It's really hard to imagine that they have become so successful that they are able to make people believe they are the saviors of children in poor and high-risk areas. They took control of the rhetoric so strongly that many have forgotten about the experienced teachers who are already there serving these children well.
It's amazing what money and power can do, especially when there is no one presenting the side of the public school teachers.
I just noticed that they are being accepted in Kasich's Ohio as qualified and certified, even though they only have 5 weeks training in being a teacher. My concern is with the teachers who will have to be disappeared so TFA teachers can come in.
Teach for America bill clears Ohio HouseA bill allowing participants in the Teach for America program to be certified in the state is on the way through the General Assembly, but is facing the scrutiny and doubt of Democratic lawmakers and other educators, the Lancaster Eagle Gazette reports.
The bill cleared the Ohio House this week along party lines, with 32 representatives – all Democrats – opposing, the paper reported. Gov. John Kasich began a push for Teach for America certification in his State of the State Address, billing it as a way to get motivated people in Ohio's schools.
Its opponents worry about participants' lack of experience and short tenure. A recent study gave Teach for America merely middling marks, recommending it be used only when a district faces using uncertified or emergency educators, the paper reported.
The company started in the United States, but it is now international.
Teach For All: The Global Network For Expanding Educational OpportunityHere are their locations and programs:
Argentina
Enseñá por Argentina’s first cohort of 14 participants began teaching in high-need areas of Buenos Aires in March 2011.
www.ensenaporargentina.org
Australia
To confront educational disadvantage, Teach For Australia recruits and trains high-quality graduates, placing them in urban and rural schools. Teach For Australia’s first cohort of 45 participants began teaching in schools in 2010.
www.teachforaustralia.org
Bulgaria
Teach For Bulgaria will engage exceptional young Bulgarians in ensuring access to quality education for every Bulgarian child by carefully selecting and training them to be effective teachers and successful professionals. The first cohort of 30 participants will begin teaching in under-resourced classrooms in Bulgaria in the fall of 2011.
www.zaednovchas.bg
Chile
Enseña Chile was established in 2007 when a group of leaders came together to build a movement in Chile to address educational inequity. In March 2009, Enseña Chile piloted its first corps of 29 participants to teach in under resourced schools in the Santiago Metropolitan Region and the Araucanía Region in the South of Chile. Enseña Chile placed its second cohort of 46 teachers in March 2010.
www.ensenachile.cl
Here is the Teach for India website, and they proudly say they are raising an army of superstar teachers.
Teach for India.. Raising an Army of Superstar TeachersTeach for India is tackling the program of education in India by using a model that has worked very successfully in the US. They are calling on India’s brightest to teach for two years in under-resourced schools so that the children in these schools too can benefit from excellent teachers and education just like their counterparts in well to do private schools. Teach for India lives by the motto “One day all children will have access to an excellent education” and is inspired by Teach for America’s model which has shown great results in the US.
And there is Teach for Pakistan.
Teach for Pakistan: Sharing the wealth of knowledgeRoots of the model
Teach for Pakistan is under the banner of Teach for All, a movement inspired by Teach for America started by Wendy Kopp who observed that her peers in college coming from public high schools had more difficulty getting through college, because their math and reading skills were weaker when compared to students coming out of private schools. In America, public school education is free of cost from the primary level all the way to high school. Kopp later went on to write her college senior thesis on providing public schools with better quality teachers to narrow the disparities in education. She took off the idea from the thesis and developed the Teach for America program which has been running for almost two decades now (note to all college students who are thinking of writing a thesis: amazing, tangible things can come out of it). At present, Teach for America has 20,000 alumni, many of whom have gone on to teach professionally.
One of the former TFA teachers in the US had a few criticisms of the program. He made a video in which he said that TFA has a "noble purported aim", but it is mostly about influence, federal money.
Noble purported aim, but mostly about influence and federal moneyBilby mentions how everyday he went home feeling like a failure. He says one parent started a fight with another parent in the classroom. (I had that happen...it's scary and needs outside of the classroom help to keep others from being hurt. Luckily I got that help by pressing the buzzer to the office.)
He further mentions that when he turned in his 2-weeks notice to TFA, he felt expendable. Seems to me he's saying that as much as he cared they were not as concerned with his feelings as about keeping a good relationship with the principal. He says TFA doesn't seem to care if the workplace environment is toxic, if the administration is unprofessional. He said he felt like his final meeting with the TFA rep and the principal was to comfort themselves and make him feel as though his failure was all his fault.
He made an amazingly thoughtful statement. He said he thought the TFA has "a noble purported aim" but that it is mostly about "access to influence and access to federal money."
He talks about having meetings with the donors on Park Avenue in apartments on the upper east side. He says it was in stark contrast to where he was teaching which seemed like a prison with so many policemen. Then to go to the Park Avenue apartments where none are educators...just funneling huge money into education.
I wonder how well those Park Avenue donors relate to the blighted and needy areas into which they send their teachers.
Many of us feel that TFA is a way to replace
experienced teachers with higher salariesKeep the new teachers with lower salaries coming in every two years. Makes a good profit for the company which is paid for their recruitment. Keeps the teaching field clear of those who would become professional teachers.
On top of failing to make a dent in poverty, Teach for America actually detracts from social justice by hurting real teachers. Teach for America students take low, entrance-level pay while also receiving a government subsidy for their salary in the form of Americorps stipends. Schools lay off teachers and then hire Teach for America teachers to fill positions that real teachers would otherwise be filling. Teach for America teachers are undercutting the wage needs of real teachers and causing them to be laid off as a result.
Imagine this: a well-off college student takes a subsidized teaching position at an impossibly low wage and displaces actual teachers who might already be struggling to get by — all for social justice!
For anyone who has any concern for labor rights, this is extremely abusive. Not undercutting wage demands of often unionized workers is rule number one of how to be a serious social justice advocate.
Indeed some have said it is a way to privatize education gradually. From a St Louis school board member:
Peter Downs, president of the elected school board, summarizes TFA’s role in one word: “privatization.” He says that the mayor, not the district, first invited TFA to St. Louis, in line with reforms such as for-profit charters and the privatization of services in curriculum development, teacher recruitment, maintenance, and food service. As part of its contract with TFA, the district pays $2,000 a year to TFA for each of its recruits. (The elected board has no power because the state took over the St. Louis schools; the mayoral appointee to the new three-person board is a former regional staff person for Teach for America.)
In case you think the money is not available to them, take a look at their top corporate donors. While public schools are being defunded, and the teachers having their rights compromised....TFA has great PR and lots of money.
Teach for America donorsThe list is quite long, be sure to scroll all the way to the bottom.
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