Progressivism is not dead at Harvard University.
A group of students called on the University’s President Drew Faust to cut ties with Teach for America unless the organization made major changes.
“The group’s demonstration comes as part of a larger movement initiated by United Students Against Sweatshops, which holds that holds that Teach For America is working to privatize education through its relationships with big-name corporations that are threatening the sanctity of public education. The group had a TFA Truth Tour during March and April earlier this year, wherein protests were scheduled and executed on college campuses, including Harvard University.
“In their letter to President Faust, the student group outlined the reforms they would like to see within the organization:
“Send Teach for America participants only to areas where there is a teaching shortage
“Work to provide these participants with more training and education
“Eliminate the ties the organization has with such corporations as Goldman Sachs, Exxon Mobil, and JPMorgan Chase.”
In other words, SLAM recognizes that TFA is an enabler of privatization and acts like scabs, taking the jobs of experienced teachers and busting unions.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thank you for highlighting this message that TFA. Is part of a broader attack on the dignity of workers. TFA, like many charter schools, is far from a benign and well intentioned effort by the pure of heart to address unmet educational needs.
I remember when Harvard students staged a sit-in at the president’s office to argue for fair and livable wages for low level Harvard employees. They fought hard, it got a lot of press and Harvard increased its minimum wage. So let us hope that these Harvard students pursue the TFA issue with the same verve!
TFA will not cease to breath and produce ill trained scab labor breath breath until its supply workers is cut off at it source, colleges and universities. The Harvard students have made a fine beginning by articulating key issues with TFA that must be addressed or ban TFA from the campus. If this is a successful tactic, then we must address our own issue: how can we facilitate student resistance at other campuses. Unless students advocate for TFA changes, which TFA will not accede, then I am afraid that TFA will continue on its merry way. The central question is how to raise student awareness and advocacy.on a larger scale.
More of this. Let’s hope it takes hold.
I wager that the Tea-Party sponsored school board in Jefferson County, Colorado, besieged by student/faculty protests over its intent to distort Advanced Placement U.S. History, excluding any negative historical events and promoting only free enterprise and the sanitized version of our history to prove America’s “exceptionalism” (as a Christian-founded nation?) and dispense with slavery; a right-wingnut board member announced that we had dealt with the issue of slavery in a “voluntary manner!”– ( Does that mean that the Civil War didn’t really happen because I don’t recall the Confederate States of America voluntarily banning slavery.) —would love to staff its schools with TFA faculties who would have reams of support material from Goldmann-Sachs, et al, corrupting a famous quote, “Damn the teachers’ union and full-speed backwards!”
“Work to provide these participants with more training and education”
You mean like 6 weeks of “intensive” training instead of 5?
How impressive. 🙂
How about requiring that participants get certified like every other teacher?
That should put a slight kink in TFA’s business plan.
IMHO, TFA is fundamentally flawed and can not be “reformed”. It’s a great idea on paper but so are most fairy tales.
But Poet, don’t you know? It is Special HIgh Intensity Training, only the best! They shovel the rest at us.
TAGO! Old Teacher on the acronym!!!!
I missed that, but am not surprised that Duane picked right up on it. 🙂
Good one!
I applaud the actions of Harvard students. SImultaneous demonstrations are needed at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and in/near/ around the offices of all of the economists who churn out PR for the measures of “effective” teaching that Bill Gates wanted bad enough to pay Harvard $64 million for–the MET for “Measures of Effective Teaching” project.
These measures purport to identify “effective” teachers. They are as deeply flawed as TFA’s program.
The MET project’s measures of “effective” teaching have been uncritically accepted in many states as authoritative and valid. The aura of Harvard and Gates funding helps. Add the Congressional testimony of lead researcher, economist Thomas Kane.
Which measures?
a) VAM value-added statistical inferences since discredited by the American Statistical Association,
b) observations based on Charlotte Danielson one-size-fits-all specifications for labeling teachers in one of four or five categories from highly effective to ineffective. The Met Project observations were not in classrooms. Raters looked at videos that teachers made in their classrooms. Elsewhere on this blog I have shown that Charlotte Danielson can produce no evidence for the reliability or validity of this scheme, only low correlations with VAM in reading and math, and not for all grades.
c) a proctored student survey, designed by economist Ron Ferguson and now promoted within the Tripod Project®. Some states viewed as exemplary because the surveys were piloted in the MET project. In this survey, the easy-to-sell 7 C’s construct is weighted to produce high and positive scores for teachers who conform to Ferguson’s one-size-fits all vision of excellent teaching—strictly academic in focus, assign and check the homework, etc. This survey and variants are being administered to K-12 students under proctored conditions–circle the emoticons for Kingergarten.
