A comment from a reader:
“I’m ashamed of doing TFA and I was a 96 Corps Member. I don’t put TFA on my resume or fess up to it unless directly asked, because I value my reputation as a dedicated, knowledgeable, lifelong educator. I have spent 18 years watching Corps Members come and go. So many things have disappointed me about TFA over the years, but my recent experiences as an instructor in their JHU Masters program left me feeling that there is no hope for this organization to regain its moral compass. While preaching the power of high expectations, TFAers leave Johns Hopkins University with artificially inflated GPAs and a Masters degree that they do NOT deserve. They have done a fraction of the work that other Grad students in similar programs in the School of Education are required to complete, with virtually no expectations as to the quality or timeliness of their assignments. The courses are created by Laureate Education and the professors are almost all TFA alums, some of whom have as few as 5 years experience and manage to teach 5 graduate level TFA sections while working for Baltimore City Schools full time as well. I keep hoping that someone will write an article about this part of the TFA attempt to convince the world that CMs are the smartest and hardest working teachers around, especially now that they have expanded this rigorous program, that was so carefully crafted to bring about transformational teaching, to several other regions. Of course nobody wants to talk about these things because that MS Ed degree is pretty much a jobs program for the alums that are “teaching” the 85+ sections of TFA only classes. If I were a student at Hopkins, I would be livid that other grad students can submit all assignments as late as they want (with strict limits on the amount of points that can be deducted) and resubmit every assignment to ensure that they can get a better grade. If I were a parent of a student in a public school, I would be outraged that my child’s teacher could plagiarize graduate work with impunity while standing in a classroom lecturing students about integrity and perseverance.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I earned my MAT from Johns Hopkins in 1996. I am considered a key alumnus, one of the first asked to serve as mentors for new graduates of the education programs of Hopkins. I have expressed my strong dismay at the association of Hopkins with the TFA program, and not just for the reasons expressed by the former CM you quote in this post.
We are deprofessionalizing teaching.
Too many involved in education policy are former CMs with only 2 years of teaching, thinking that experience makes them experts entitled to reshape the profession and publiceducation in ways that do not serve the vast majority of our students.
It is sad that an institution with the reputation of Johns Hopkins would fall prey to this, but then I am not surprised, having seen things similar from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
How sad.
One more comment. While I will continue to try to help graduates of JHU, I also continue my practice of attempting to discourage gifted students from going into TFA – they have no business going into teaching unless they enter the profession willing to make it a career commitment. They have no business coming in with a mindset that this is just to get their tickets punched on the fast track to other careers.
So how do you stop kids from drinking the TFA koolaid? How do you stop them from turning down a job in this economy and the perks that come with it (like guaranteed loan elimination, reduced housing costs, an unearned Master’s degree? When will the kids graduating college realize that Teach For Awhile is using them to privatize education, bust unions, demoralize, villainize, and ruin teachers’ careers, and victimize over and over again the very children they purport to “save” and make millions/billions off their backs? Maybe it was nobel 20 to 15 years ago to do a stint at TFA and move on, but these days the mission is so twisted and evil, I don’t understand how the college kids don’t know the truth. Or, maybe they do, and they believe the lies. Perhaps there should be a grassroots effort to stop people from entering TFA. If there are no worker drones, there is no more organization. How do we organize that effort?
My understanding of TFA was to place quality teachers into urban districts. Perhaps a nonprofit needs to be started to attract Ed graduates who will commitment to urban districts. There could even be tuition reimbursement incentives at state universities for students willing to teach in urban districts. With so many educators out of work TFA should not even exist.
“Perhaps a nonprofit needs to be started to attract Ed graduates who will commitment to urban districts. There could even be tuition reimbursement incentives at state universities for students willing to teach in urban districts. ”
These things already exist.
One example: The NET-Q program in GA.
http://net-q.coe.gsu.edu/?q=node/2
Donna: TFA is part of a business plan that uses local, state and national government to garner its $tudent $ucce$$—
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.” [Groucho]
Yes, a Marxist business plan.
And notice that charterite/privatizer rules reign supreme here too: “If I were a student at Hopkins, I would be livid that other grad students can submit all assignments as late as they want (with strict limits on the amount of points that can be deducted) and resubmit every assignment to ensure that they can get a better grade. If I were a parent of a student in a public school, I would be outraged that my child’s teacher could plagiarize graduate work with impunity while standing in a classroom lecturing students about integrity and perseverance.”
