The TFA director in Chicago said that corps members would not take the jobs of teachers who were laid off. He said the positions were being eliminated and would not be offered to TFA. TFA members were also affected by the layoffs, he said.
However, in late June, “Chicago Public Schools agreed to support up to 325 new teachers and 245 second-year teachers for a cost of nearly $1.6 million — more than double what the district paid the organization last year.”
This makes no sense. Why is CPS bringing in TFA at the same time it is sending pink slips to experienced teachers?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
A scab is a scab is a scab. Own it TFA!
Here here!
“A scab is a scab is a scab. Own it TFA!” – http://youtu.be/b8t3YQe3CEU
It’s all semantics. They won’t “replace” teachers, because the positions are eliminated… but teachers who are “RIF”ed should be the first ones to be offered any new positions… and those new positions ARE being given to TFA. TFA’s are supposed to be intelligent… so either this guy has a screw loose… or he thinks he’s pulling the wool over our eyes. If nothing else, it demonstrates the “superiority complex” (read narcissistic attitude) of TFA.
If the “scab” fits wear it.
Clearly we’re not grasping the subtlety of the situation. TFA teachers are not taking eliminated jobs. They’re taking new jobs that will be created after the old ones are eliminated. That should be clear to anyone.
And just in case it isn’t, remember that being reformy means never having to say you’re sorry.
You hit the nail on the head, Mr. Goldstein.
Sigh, for a moment I thought I saw a glimmer of hope. I initially read Diane’s post as saying that TFA was turning down new positions in Chicago in protest of veteran teachers being laid off. What good news that would have been! Too good to be true, though.
Bring in the big inflatable rats.
CPS have been in disarray for years. For supposedly teacher integration purposes, I was replaced by a black teacher and a black teacher in my school was replaced by a white teacher. (We were both special education teachers). So the makeup really did not change. It was just a shell game that the BOE played and it appears is still playing.
You know the bull that ed deformers say all the time. They want teachers like TFA to go along with the program. Yes, they are scabs and temporary ones at that. Chicago teachers union has always been strong and united and these policies are mainly to break this union. I hope it doesn’t happen. Let them break Rahm and his cronies.
Arthur Goldstein above said it much more succinctly, but here was my take oh Anderson’s piece: http://atthechalkface.com/2013/07/25/a-snarky-letter-for-a-heartless-leader-my-response-to-tfa-chicagos-josh-anderson/ The TFAers are being brought in to take teachers’ jobs and there are so many ways to make room for them! They are not better for kids by any stretch of the imagination, but they are cheaper, they undercut the union, and they help accelerate the push for privatization in this city.
I just posted this under the Vallas’ article, but since it applies, I’m reposting it here:
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Arizona teacher: “I have seen staffs comprised of high school graduate teachers who bought their degrees online and took not one college level course.”
To the Arizona teacher… destroying the profession of teaching and filling it with unqualified faux teachers is not a bug in the privatizers’ “reform” model, it is a feature.
I just found this from the Connecticut Policy Institute—a “think tank” and “a non-partisan research institute on Connecticut economic policy and education reform” that fronts for for-profit business interests that are trying to profit from the privatization of education. To do this, they put out bogus “studies” and “policy papers” in support of these business interests’ practices and approaches to privatized education:
http://www.ctmirror.org/op-ed/2013/06/30/vallas-certification-debacle-reveals-shortcomings-education-reform-efforts
In this op-ed, Ben Zimmer defends Vallas’ lack of credentialing, but goes one further.
Not only should there be no credential requirement for Superintendents, THERE SHOULD BE NO CREDENTIALING OR EDUCATION REQUIREMENT OF TEACHERS (???!!!) as well as ADMINISTRATORS.
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Ben Zimmer: “With a few exceptions, Connecticut law requires teachers to have a degree in education, meaning many talented people who didn’t decide to become teachers until after completing their educations have difficulty doing so.
“This serves the economic interests of existing teachers and administrators by limiting competition for their jobs, but does not advance the goal of obtaining the highest quality teaching and administration possible.”
