Has Teach for America betrayed its mission?

[proud2BlibKansan]

(Reuters) - When Wendy Kopp, just out of Princeton, founded Teach for America in 1989, she dreamed of recruiting 500 elite college graduates to teach the nation's neediest children. "My dear Miss Kopp," a college advisor told her, "you are quite evidently deranged."

Kopp pressed on, and this fall Teach for America will send a record 10,000 teachers into classrooms from New York to California. The nonprofit boasts $300 million in assets and collects tens of millions a year in public funds, even at a time of steep cuts to education budgets. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan praises it for having "made teaching cool again." And TFA veterans have emerged as the most influential leaders of a bipartisan education reform movement.

But critics, including a handful of disillusioned alumni, contend that policies promoted by TFA-trained reformers threaten to damage the very schools they once set out to save. They argue, too, that TFA's relentless push to expand has betrayed its founding ideals.

The organization that was launched to serve public schools so poor or dysfunctional they couldn't attract qualified teachers now sends fully a third of its recruits to privately run charter schools, many with stellar academic reputations, flush budgets and wealthy donors. TFA also sends its rookies, who typically have just 15 to 20 hours of teaching experience, to districts that have recently laid off scores of more seasoned teachers.

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Kopp, who earns $375,000 a year, supervises 1,800 employees -- including a small army of recruiters.

more . . . http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-education-teachforamericabre87f05o-20120815,0,2136039,full.story

[Zalatix]

1. No.

Its REAL mission is not what you think it is, or what was advertised.

[Robb]

2. You've bolded the salary. How does that compare with other public sector salaries

...for people who have 1,800 direct reports? Is it comparable? Or does it just seem like a lot of money?

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. It's almost as much as the president makes.

Do you believe the TFA CEO deserves as much salary as Barack Obama?

I don't.

[Robb]

7. And it's less than you make as an assistant coach at an NCAA school.

My question was whether it was comparable to other public sector jobs with the same responsibilities. I don't know; do you?

[XemaSab]

3. Teach for America:

because one well-intentioned white person can singlehandedly save black (and brown, and red, and rural) America.

[patrice]

4. Don't you think it likely that the movement to capture the teaching profession dates at least from

Bush junior's exit from the Tx ANG and into politics & religion?

What better use for all of those "Christian" mothers who weren't going into politics??? But who had secure enough positions within the middle class to also support ChurchCoC politically.

No, not all teachers are "Christian"/1%-er moles, but enough inertia has been acquired in the relevant demographics that a certain HIGHLY qualified Republican professional educator, who ran for a certain senate seat in my state by crossing over to an extremely MODERATE Democratic state party, was roundly abused and made into a public example of punishment for anyone who didn't adhere to Republican long-range educational strategies.

I'm sure that these trends have been there long enough that Kopp et al could have known exactly where they are going with their "high minded" "educators".

[Igel]

5. It started out to supply a need. Now it's just a privileged competitor.

Some school districts around here preferentially hire TFA "grads." When there are thousands of experienced teachers, it's a way for them to save money.

It also keeps them from fixing their schools. The schools are hell-holes, part of the hell is created by the students but a reasonable part is created by the administration. A two-year contract before you can leave? That cuts the administration some slack. After two years, more TFA grads move on to better schools that traditional programs' grads. They'd more on earlier. And if there's one thing you don't want, it's a teacher staying because s/he can't get out of his or her contract. It's one thing to not get another job or not be able to move. Those are imposed from outside the school. But to be an indentured servant? The poor students, even if the teacher tries hard.

The wash-out rate for TFA grads is higher than for traditional placements. They still move out from low-income schools, and the turnover rate is putatively detrimental to those schools. (We can argue about why failing schools fail. Usually your assumptions dictates your answer.) Your first year out of an ACP--or a traditional program--is nightmarish. Your second year, you sort of work out how to do things. You're doing better by year 3 or 4. And by then, you're in a better school so it's easier overall.

There are a number of alternative certification programs that charge a fair amount and are still short of funds. TFA is a weak one and free. It's usually a bad idea to subsidize weak programs at the expense of good ones. It's a naively good idea that feels good and makes people happy. Efficacious? Sorry, too big a word, use words that don't require a dictionary.