One of the provisions of No Child Left Behind was a requirement that the neediest children would have “highly qualified teachers.” Most people would interpret that language to mean that poor kids would get teachers who are well-prepared and experienced.
But through its political connections on Capitol Hill, Teach for America managed to get a special exemption carved out for their corps members who have only five weeks of training. They too are “highly qualified.” When I met Senator Tom Harkin, the key member of the Senate Education committee, one of his top staff members was an alum of TFA. It seems that TFA has developed its lobbyists on Congressional staffs like Harkin’s.
As Valerie Strauss writes here, the new budget deal slipped in innocuous language that once again declared the inexperienced, ill-trained members of TFA to be “highly qualified.”
Meanwhile Julian Vasquez Heilig also noted that TFA was a big winner in the budget deal. And he points out: “Interesting fact for the day? Did you know that Pre-K is 1412% more effective than Teach For America?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I spoke to my high school Biology teacher (for the first time in 27 years…) just last night. I believe she said she has been in the classroom for 36 years now. She also develops Praxis questions for ETS, which is based in Princeton, just 5 miles from my hometown of Hopewell, NJ.
When NCLB was ushered in, one of the criteria to become “highly qualified” was passing the Praxis, but she entered the classroom long before that test was developed. She contacted the state to let them know it would be preposterous for her to take the Praxis when she was in fact one of the teachers developing test questions. She asked if the fact that she was on the ETS advisory committee for the very test with which she would be tested could in and of itself demonstrate that she was highly qualified.
The answer?
No.
But a Bachelors Degree and 5 weeks of training?
You’re in!!
It’s a mad, mad world…
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Darcie Cimarusti: you have just defined the phrase “information in the public interest.”
How important is your comment? Let me hazard a guess…
I challenge the supporters of “education reform” to google the words “pineapple,” “hare” and “Daniel Pinkwater.”
No, I’ll save you the tremendous time and effort it would cost you or your staff and give you the gospel version of the story: http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2012/04/20/daniel-pinkwater-on-pineapple-exam-nonsense-on-top-of-nonsense/
It’s from one of your sacred dailies: the Wall Street Journal.
Funny thing. Just by publicizing this, the high-stakes standardized testing that is fundamental to the trashing of public schools and absolutely essential to the promotion and expansion of charters and vouchers took a big hit.
Knowledge Is Power Program = blogs like this one or, say, the following— http://mothercrusader.blogspot.com
Have you heard of this one? You might like it. One of my regular stops on the information superhighway.
Just a friendly assist from your ever-helpful KrazyTA.
🙂
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Since I’m not a constituent of Harkin, I can write but I will not get a response from his office. I hope that those readers who are represented by Harkin write and call his office to get some answers. I must say that the 35 page CR makes for some interesting reading.
I can do the following and hope that others will follow: I’ll write ED and ask about the state-by-state teacher picture that Professor Zeichner mentions. I’ll also write to my Congressional rep and two Senators (by email and snail) to ask if they can provide me with the non-existent data that Zeichner mentions. Please note that one of their jobs is to assist constituents navigate the Federal bureaucracy. Time to get something out of them.
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The 5 weeks of TFA training is a joke. 10 hours of ‘pretend’ teaching in summer school with 2-3 other teachers. Shoot! What a joke. Back when I accepted student teachers/interns from GW, who taught in front of 30-35 kids; heck, they had more teaching time in one week then these kids have after 5. Boy, how times have changed.
Too bad AFT/NEA doesn’t conduct a survey of the public or Congress. The question is: Would you want your child to be taught by a teacher with 5 weeks of training and 10 hours of teaching?
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It’s easy to CONTROL TFA-ers. They are brain-washed in 5 weeks.
How to brainwash people in 23 steps: http://woip.blogspot.com/2007/11/how-to-brainwash-people-in-23-steps.html
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Just wanted to point out that while this sneaky addition to the spending bill was indeed led by Teach For America for their own interests, this provision applies to ALL alt cert training programs. The proliferation of fly-by-night, low-quality, fast-track certification options, including but not limited to TFA, is a direct result of TFA’s quest for special treatment, power, and greedy desire for expansion at any cost. TFA has caused a boom in the least-prepared novices being foisted primarily on our neediest students from low-income backgrounds and often with special academic, behavioral, or language needs. An organization which claims to fight for educational equality is guilty of exploding the inequality of giving our neediest kids the least prepared, least-experienced “teachers”. Shame on TFA. Shame.
