Silence of the TFA Lambs

February 6, 2013 //

Gary Rubinstein wonders why so many of TFA’s new teachers have been so quiet, not blogging about their first-year experiences. He gets a ton of responses.

Is this, he wonders, the silence of the sacrificial lambs?

Categories Education Reform, Teach for America TFA, Teachers and Teaching

13 Comments Post your own or leave a trackback: Trackback URL

Joel says:

February 6, 2013 at 11:52 am

The first comment to his post seems to sum it up. They have met the enemy- and they are terrified.

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Michael Fiorillo says:

February 6, 2013 at 12:00 pm

Who, exactly, is being sacrificed?

I’d say it’s primarily students in high needs schools who are being taught by temporary, untrained missionaries (however well-meaning they may be), as well as career teachers who’ve been laid off so that districts can reduce expenses and TFA can enlarge its ($300 million + ) asset base.

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KrazyTA says:

February 6, 2013 at 12:30 pm

Wonder why so many of the sacrificial lambs can’t seem to open their mouths? Besides the, er, masking tape…

You think that radio hero of yesteryear, the Shadow, was the only one who could “cloud men’s minds”? How about the ability to do that AND “cloud one’s own mind”?

Courtesy of the blog TheNotebook, comes this link in which we can see Michelle Rhee, one of the Commanders-in-Thief, er, -Chief, of the Rheephormista ground troops as she takes the field against Pasi Sahlberg, a rather sad and hopelessly uneducated and inexperienced Finn who seems to have gotten it all wrong in his FINNISH LESSONS (2011). And the Rheemeister doesn’t even know Finnish! How, how may I ask you, can she do so much with so little? I wish I knew her secret sauce [where’s Edushyster when you need her?]…

Readers of this blog: a note of caution. Please be seated when you click on this. Any injuries—mental, physical, emotional—are not the responsibility of this poster or this blog.

http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20130206_She_has_a__Radical__plsn_to_fix_schools.html

When the maximum leaders can’t get the simplest things right, is it any wonder that those in the field don’t have a clue that they are about to become chewed up and spit out?

😦

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Wilbert says:

February 6, 2013 at 12:49 pm

They probably don’t open their mouths for the same reason that the vast majority of non-TFA teachers that I work with don’t open their mouth. We place a premium on obedience even in absurd situations. Kafka and Camus, weren’t just making up fantastical stories, they are based in experience.

The constant bashing of the actual TFAers as no-nothings is foolish. Many that i’ve worked with have been outstanding teachers. That may not be all, but to act like they are all a drain on the system is ridiculous.

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- Ang says:
  
  February 6, 2013 at 1:23 pm
  
  TFA a drain on the system?
  Let’s see….
  
  “To offset costs, TFA requires each district that hires its teachers to pay it a negotiated fee, typically $2,000 to $5,000 per teacher per year.” A money drain on already cash strapped systems?
  
  “Only about 28 percent of TFA teachers are still teaching by their fifth year” . High turnover rate a drain on systems?
  
  Placing the least skilled and most likely to leave with highest need students. A drain on the kids education?
  
  Reply
  - Wilbert says:
    
    February 6, 2013 at 2:47 pm
    
    Selective reading. I said that to act like they are ALL a drain is wrong. In my experience, I’ve either had good luck, or principals who could spot talent, but they have been decent teachers
    
    If you think that before TFA the worst schools had the best teachers around, you live in a very different reality than I do. Don’t conflate that to mean that there aren’t ANY great teachers. The average is definitely lower than schools that aren’t at the bottom.
Alan says:

February 6, 2013 at 2:38 pm

I saw a Facebook post today from a talented former student, who was proudly announcing her acceptance into the 2013 TFA corps. I feel very worried for her.

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LG says:

February 6, 2013 at 3:30 pm

Read the comments by D$–QUITE telling. This kid knows the truth about faux reform TFA-style. I wish I could help him/her.

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- kb1459 says:
  
  February 6, 2013 at 6:01 pm
  
  I read this guys comments and I must have missed something, because what I heard was, “blah, blah,blah, I’m wonderful, blah, blah, blah, I’m, the greatest, blah, blah, blah, I am a better teacher then everyone else. I have been teaching for 16 years and I have never met teachers like the ones he complained about.
  