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Don’t you get it? If the government entity in charge of education requires thing like ohhh… bachelor’s degrees, or even 2-year community college associate degrees… or even one single college course… well, you’re just “serving the economic interest of existing teachers and administrators by limiting competition for their jobs.”
Those teachers who’ve actually achieved these “worthless degrees” will bring along with them accompanying demands for a decent salary, health benefits, retirement, etc…. AND WHO NEEDS THAT when you’re trying to make a profit… err… excuse me… make “transformational change” in education?
Oh, you don’t believe this? Well, Connecticut Policy Institute’s “studies and papers” have “proven” all of this to be true… that you need nothing more than a high school diploma to teach in K-12 schools.
Zimmer goes on:
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Ben Zimmer: “As the Connecticut Policy Institute has discussed in our papers on education reform, there is no evidence linking certification regimes to teachers’ or administrators’ effectiveness in increasing student achievement. They simply serve to limit the recruitment pipeline of outstanding educators and keep the antiquated education administration departments of the state university system in business.”
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An organization fronting for business interests that want to profit from the privatization of education—some of them charter school chain CEO”s making $500,000/year or more (Geoffrey Canada)—has its spokesman attacking education departments—some of them Ivy League universities… most of them having turning out quality teachers for 100-150 years or more—as only being “in business” to advance the selfish financial interests of their administrators and professors that work in them. They are deliberately blocking “outstanding educators” from entering the field because they are out for themselves, and not the students’.
Wow! I”m so glad someone’s finally blowing the lid off this!
But then look at this assclown Zimmer’s bio at Connecticut Policy Institute:
http://ctpolicyinstitute.org/about/bio/ben-zimmer/leadership
He proudly touts his own education credentials:
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“Ben received a J.D. from Yale Law School, where he specialized in business law and economic policy, and a B.A., magna cum laude with highest honors in history, from Harvard College.”
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But Ben, I thought those high-falutin’ things like degrees didn’t matter. Aren’t those “J.D.’s” and “B.A.s” and “magna cum laude’s” just worthless pieces of paper spit out by “antiquated” entities that are only trying to keep themselves “in business” to pay the undeserved salaries of the folks who work in them?
No, no, no… you see in Ben’s world, rigid requirements like… oh… years of post-secondary education, or even passing a certification test…. those things only matter in OTHER careers or professions. They don’t matter in the realm of K-12 education… as his noble “kids first” organization, Connecticut Policy Institute, has produced studies and papers” have “proven” that.
No, according to Ben, teaching is like working the fry machine at McDonald’s… just let anyone in the door—education and credentials be damned—to have at it and compete for the job, then just keep the ones who do it best. And THAT is how you end up with a staff of what Ben describes as a nation of “outstanding educators.”
Got that?
You see the way to get better teachers in front of kids is just simple… so simple that those antiquated ed departments full of money-motivated hacks have been missing it for over 150 years.
The way to fill our country’s schools with “outstanding educators” is to lower or even eliminate the standards and requirements for becoming one.
That’s it!!!! Why hasn’t anyone thought of that until now?
What’s that, you say? The highest achieving nations like Finland and South Korea don’t operate that way? In those countries, becoming a teacher is as difficult and demanding as becoming a doctor?
Well, that would never work here in the United States.
Arthur Goldstein & Katie Osgood:
“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.”
Thank you both so much for refusing to be silent in the face of injustice.
🙂
It not only makes no sense, it is a mathematical impossibility that 1000 teachers could be fired and 345 TFA teachers hired and they are not taking those teachers positions. Fully credentialed teachers have been laid off and TFA people are getting positions. Who cares if it is the exact same position? They ARE taking teachers jobs. No matter which school it is at, guaranteed that a TFA teacher will be teaching students who were taught by a laid off teacher the previous year.
I don’t know much about Chicago schools other than news reports, usually illuminating failures….and defer to those of you closer to what is occurring.
