for ELLs. As agentive actors engaged in the language policy process, teachers conceptualized the classroom teacher as integral to the academic achievement of ELLs. Ashley explained, “The teacher in the classroom is probably the most important factor in the students’ success. So I think [the solution lies in] making sure that the teachers of ELLs in those classrooms know how to teach them.” The teachers recognized the need to have specific pedagogical knowledge to effectively teach ELLs.

Study participants specifically referenced the interaction between teachers and policy when framing their solutions to the problems with Arizona language policy. Using the TAL framework component of continuously increasing effectiveness (Farr, 2009), Jada recognized the importance of sustained professional development specifically embedded in the contemporary language policy context. She stated, “My goals as an ELD teacher [are] to definitely continue my development and continue to raise my awareness of what I can do. Again, this new role is new for everybody with how recent these state mandates have been.” Besides specific pedagogical knowledge, Jada asserted that teachers must be socially aware to teach effectively within the language policy context. Kara explained that teachers, not state officials and legislators, should determine language policy in classrooms: “They [legislators] pass laws that are supposed to be teacher-proof. Rather, if we just had really quality teachers teaching, then you wouldn’t need to worry about that. You could train and have teachers who could do that [meet ELLs’ needs] effectively.” The discourse of the TFA alumni teachers revealed the opinion that educational inequity for ELLs could be solved by placing teachers with sound preparation and social awareness in classrooms.

Although many described their first responsibility as changing what was in their locus of control, teachers’ discourse reflected the importance of focusing on what Kara described as the “larger issue of staffing underresourced schools with quality teachers.” TFA believes that the achievement gap must be addressed through sustained leadership in education and through changing the prevailing ideology around educational inequity (TFA, 2010d). As corps members, the study participants had been challenged by TFA to work relentlessly to show significant academic gains with students. As alumni, teachers maintained an understanding of the problem of educational inequity and aspired to be a part of the solution.

Although all participants recognized the central role of the teacher in educational reform, they differed in their viewpoints on who should be in the classroom with ELLs—traditionally or alternatively certified teachers. Still connected to the organization’s movement for educational change, some alumni saw TFA as an integral part of the solution. Stefanie called for placement of TFA corps members in ELD classrooms:

If you could have corps members team-teach, even team-teach a larger or multigrade-level class, that that would be an exceptional model. If you could have two [TFA] teachers working together and planning together in a self-contained setting . . . Then you bring all of the power of Teach for America in terms of vision and structure, and also give them enough support to make it through a year as an ELD teacher.

In complete contradiction to the sentiments of Stefanie who saw the “vision and structure” of TFA as the answer, Kara called on traditional teachers to solve the educational inequity in low-income schools. Rather than rely on alternatively certified teachers who may only stay in the classroom for a few years, her solution relied on teachers who would remain in the classroom for the long run:

I think Teach for America is great, but I think that to really staff these [low-income] schools with people who are going to stay for a long time and make change. You’ve got to get the [traditional] teacher candidates because that’s who wants to be here, but you’ve also got to empower them to believe that they can be successful here.

Kara’s discourse reflected a common critique of TFA—that the 2-year commitment is a deficit to the mission of the organization. Kara joined TFA to make teaching her lifelong career, which affected her opinion on the limited impact of the organization on low-income schools when teachers only spend 2 years in the classroom.

Overall, the data demonstrated that TFA alumni teachers recognized their active role in the policy process. They critiqued the shortcomings of the language policy and, in turn, responded to policy directives in their own ways in the classroom. Embedded in TFA’s mission and theory of change, the teachers recognized the flawed system and rejected the status quo to provide their own approach to the instruction of ELLs.