  Reply
  - LG says:
    
    February 6, 2013 at 9:59 pm
    
    Maybe you’ve never been in a school like D$’s. I did not read the post as narcissistic–just highly frustrated.
Mary Pishney says:

February 6, 2013 at 4:45 pm

I pity the TFA guinea pigs because ALL I hear from my teacher friends in Denver Public Schools are that their fate is worst than anybody else’s in that meat grinder system! The numbers of crushed candidates who eagerly await the minute they can leave, hopefully with recoverable medical conditions caused from the abuse they endured, is astounding! NOT what the lies about these “progressive” systems with “dedicated” teachers (make that low paid, no benefits and impossible expectations) try to pretend that they are: Happy Campers who stay in the profession after their sentence, I mean contract,’s up—get better results than those old,
college deg reed veterans ever reached: in other words “There are lies, (Michele Rhee)
damned lies (Jeb and his corporate vultures) and statistics (fudged, falsified and public/charter schools administrations’ fabricated “facts.” that would be SNL material if it weren’t so perverse!
Last night on the Pierce Morgan’s, CNN show they featured the queen inquisitor herself: Michelle Rhee, who of course was treated like the Pope, which one never differs with, too! She was prattling on about her book and that night’s version of her three point plan: more money for education—when Pierce broke in that then they could pay teachers more, she about blew fire in his face! She retorted, shedding her reptilian feminine facade and snorted, “OH NO! NO ONE GOES INTO TEACHING FOR MONEY!!” The slightly shook Pierce meekly replied, “But isn’t that what you need to draw better teachers into the profession??” No response. Then Rhee quickly advanced to her second point: Put effective teachers into each classroom in America. Guess in her vast knowledge she knows that is not the case…Point three escapes me because before she could wing into that one, they showed video of her in a classroom that she obviously thought was VERY ineffective, as she was standing, arms crossed, with an ugly, intimidating glare on her face that probably had made the teacher descend into apoplexy, her fate being clearly etched on Rhee’s “Off with his/her head!” expression. I’m sure that the Politically Correct TV audience was applauding her ferreting out yet another “Bad teacher” although they kindly never showed the victim, doubtlessly choking back tears. How long and how dark will the landscape be for any brave soul who ventures into the profession and meets with the destructive, disillusioning fate of so many educators who want to make a difference in our country?
NO ONE decries their tragic end! What will the vultures do when the word is common knowledge about this charade and the TFA sham has no future victims enter the pipeline? This is truly an American tragedy whose ill effects we are just beginning to see in the body politic whose abilities to critically think about what they see/hear or read has plummeted because such intellectual abilities have been expunged from all avenues of education? WHO THEN WOULD BENEFIT? DEMAGOGIC POLITICIANS, CORPORATE CEO’S WHO WANT ONLY A “DOCILE” WORKFORCE??? As “W” crowed not so long ago, “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!”.

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Stacey McMackin says:

February 6, 2013 at 6:34 pm

So, what’s going on statistics-wise. Is there data to back up the success stories of individual TFA teachers…

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Lance Hill says:

February 7, 2013 at 9:55 am

In New Orleans, the state contracts with TFA in advance to bring in approximately 350 teachers every year. That means that 350 veteran teachers have to be fired to make way for the TFA recruits–most of these are skilled veteran teachers who have struggled to rebuild ther lives after Katrina. I allow that some of these TFA recruits don’t know that they have stolen a job from a career teacher before they arrive on
in the job, but they generally learn this once they arrive. What is troublesome is that of the 1,000 TFA teachers who have displaced veteran black teachers who have now been twice victimized–first by Katrina and second by TFA, not one has publicly apologized for their actions. So I am not surprised that TFA recruits are unwilling to publicly discuss the challenges of their teaching when they are not willing to accept the moral responsibility of their larger actions.
I realize that once a person has contractually chosen a course in their life that notions of self-respect and personal honor make it difficult to admit their mistakes, but the first step toward building interracial trust is for the victims of injustice is for them to hear the people who willfully or unwittingly harmed them to accept responsibility for their actions. TFA recruits have helped poison race relations in New Orleans and we who remain behind are left to mend the damage. A few public words from ex-corp members accepting moral responsibility for their actions would go a long way to making our task easier.

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