David Greene mentors many young TFA recruits in the New York City public schools. They need his help because they are assigned to some of the city’s toughest schools. He made this comment in response to an earlier post about how Nevada hopes to replace some of its career teachers with TFA youngsters.
David Greene writes:
Another business plan – not education policy.
This has become the (hopefully unintended) consequence of TFA.
It has a become a scab organization to allow this type of political maneuvering and make teaching a “temp” job for people moving elsewhere than a classroom as a career.
What it does is lower the average teaching salary and decrease radically the need to pay out pensions because <5% of these “temps” will work long enough to vest in a pension.
Please pass these posts on to those Nevada policy makers:
THE INCONVENIENT TRUTHS ABOUT TFA
http://dcgmentor.com/?p=162
TFA TEACHERS: BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE
http://dcgmentor.com/?p=99
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Yes, TFA is a business. I am sure Wendy Kopp would agree. Fast Company magazine thinks so.
http://www.fastcompany.com/3004348/facebook-pixar-10-conversations-changed-our-world
From Facebook To Pixar: 10 Conversations That Changed Our World
Wendy Kopp comes in at number 5, right after Steve Jobs and right before Target. By the way, the print edition of Fast Company magazine reads “10 Business Conversations that Changed Our World.” I thought it was all about the kids?
5. Reading, Writing, And Education Reform
Wendy Kopp proposed Teach for America in 1989 as her senior thesis at Princeton. By the spring of the following year, she had lined up 500 recruits and job placements for them. But Kopp still needed more than $2 million to launch. So she wrote billionaire industrialist Ross Perot.
I agree. Many of these positions will be filled with political favorites that have degrees in Parks and Recreation to qualify at a minimum. They will stay only long enough until a better paying job where they lean on a shovel comes to pass. Watch “60 minutes” from last fall where the Turks are running a group of charter schools. I could not understand the English teacher when he spoke. The charter then issues visas for other Turkish teachers. Although the pay scale is like a public school, they omit that there is a 40% kick back to the school. Unbelievable, but true. Watch the show.
I thought the TFA was completely staffed with young Turks. I guess they’re getting some competition from middle aged Turks.
David Greene states: “This has become the (hopefully unintended) consequence of TFA.” UNINTENDED? Are you kidding? All so-called “reforms” of the past 12 years have the intension of union-busting, devaluing teaching as a “career”, devaluing and blaming teachers for everything deemed “wrong” with our educational system. This is the not-so-hidden agenda of NCLB and all the other nonsense that has cropped up to reform our education system in the last decade. Unintended??!!! That is a most ridiculous and myopic assessment.
Pat.
Read the posts Diane included BEFORE you go off on me. Please read all of my work. I am not IN ANY WAY a fan of TFA. If you had heard both my talks at SOS in the summer of 2011 and at OCCUPY DOE DC 1, you would know that. I have been arguing that they have been creating a temp work force to displace higher paid and pensioned veteran teachers.
In its initial plan, I (the optimist) thought it was ” HOPEFULLY unintended”. Now I know that has changed as they found the benefits of that consequence.
Unfortunately, I am no longer employed in that capacity by Fordham U. I wish I was still able to work with more new teachers. If schools had the $ to employ real mentors to all their new teachers, it would benefit them and all of their constituents.
Wow, those are two, dare I say, “excellent” articles by David Greene.
Bottom line, a two or three year turnover of teachers is going to be a waste of educational money in any scenario.
Bad value for the taxpayers, and the students take the brunt of the ineffiency of not ready for prime time teachers.
I don’t know if it’s just me or if perhaps everybody else encountering problems with your site.
It appears as if some of the text within your posts are running off the screen.
Can someone else please comment and let me
know if this is happening to them too? This might be a issue with
my internet browser because I’ve had this happen before. Thanks
Looks OK to me. Nothing runs off the screen. In fact, the left and right margins are wide. I’ve had that problem with a few emails, but not on a consistent basis.