Most people think of Teach for America as an organization that recruits young college graduates to teach in distressed urban and rural schools.
As the organization has matured, however, it is preparing a cadre of leaders to enter political office and take the reins of power. But power for what?
In this article, TFA is shown to be leading the movement for high-stakes testing and privatization.
Clearly, there are TFA alums who don’t share this agenda. I know some.
But the question remains, why are so many TFA graduates gung-ho for policies that are anti-union, anti-professional, and friendly to privatization? And why are they so supportive of high-stakes testing, which is ultimately harmful to children and to the quality of education?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s an officers’ training school for absentee landlords.
It follows all the historical models for developing ruling elites.
I am surprised that so many people are surprised at its end-game.
TFA is a hybrid between a neoliberal training academy and a Stepford Teacher cult. Those members who refuse to be fully inculcated with its arrogant and false ideology are to be congratulated, and given ample opportunities to discredit this destructive organization that patronizes the children it claims to be helping.
Quite correct Michael. Cult is probably the best description of TFA.
Any suggestions for talking to a former student who is considering TFA?
Broke my heart to hear this wonderful young woman tell me she was considering joining upon graduation.
I was her mentor and teacher while in HS. She won a Gates scholarship, chose to attend my alma mater and is now a senior. She came back the other day to speak to my AP class (give advice for scholarship applications, college applications, college survival, etc. as our kids are mostly first generation HS grads, let alone college students).
She said she was considering TFA because Gates recommends it and will allow her to defer her grad school money if she does the program (yes, the Gates Millennium Scholarship will pay for grad school if you are willing to get certain degrees).
She said she wanted to “be like me” and be an” awesome teacher who helps kids”.
However, she does want to go to grad school later, but she is not sure in what, so TFA seems like a good choice. And she has gotten a ton of propaganda from the TFA people.
I almost burst into tears.
How do I succinctly explain to her that this is not a good way to help students? That if she thinks I was an “awesome teacher”, I am very flattered, but I worked hard to become that and have spent 24 years working on those skills, not 5 weeks. Shall I just tell her that as with most teachers, my first 2 or 4 years of teaching I was not great at all.
Any ideas how to dissuade her without killing the impulse to “give back”?
Articles or info I could pass along?
Thanks for listening….
Ang
Refer her to this site and also Gary Rubenstein see:http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/
Thank you.
Is lack of empathy and critical thinking a TFA requirement? I’m wondering after reading the article. It’s nice distillation of what I’ve previously read about them and their new attack and assault on the American public. I’ll keep tabs on Bill. I almost forgot about him since a laudatory article I read about him online earlier this year.
“And why are they so supportive of high-stakes testing, which is ultimately harmful to children and to the quality of education?”
Because they are the sons and daughters of the elite. They will stand to make a lot of money off of the privatization of public education. They don’t give a rat’s ass about the lower classes.
One of my former students who could care less about teaching told me she was tempted to join TFA. Why? One of her friends who graduated college last year is in TFA and making $50,000 a year for two years and breaks on her student loans. The woman is living with her parents to save money and planning to use it for graduate school. How many graduated college students are going to pass that up for two years?
As a former TFAer, it’s been disheartening to see the direction of its political engagement. I entered TFA as an idealist, defending it from the people that called it a band-aid by describing the goals not to fix the education system through the two years of service but through developing a group of leaders who would draw on their experiences to make the education system better. Now that I’ve seen that leadership go blindly toward charter schools and other neoliberal education reforms, I’ve become soured and conflicted over the experience. I think it did help me figure out where to focus my own activism and work, and know others who maintained a critical eye throughout their experience in the organization. I think plenty of people like me entered TFA, genuinely wanting to address poverty and our broken education system, and they learn within the organization that these neoliberal solutions are the best way to do so.
Rachel,
Your statement of “and our broken education system” is part of the overall problem with the whole narrative of the educational deformers. Our public education system is not broken, never has been. Are there districts and schools that struggle? No doubt and those are closely tied to socioeconomic concerns. Please learn to not use the deformers rhetoric. Thanks!
I’m still wondering how TFA was able to bypass the required qualifications for professional educators. I EARNED real teaching credentials, and I resent that they are not required to do so as well.
“I EARNED real teaching credentials…”
Which is why you are a real teacher. Anything less is just pretending, hence the short term expectation.
I sometimes think about the students enrolled in conventional Ed programs and what they must think about the TFA student in the adjacent desk who gets a fast track and tuition break to do the same thing – while collecting a salary and already working in a school.
In my case, I left a corporate career in order to fulfill my desire to teach. Since my bachelor’s degree was in a different field, I was required to take undergraduate classes in education (as it should be). And I’ve continued my education since.
I often went to bed hungry during the process of changing careers. But at no point did I try to “TFA” my way into this profession.
People who want to teach in our schools need to suck it up and meet the requirements. No excuses…
As a beginning non-TFA teacher, I taught in a school with several TFA-ers. I noticed a cliquish aloofness among them and an air of superiority that I found very unsavory. As Jon Awbrey suggests above, it did feel like training for a separate elite status. It was as if they were high caste brahmin fearful of contamination by the “untouchable” veteran teachers.