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“Just wanted to point out that while this sneaky addition to the spending bill was indeed led by Teach For America for their own interests, this provision applies to ALL alt cert training programs.”
It’s a great point, and it really changes the focus. If we’re arguing against TFA specifically we’ll just stay within that narrow back and forth and as is now obvious, that specific organization is politically powerful all out of whack with their numbers. A broader approach might be more effective:
“The proliferation of fly-by-night, low-quality, fast-track certification options, including but not limited to TFA,”
One of the reasons NOT to deregulate is exactly this: it is really, really difficult to re-regulate once lawmakers are captured. We’re seeing it in cybercharters, with this ridiculous situation where a Wall Streeter has to “short” their stock in order to “regulate” them because lawmakers are captured.
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Katie Osgood: as is so often the case, you add something important to the discussion.
Pardon my presumption, but let me add a personal “thank you” for all you do. When still very young I remember picketing in front of Woolworth’s in Detroit, protesting their policy of putting white salesclerks in the public areas and black janitors in the back—with never the twain to meet. Even at a young age I understood how unfair that was. Almost all the picketers were adults, mostly black and church-going, and I remember to this day—so many years later—a song we sung together:
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
It lifted our spirits. It kept us strong through fair weather and foul, through shouts of support and derision from the public, regardless of whether we enjoyed the gratitude of individuals or the derision of the MSM.
Keep shining. You make a difference.
🙂
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But Katie, they’re shameless, and therefore can’t be shamed into doing the right thing: they have to be forced to do it, or better still, shunned and stigmatized so that they dry up and blow away.
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Great points, Mr. Fiorillo–in addition, TFA is so huge, and, alas, they are not fly-by-night.
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Something I recently discovered about TFA.
So, a BA or BS from a “good college” and 5 weeks of training (apparently a lot of “training” on how wonderful the young TFAer is), yes.
But did you know that the TFAer doesn’t even need a degree (major or minor) in what they are to teach?
A former student of mine, who is now TFAing, was a Psychology and Econ. double major.
She is teaching Math!?
Yes, she is extremely bright and we went to the same college, which is Liberal Arts, so I know she had math courses as part of her degree requirements.
But really.
How does that count as “Highly Qualified”?
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Oh, poor, dear, Ang, haven’t you figured out yet that anyone who graduates from Harvard, U of C, Stanford, Yale or any other “elite” university obviously knows everything about everything? They were born to be “Highly Qualified”.
Excuse me, I need to go lose my breakfast now.
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The head of Connecticut’s TFA, Nate Snow, graduated from Texas A & M–many TFA are not from elite (whatever the hell that means, given that so many Ivy students are the children of Ivy grads, like the intellectually challenged Bush family) schools–what “highly qualified” means is that smarmy recent grads who get into TFA automatically feel superior to both career teachers and recent Ed. majors.
Also how “exclusive” is a program whose minimum requirement for application is a 4-year college degree in any subject? That means anyone can apply! It’s not like any 4-year college grad can apply to law school (without the LSAT and other qualifications) nor even to a graduate education department. It’s like saying McDonald’s “restaurants” are the hardest to get jobs in, based on the number of people applying for jobs there every single day.
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I graduated from UC Berkeley, and then followed a traditional teacher training route to receive my credential. I don’t consider myself elite, but I also never even considered applying for TFA.
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This is not a TFA thing. A student can graduate from an awesome teacher preparation program at Stanford University with a masters and a certification in teaching, say, secondary English, without a bachelor’s degree in that subject. If they are able to pass the certification exam and the other requirements, they can be certified. This is not TFA, this is a system wide issue.
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While we can blame the shutdown on the ideologues from the Tea Party, we cannot blame them for this. This is something both parties wanted—the dissemination of both public ed and public school teachers!!! This government has just declared open season on public school teachers and those who wish to become a teacher. States will be able to hire cheaper teachers every 2 years. The future of teaching?? Don’t even bother to get a degree in Education as more and more districts will hire from Kopp. And the TFA perks are all being funded by our tax dollars!!
Obama and his fellow Democrats are celebrating this today. But where is the outrage from NEA and AFT? Or will there just be a statement feigning outrage because both union leaderships have gotten cozy with Kopp? This is a very sad day for the students of America.
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Sounds about “normal” for our government. Small wonder that Congressional approval rating by all sides; Republican, Democrat, Independent is near single digits. On the internet news it was reported that Mitch McConnell got 3 BILLION dollars for Kentucky in this deal. Something is rotten in the state of “Denmark”.
