continuously analyzed virtually every aspect of the enterprise in order to reach those goals.
Today, data analysis drives the organizationâs relentless pursuit of results. Meticulous records of all facets of the program and organization are stored and analyzed. The data collection begins in the recruiting process, when all campus interactionsâe-mails, coffees, info sessions, canvassingâare fed into a sales-force software called Sales Logix. The collection runs through selection, training, and on-the-job performance. With a new emphasis on maintaining and enriching alumni records and relations, it basically never ends.
The analysis of the data it collects helps TFA track its own performance, make predictions during the selection process, and increase teacher effectiveness. It also allows TFA to identify good candidates for other jobs within the organization once CMs have completed their time in the classroom. Though in recent years TFA has increasingly gone outside the organization to fill positions in its top team (only 35 percent of its senior operating team are alums), 60 percent of its eight-hundred-member staff come from its own rank and file. TFA is so good at spotting talent that hot companies like Google and JPMorgan have chosen not to compete with it for new hires; in 2006 they both inked recruitment partnership deals with the organization. So, when looking to hire staffers to support the mission, TFA looks first to its own.
Thatâs how Samir Bolar came to be one of six TFA program directors assigned to the Los Angeles region in 2005. The role of PD was to be part mentor, part nanny, part boss to the corps memberâthe human face of the TFA juggernaut. PDs were expected to ensure that CMs got the job doneâthat they set high student goals that resulted in significant student achievement. Each PD was assigned to monitor up to fifty CMs through four rounds of classroom observations and subsequent follow-up meetings over the course of the school year. Among Samirâs charges were the twenty-two Teach For America CMs working at Locke High School in 2005.
Samir was a star TFA alum from the 2002 corps. He had joined TFA fresh out of the University of Texas at Austin with a double major in chemical engineering and English (he picked chemical engineering because it was the most challenging major he could find). At the end of his two years at Willowbrook Middle School in Compton, an incorporated inner-city community in South Los Angeles, his students earned the highest scores for eighth-grade algebra in the district. Whatâs more, on the strength of their performance, the schoolâs overall growth target actually quadrupled. Though TFA had set goals for significant gains, it had no systematic means of measurement in place during the 2002â2003 school year. But Samir did. He created a student tracking system on an Excel spreadsheet, adopted the TFA goal of 80 percent mastery for his kids, and charted their progress from day one. By any measure, Samir Bolar met the bar for excellence in teaching.
Willowbrook begged him to stay on, but, like many in TFA, he had bigger plans. At first he wanted to be a school principal, but a summer internship at the educational arm of the L.A.-based Broad Foundation opened his eyes to the breadth and depth of the growing educational reform movement. By summerâs end, his new ambition was to open a series of technology-based charter schools. In order to do so, he thought he needed more critical-thinking and problem-solving skills. So he took a job in the private sector, working with Fortune 500 companies on IT issues.
His stint on the outside was short and unfulfilling. When TFA approached him about becoming a PD in mid-2005, he felt honored. It had never occurred to him that he might be PD materialâhe wasnât even sure how great a teacher he was, compared with other CMs. That kind of information was never shared; TFA considered humility to
Today, data analysis drives the organizationâs relentless pursuit of results. Meticulous records of all facets of the program and organization are stored and analyzed. The data collection begins in the recruiting process, when all campus interactionsâe-mails, coffees, info sessions, canvassingâare fed into a sales-force software called Sales Logix. The collection runs through selection, training, and on-the-job performance. With a new emphasis on maintaining and enriching alumni records and relations, it basically never ends.
The analysis of the data it collects helps TFA track its own performance, make predictions during the selection process, and increase teacher effectiveness. It also allows TFA to identify good candidates for other jobs within the organization once CMs have completed their time in the classroom. Though in recent years TFA has increasingly gone outside the organization to fill positions in its top team (only 35 percent of its senior operating team are alums), 60 percent of its eight-hundred-member staff come from its own rank and file. TFA is so good at spotting talent that hot companies like Google and JPMorgan have chosen not to compete with it for new hires; in 2006 they both inked recruitment partnership deals with the organization. So, when looking to hire staffers to support the mission, TFA looks first to its own.
Thatâs how Samir Bolar came to be one of six TFA program directors assigned to the Los Angeles region in 2005. The role of PD was to be part mentor, part nanny, part boss to the corps memberâthe human face of the TFA juggernaut. PDs were expected to ensure that CMs got the job doneâthat they set high student goals that resulted in significant student achievement. Each PD was assigned to monitor up to fifty CMs through four rounds of classroom observations and subsequent follow-up meetings over the course of the school year. Among Samirâs charges were the twenty-two Teach For America CMs working at Locke High School in 2005.
Samir was a star TFA alum from the 2002 corps. He had joined TFA fresh out of the University of Texas at Austin with a double major in chemical engineering and English (he picked chemical engineering because it was the most challenging major he could find). At the end of his two years at Willowbrook Middle School in Compton, an incorporated inner-city community in South Los Angeles, his students earned the highest scores for eighth-grade algebra in the district. Whatâs more, on the strength of their performance, the schoolâs overall growth target actually quadrupled. Though TFA had set goals for significant gains, it had no systematic means of measurement in place during the 2002â2003 school year. But Samir did. He created a student tracking system on an Excel spreadsheet, adopted the TFA goal of 80 percent mastery for his kids, and charted their progress from day one. By any measure, Samir Bolar met the bar for excellence in teaching.
Willowbrook begged him to stay on, but, like many in TFA, he had bigger plans. At first he wanted to be a school principal, but a summer internship at the educational arm of the L.A.-based Broad Foundation opened his eyes to the breadth and depth of the growing educational reform movement. By summerâs end, his new ambition was to open a series of technology-based charter schools. In order to do so, he thought he needed more critical-thinking and problem-solving skills. So he took a job in the private sector, working with Fortune 500 companies on IT issues.
His stint on the outside was short and unfulfilling. When TFA approached him about becoming a PD in mid-2005, he felt honored. It had never occurred to him that he might be PD materialâhe wasnât even sure how great a teacher he was, compared with other CMs. That kind of information was never shared; TFA considered humility to
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