However, if the issue about new hires is that they are not members of a union, I don’t believe an individual should be penalized for NOT being a member.
Unions need to understand not everyone wants to, or should have join a union. As the direction of our country has gone, the Federal govt (dept of labor) has the protections union dues paid for.
ajbruno14 This is not about union teachers. It is about having qualified teachers in the classrooms. Do you even know what kind of training that TFA teachers receive? They receive a lot less training than the the teachers being laid off. This will make a difference in the quality of the education that CPS students receive.
No, that is not the issue with TFA. It is a systemic issue of closing down neighborhood schools and replacing the with mostly non-unionized charters filled with TFA novices. See Edushyster’s amazing piece here: http://edushyster.com/?p=2985&utm_content=buffer7c019&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer (Although the conditions in these charters are often so deplorable, many charters in Chicago are now organizing unions.) TFA also serves the purpose of displacing veteran teachers who are being removed through various tricks ie school closings, budget cuts, & turnarounds and then replaced with cheaper, untenured labor who will likely not stay long enough to even get tenure, much less a pension. TFAers are far less likely to be involved in their unions which has detrimental effects on learning conditions in schools with no one to push back against truly criminal “austerity” cuts, class size increases, and absusive policies. Ultimately, districts are using TFA as one piece of a larger effort to dismantle public education, cheaper labor costs, and disinvest in schools especially those serving low-income children of color. All these “reforms” are terrible for school cultures as churn, instability, and a vacuum of expertise and community connection damage public schools. TFA must not be allowed to continue its destructive expansion.
Aside from the fact that, as pointed out, that’s not the issue, you’re wrong on the issue of unions. If you enjoy the salary, benefits and working conditions negotiated by the union, then you need to belong to the union (or at least pay dues thereto). It’s that simple.
And, no, we can’t allow people to try to negotiate their own contracts. Administration would be all over that and would certainly offer the first several guinea pigs good packages. But it would only be as a way to destroy the union. Once the union had lost critical mass, do you think any teacher (including the original guinea pigs) would get a reasonable, livable contract? It would be all over – everything that the unions have spent decades working for would be history.
This concern you’re hearing (and regurgitating) for poor workers forced to join the union is just another phony attempt to undermine unions and the good they have accomplished for all workers. The unions need to stand up to the propaganda.
Most salaries at four year post secondary schools are determined on an individual basis. I am sure, for example, that Dr. Ravitch’s salary was individually negotiated, and I am sure it is a livable.
There may be differences between K-12 teachers and post secondary teachers that would result in unions being necessary to support living wages for K-12 teachers and not necessary for post secondary teachers. I look forward to hearing about the distinctions in the labore markets.
As usual, you are wrong, and make points that serve as red herrings to the discussion.
Your use of Diane as representative of what college instructors earn is way off base: the overwhelming majority of college courses are taught by temporary, non- tenured adjuncts who do not earn a living wage/salary, have no benefits and no job security whatsoever.
Hmm, low wages, at-will employment, no benefits: sounds exactly like what the so-called reformers are aggressively bringing to K-12 education.
It seems reasonable to compare permanent full time employees to permanent full time employees. Should I have included GTAs and GRAs?
The question at hand is if it is possible to have individually negotiated, livable salaries, salaries for teachers. I suggest that existence implies possibility.
A scab by any other name would smell as rotten.
SCABS!!!
Josh Anderson’s letter is a beautiful exercise in semantics and is disingenuous at best. In addition, TFA teachers are our members. I don’t know where ajbruno 14 is from, but in Chicago, we’re a closed shop. You don’t have to be a member, but you do pay dues since you reap the benefits of a contract that protects due process, salaries and working conditions.
We have asked for a hiring freeze as we believe that among those laid off, we have enough tenured and probationary teachers, including TFAs to fill the positions available. But the idea that CPS and the state of Illinois spend precious dollars funding TFA 5-week institutes when we are in revenue crises borders on criminal and the lack of shame indecent.
Karen Lewis