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How cool is this! Federally-funded TFA is endorsing a product!
The product assures us the partnership will be “lucrative”
“JUST THE TWO OF US: Teach for America (TFA) recently announced a new partnership with online math curriculum provider Conceptua Math to create a Common Core math curriculum for incoming TFA teachers.
The partnership will manifest in two movements. For the 2013-2014 school year, 90 TFA teachers (representing grades 3 through 8) and staff members will pilot Conceptua’s all-digital Common Core math curriculum. Following, new TFA recruits attending the 2014 Chicago summer institute (where incoming corps members receive teacher training for approximately 5 weeks) will receive access to Conceptua math curriculum if they are teaching grade 3-5 math classes in their permanent school placement. They will also receive access to the curriculum for the entirety of their two-year teaching commitment with TFA.
Scott Painter, TFA’s Managing Director of Math and Science Design, describes the switch to Common Core as “a fundamental shift in what’s being taught;” he believes that Conceptua is not just a good resource for developing content knowledge, but also helps teachers develop pedagogical knowledge.
So what’s in it for Conceptua Math? Over 300 Teach for America corps members will use their curriculum product this coming summer. And if the pilot proves successful, Conceptua Math could be looking at a much longer and more lucrative partnership with TFA.”
Has anyone told the parents of these kids they’re being used in an experiment?
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Sounds so cool that I believe Arne and TFA should be slapped with a RICO charge. We as a society are screwed if this continues.
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The Two of Us…makes me think of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEy6MGu3bIA
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I am going to say this again as a “Real Democrat” in the FDR tradition of the people first and let us thank Eleanor Roosevelt for this really if you know the history of this. Democrats today are really right wing republicans bought and sold by the same puppet masters, billionaires and corporations, for a “Few Dollars More.” Do you know the Koch Brothers bought and sold the “Tea Partiers” in Congress for an average of only $5,000 with the highest being $15,000? That does not pay for lunch for them if they have a moderately priced bottle of wine, maybe the limo also, but who knows?
Obama and Duncan are obviously bought and sold as are the Senate, Congress and the Supreme Court as if it is not too easy to see with what they do and the stupid simpleton games they play to the totally ignorant public.
Do not allow Hillary Clinton as she was a major part of Bill’s games on us. Bill Clinton is the one we are in this trouble now with the 1994 NAFTA and WTO and the 1996 Telecommunications Act which ended the Free Press and the big one the 1999-2000 Banking Deregulation Acts with Phil Graham. One thing you cannot say about Clinton and Obama is that they are not smart and know exactly what they are doing. Look at how wealthy Clinton has become, full on payoff for the gifts to the billionaires and corporations. Even $150,000,000 is not noticed on the donations to the Clinton Foundation. How do I know, I read the stories in the front pages of the Washington Post and N.Y. Times on a Friday. So I have the download of over 2,300 pages of donors and which one is missing, that one from Guasti a Canadian mining venture capitalist over the deal for 1/3 of the uranium on the planet in Uzbekistan. Two weeks after the deal is done with the assistance of Uncle Bill the donation comes in. Think about the corruption for money we are bought and sold for. No more dynasties like the Clintons, Bush’s and Kennedy’s. We should shut down this place if we do not have some real talent out there in the democratic party who is not bought and sold to represent us or we will become Nazi Fascist Amerika as we are now. Read “Hapsburgs to Hitler” and “Crossing the Rubicon” if you want to know what is going on now and how they are doing it.
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Please tell me how do I tell the government that I do not want my taxes going to TFA? You cannot trust either party, nor the independents. It seems the government’s agenda lines up with TFA, charters, vouchers, destroying unions, and creating a revolving door of zombies who will get their loans erased, free housing, fake paid for masters degrees, etc., at the cost of the children. How do we rise up against this?
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When is Harkin’s upcoming election? I hope he is soundly defeated because he represents why America thinks Congress is rotten to the core.
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“Rotten to the Common Core”
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Do TFA’ers get their hefty student loan debts erased by teaching in these struggling schools?
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TFA teachers get the same loan forgiveness that any public school teacher or Americorps member is entitled to.
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Very interesting about Tom Harkin. When I wrote to him expressing my concern about my daughter’s horrendous experience during her TFA training I didn’t even receive a response. Thankfully she saw her training did not prepare her teach very needy students and left TFA before the school year began. The fact that such a high ranking official on our nation’s education committee doesn’t even respond explains a lot to me.
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