The Head of TFA Can’t Connect the Dots…….But I Can.
Wendy Kopp gave a fascinating interview to Cornell West and Tavis Smiley on Pacifica Radio this morning. She was shocked, shocked I say that “after 20 years, we have not been able to close the achievement gap!” ( I am unable to find the link as they are from a different radio network). This may have been an older show as the interview was preceded by an interview with Diane Ravitch and Jonathon Kozol who has a new book out. Kozol had strong condemnation for Teach For America, claiming that the organization sends “glamorous young people” with five weeks of training into the neediest schools. The kids naturally fall in love with these hip young Harvard grads but then the students are as Kozol puts it “abandoned” in two years when the TFA’ers have paid off their student loans. It was the strongest anti-TFA language I have heard but also the most accurate.
Next up in the interview queue was Kopp, who copiously praised all the education “reformers” and her own Teach for America as doing important work. She then lashed out in frustration at no one in particular that “after 20 years we haven’t closed the achievement gap at all.” But instead of reflection or a reevaluation of privatizing education and demonizing veteran educators she confidently claimed she had the solution which is working in a small number of “model, transformational schools.” She claimed that high expectations with a high achieving school culture and extra help for those students in “difficult circumstances” (did she mean poverty?) are working in these “transformational schools.”
I keep coming back to why it is that certain miracle reformers and teachers claim to have the answers but yet can’t seem to broaden their successes. It is because the real evidence and real stats tell the tale. As Diane Ravitch stated in her earlier interview students from “comfortable homes” who do not live in poverty always outperform those students living in crime-ravaged, poor areas. When you dig into the “successes” you discover certain exceptions, such as in the case of Jeffrey Canada and his supposed 100% graduation rate, being able to send under- performing students to the local public schools which then are demonized as failing. Then there is Jaime Escalante, whose students attended a math enrichment class at a local college before entering his Calculus class. He also had strong administrative support for his program. Then there is the “Freedom Writer” teacher my students so adore who left teaching after four years.
Yet when you look at who is doing the deepest work in the classroom, it is the veteran teachers who have stayed and who work with students in both high and low-income areas. By deepest work, I mean after doing a ton of planning, honestly being able to say to oneself “this isn’t working “and planning again. It’s taking risks and knowing that your students may tell you “this is boring” but when they make the connections it’s forever.
more ... http://fremontwatch.wordpress.com/2013/03/09/the-head-of-tfa-cant-connect-the-dots/
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