I hope the Harvard students who ave the energy to protest will have the savvy to grasp the links between these high stakes and deeply flawed measures, the high profile role of Harvard economists in direct and indirect marketing them, and the role of Gates money in this project. These measures are not credible. They do not represent sound scholarship. They have nothing to do with improving the work of teachers or enhancing student learning. They are being used to damage the reputation and livelihood of teachers, and to position Harvard as the authoritative source for measures of teaching effectiveness.
All these measures are deeply flawed. Up to 90% of the influence of teachers on student test scores is due to factors teachers cannot control. These range from the quality of pre-natal care, to same language and dialect spoken at home and in school, to the students who turn up as classmates and influence each other.
Harvard scholars could help stop the nonsense that teachers alone can reduce the achievement gap. They have so far not elected to do so, least of all in Congressional hearings.
On the deeply flawed scholarship see See Rothstein, J. & Mathis, W. J. (2013). Have we identified effective teachers? Culminating findings from the Measures of Effective Teaching project. (Review). Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. Retrieved from http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-MET-final-2013.
Laura,
You always get to the hear of the matter. Can I have a license to clone you??
Duane
Damnit I hate it when I sneeze at the wrong time–Heart!
“These measures purport to identify “effective” teachers. They are as deeply flawed as TFA’s program.”
Sorry, Laura, but Chetty, et all’s “measures” are more fundamentally flawed than the Teach F. . . ds of America by a long shot!
Laura, my high school did the Tripod survey for a few years when it first came out. Ferguson himself came to speak to our student body. (His presentation was basically and autobiography filled with cute pictures from his childhood.) Kids were curious at our highly diverse public school.
Then they took the survey.
Juniors and seniors alternated between being amused and appalled. One question in the early survey asked if kids were ever told that “they acted ghetto.” Yep, it’s true. My African-American students were furious.
Many saw the survey for what it was. A way to get students to judge their teachers. I saw a lot of negative body language. Students voiced that they really liked their teachers and were loathe to say critical things about them. One student said (to a roomful of appreciative nods), “I’m in class every day but I really don’t like this because I can’t judge everything you do as a teacher. It makes me uncomfortable.”
We dropped the survey after three years which was as soon as we contractually could exit the commitment.
Good to read this about students at Harvard! I asked my cousin if his daughter was looking at Harvard, since she is touring Brown, Dartmouth, UPENN. His response? “No, no one likes Harvard” . Maybe they should be trying to reestablish some integrity.
Trained for 4 to 6 weeks in the summer for the new school year. One month in, Newark, nj. They’ve have cried in front of the kids, n already quit by the dozens. Leaving the kids without a teacher. Educated teachers train for four years n participate as teacher asides for a few years before even venturing into a very important position like teaching. Union busting scabs, period. Tricked into thinking they’re giving back to the urban communities by Tfa n others.
Keep up the Good work–Harvard Students!! I see this happening in my community. The KIPP Charter school is filled with TFAs who are brainwashed funded by a Big Corporation whose goal is to control every school in my community!! We have organized a group to counter this!
Everyone who is concerned about TFA should join “Resistance to TFA” on Facebook. Check it out here:
https://www.facebook.com/ResistanceToTeachForAmerica
The Harvard demonstration was put on by a dozen students. A dozen.
A dozen is better than none, but it hardly constitutes a movement.
And while the Harvard dozen suggested that the school sever its ties with “Goldman Sachs, Exxon Mobil, and JPMorgan Chase,” the truth is that it’s highly unlikely to happen.
The fact is that in the most recent graduating class at Harvard, “31 percent took jobs that will channel their energies into derivatives, mergers, and often destructive outsourcing. And many more tried out for such positions. According to a study by the sociologist Lauren Rivera, a full 70 percent of Harvard’s senior class submits résumés to Wall Street and consulting firms.”
Many students may enter Harvard with idealistic optimism. They may well want to serve the public. But the Wall Street biggies recruit them relentlessly. And they succumb. Freshmen are sort of isolated from the recruitment madness, but when they come “back to school as sophomores they find it impossible not to notice their older peers’ ‘stampede to start applying’ for jobs on Wall Street. They want prestigious jobs that pay well, and Wall Street delivers.
Meanwhile, they can say that they don’t plan to stay there forever; they just want to build a nest egg, achieve financial security. Then they can go save the world.
Of course, by that time, if they’re working at Goldman and Exxon and JP Morgan, they’ve already helped to make the world a more difficult place to save.
See:http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septemberoctober_2014/features/why_are_harvard_grads_still_fl051758.php?page=all