As in fiscal accountability and openness, student and employee and parent rights, use of school staff and students and parents for political lobbying, and so much more—there is one set of rules and standards for the charter/private sector and another for public schools. In this case, one set of moral and ethical requirements for US and a much more “flexible” set for THEM.
Teaching has a moral dimension too.
And the charterite/privatization sector increasingly fail to meet even minimal standards.
Thank you for your comments.
😎
P.S. Whatever happened to “rigor” and “grit” in the program you describe?
😧
You wrote, “Teaching has a moral dimension too.”
I remember sharing with close friends with kids about the moral obligations I felt as a teacher. The husband could not be more adamant that he certainly hoped his children would never receive a moral education from the school, for he believed that it was his job to teach morals, as their parent. I was dismayed, but I could also see his point.
As long as the schools stick to the 3 R’s, are fair, and deliver the goods, many parents are completely not interested in any aspect of primary and secondary education touching upon moral and ethical developmental issues. This is why zero tolerance policies are so popular. This is why some people fully buy into the Reagan-era view that schools should be run more like businesses and why teachers and children in charters can be hired and fired at will, with very little transparency, a whole lot of latitude, and just enough accountability. This is why teen social media has such a ripe outlet for the exchange of social and emotional issues (and why we have no idea how to regulate it).
The absence of that holistic form of education perhaps stems from seeing the child without a soul or spiritual dimension. (I am not referring to religion in any way, whatsoever. Nor am I referring to overt character training.) Non-secular pedagogical work that develops more than just a child’s mental faculties is accessible and manageable, but there is no room or time to implement these lessons fully within the current testing or performance “accountability” culture.
I realize that you were more so referring to the administrative side of things and I believe that the classroom and the boardroom is intimately connected.
Sigh! So true and so sad.
Apparently you start by putting up posters in college restrooms.
Interesting piece on UK’s “free schools” program. Free schools are much like US charter schools. Lawmakers were secretly funnelling money from the public school system, starving the public system, to pour money into the “free school” system:
“In a dramatic escalation of tensions, the Lib Dems confirmed highly damaging leaked information from a senior government source, who said that Gove had secretly taken the money from the Basic Need fund for local authorities last December, in the face of stiff opposition from the Lib Dem schools minister David Laws.”
“The Conservatives are putting the needs of a handful of their pet projects ahead of the requirements of the other 24,000 schools in the country.”
“Michael Gove is so dogmatic about free schools, he essentially places no spending restrictions on them at all. The free schools budget is out of control and the secretary of state would rather sink another £800m into the black hole, rather than rein in spending.”
Shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt said the Lib Dems could not run away from blame: “The Free School programme had the Lib Dem stamp of approval from day one. They’re as much to blame for the failings as the Tories. Gove’s decision to transfer this funding away from areas in need of new primary places into the Free School programme is an act of ideological vandalism.”
I think it’s amusing because it tracks the “bipartisan” nature of ed reform here. The Lib Dems are trying to run away from the “free school” corruption and blame Conservatives, but the Lib Dems backed school privatization too. Just like our Republicans and Democrats!
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/may/10/gove-lunatic-raid-free-schools
Looks like some people are already organizing a resistance: We should support them! http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/28_03/28_03_kretchsond.shtml
Ms. Ravitch –
Thank you for this post and I hope your health is steadily improving.
I would be glad to include this poster in my documentary “The Public School Wars.” If you remember, we did an interview with you in Austin at NPE.
I understand if they wish to remain anonymous, but if they are willing to talk to us, we are glad to listen.
I will also be attending the 5/17 rally in NYC City Hall Park.
Thank you again, Bill Baykan
Bill Baykan bill.baykan@gmail.com 773.459.3259
It’s good to see the awareness of TFA alums and recruits rise, and good to see some of them express shame and horror at the actions of this despicable organization.
Unfortunately, the funders and leaders of this union busting cult appear to be incapable of feeling shame, and thus the need, not to debate them, but to once and for all drive them out of the temple they are defiling.
I’m guessing that they probably won’t send the 2014 Corps Member to spend the day in my classroom, as they originally planned.
I think what is also sad is that they give tuition reimbursement to the TFA-ers, but not to the students who go through a traditional education program. It is like, the less qualified you are, the more perks and opportunities are thrown your way.
In Baltimore City, the school district does give tuition reimbursement to all teachers. However, at Hopkins, a 3 credit course costs TFA students $2,160 vs. $2,370 for a “regular” School of Education student.
Or student loan forgiveness, which is given to TFAers but are nearly impossible for regular teachers to get. My husband and I, who both have taught for years in high-risk situations, cannot get a loan forgiven.
Nothing surprises me after seeing the corruption of the people. the administrators in the NYC bureaucracy that is the DOE.
It has been an anything goes culture for so long, that the DOCUMENTED behaviors of principals show criminal liability, and yet there is not a shred of accountability because it is HIDDEN from view, just like the TFA shenanigans. The same corruption of failed human beings, allows the chancellor of schools in LAUSD, Deasy, to lie about his credentials,and just about everything else, and the union i son touch better. It is OUT THERE, you can read about it, so it is known… but have you?
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/03/lausd-and-utla-collude-to-end-collective-bargaining-and-civil-rights-for-teachers-part-2.html
To me, there will be no change to education in America until the LIGHT OF SCRUTINY shines on the people who run the show. Corruption is epidemic and endemic and THAT is why nothing works, and a river of money flows to the schemers, the scammers and the snake-oil salesmen.
American principles of human dignity should be at the heart of all public policy.
Paul Jay, at TRNN says that his news network plans to look at the underlying policies that make things work or fail. Yes! Hopefully, they will begin the hard scrutiny underlying educational policy.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11838
Until there is transparency, and we take a long hard look at the principles of these people and the POLICIES THAT THEY PUT INTO PRACTICE, they will continue to see no impediment to game the system, not merely for the TFA but for everything. The law matters, and so do the principles of our Bill of Rights.
The corruption of the TFA, the corruption in our schools, in our legislature boils down to the corruption of the principles that made our country great.
. “The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself” FDR said. The private power of the people who run our educational institutions has become so strong that corruption is ‘the way it is’ — not merely invisible but tolerated and expected.
Remember Libor? Those guys admitted that ‘everyone was doing it!’
What was “IT”?
Well, it was merely fudging the numbers… except THOSE numbers were the ones that rated the financial securities.
Tolerating corruption is the end of everything; “in essence it is fascism-ownership of the government by an individual or a group.” Substitute the word ‘educational institutions’ for the word ‘government’, and FDR nailed it for us!
If the peopel/groups that oversee the university or the local school board are corrupt then the law is lost, and so is the country, not merely education…
… but what do I know.
Sigh!
Teach For America has already got a rebuttal up on their website: http://www.teachforamerica.org/blog/why-im-proud-our-commitment-educational-excellence The audacity to pretend that the TFA partnership program (apparently it’s all ONLINE???) http://education.jhu.edu/Academics/masters/MSES/ even remotely compares to what other preservice teachers are doing in their masters programs is absurd.
Thank you to the author of this comment for speaking out. Johns Hopkins is not the only university guilty of this type of educational malpractice, by the way. In Chicago, it’s Dominican University partnering with TFA. We need to call out all universities which partner with this twisted org. Actions like graduate students did on the Univ of Minnesota campus are vital: http://notfaattheu.wordpress.com/
Keep fighting!
Woah! I didn’t expect the propaganda machine to boot up that quickly. I have several coworkers that are in different Graduate/ Certificate programs at the School of Education at Hopkins and I know that they stress about the amount and difficulty of the work required. I also know that they do not benefit from the same “you can resubmit every assignment” policy that the TFA program has. If a student turned in an assignment 2 months late, I was still limited to deducting 10%. Since many of the assignments were worth 10 points, if the person otherwise fulfilled the requirements of the assignments, they still earned an A. I guess that is rigor these days. Oddly enough, when I tried to contact Dean Andrews to express my concerns, he was not interested in contacting me for a “constructive discussion.”
And it’s not just TFA. Here in New Jersey, the Relay Graduate School of Education uses teachers in their charter schools to instruct future teachers and confers graduate degrees! The videos on their site, particularly the one involving kindergarteners, could have been made by Big Brother.
http://www.relay.edu/
To call a training program a “graduate school of education” is ludicrous. Relay and Match are programs where charter teachers teach charter teachers. They give each other degrees that are worthless. Who is on the faculty? No research, no scholarship, no understanding of how children learn.
Hey Diana, are you still in Baltimore? I would love to talk more about this with you sometime. You may or may not be aware how politically important this is now.
According to the following article, TFA has also done amazing things for the supposedly, victimized, low-income, community that can’t afford to recruit HQ teachers.
http://hechingerreport.org/teach-americas-soft-power-education-reform-strategy/
Not all TFA Teachers are becoming transformational educators after two years of teaching in the classroom; and not all traditional 4 years BA.Ed prep teachers are highly effective in their first two years of teaching and/or willing to teach in the supposedly, victimized, low-incomes community.
-Nathan