I hope Norm Scott, retired New York City teacher, blogger,
and videographer, will forgive me for posting this hilarious
satire, rather than merely putting up a link. The unwritten rule of
the blogosphere is that you post the link so the other person, who
wrote it, gets traffic. Please
open this link and give Norm the traffic he deserves. You
will enjoy his site, which reflects his wisdom and wit. This is
what he wrote: “NY Times to Adopt TFA Model: Will Fire all
Reporters With More than 2 Years Experience” “Strong newspapers can
withstand the turnover of their reporters,” declared the Times on
its editorial page. “Experienced reporters grow tired and less
effective.” New reporters will undergo two and a half weeks of
training before being sent to locations like Syria and Egypt. An
extra week of training will be required to cover the White House.
“Novice reporters will receive constant feedback from their bureau
chiefs,” said the editorial. “Reporters with the lowest 20% of
readership of their articles will be terminated.” The Times will
adopt the “two claps and a sizzle” celebratory chant for reporters
whose stories go viral. The Times is actively searching for a 27
year old with at least 3 years on the job to run the
paper.
The New York Times has a good debate this morning about the value of experience for teaching.
The debate was prompted by a very controversial article last week in which charter leaders claimed that two or three years of teaching was good enough, and that they liked the constant turnover of bright inexperienced teachers. The title of the article actually referred teachers who had a “short career by choice,” though some might say that what these young people had was a job or a temp position. A career normally refers to a commitment, not an experience.
Most extraordinary was this statement:
“Strong schools can withstand the turnover of their teachers,” said Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach for America. “The strongest schools develop their teachers tremendously so they become great in the classroom even in their first and second years.”
None of these young teachers will stay around long enough to be evaluated. How will we know if they are “great”?
This is one of the most depressing articles I have read lately.
It is a straightforward article about high teacher turnover in charter schools. It begins with quotes from a 24-year-old teacher in YES Prep in Houston, who is just starting his third year in the classroom, and he is already planning to move on.
The principal of his charter school is 28.
The New York Times reporter Motoko Rich points out:
As tens of millions of pupils across the country begin their school year, charter networks are developing what amounts to a youth cult in which teaching for two to five years is seen as acceptable and, at times, even desirable. Teachers in the nation’s traditional public schools have an average of close to 14 years of experience, and public school leaders and policy makers have long made it a priority to reduce teacher turnover.
The growing charter movement, she write, “is pushing to redefine the arc of a teaching career.” Yes, two years in the classroom, and you leave. What kind of a “career” is that? In what school she visited, the principal was 27 years old, and five of the nine teachers were in their first year of teaching.
She also notes that research indicates that teacher turnover is not good for school climate or student achievement, but Teach for America has a different view:
The notion of a foreshortened teaching career was largely introduced by Teach for America, which places high-achieving college graduates into low-income schools for two years. Today, Teach for America places about a third of its recruits in charter schools.
“Strong schools can withstand the turnover of their teachers,” said Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach for America. “The strongest schools develop their teachers tremendously so they become great in the classroom even in their first and second years.”
Studies have shown that on average, teacher turnover diminishes student achievement. Advocates who argue that teaching should become more like medicine or law say that while programs like Teach for America fill a need in the short term, educational leaders should be focused on improving training and working environments so that teachers will invest in long careers.
“To become a master plumber you have to work for five years,” said Ronald Thorpe, president of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, a nonprofit groupthat certifies accomplished teachers. “Shouldn’t we have some kind of analog to that with the people we are entrusting our children to?”
Can you imagine that a “teacher” who graduated college in June is already “a great teacher” by September?
Why do we expect entrants to every other profession to spend years honing their craft but a brand-new teacher, with no experience, can be considered “great” in only one or two years, then leave to do something else?
This is a recipe to destroy the teaching profession.
How can anyone say they are education “reformers” if their goal is to destroy the profession?
What other nation is doing this?
This is not innovative. In fact, it returns us to the early nineteenth century, when the general belief was that “anyone can teach, no training needed.” Teaching then was a job for itinerants, widow ladies, young girls without a high school degree, and anyone who couldn’t do anything else. It took over a century to create a teaching profession, with qualifications and credentials needed before one could be certified to stand in front of a classroom of young children. We are rapidly going backwards.
What does The Onion think about Teach for America?
This article provides the young corps member’s view, and the reaction of a student.
I posted this when it first appeared, but it up is such a funny satire that I had to post it again.
When Kevin Huffman (ex-TFA) brought in his friend Chris Barbic (ex-TFA) to run a district made up of the state’s lowest performing schools, the district was euphemistically called the Achievement School District.
Barbic promised that within five years, these schools would rank in the top 25% in the state.
In its first year report, the state ranked it 5 out of 5 in growth; math scores were up by 3% but reading scores were down by 5%.
Gary Rubinstein reviews the numbers and finds it amazing that the state could recognize a drop in reading scores in the state’s lowest performing schools as a sign of extraordinary growth.
Since Gary, also ex-TFA, knows the people involved, he holds out hope that Chris Barbic will be the first of the big-name corporate reformers to do a 180 and recognize that high expectations and TFA are not enough.
It is sad that this kind of hype has become predictable, when it should be inexcusable.
Teach for America has always said that its long-term goal
was to train future leaders who would take a significant role in
shaping education policy. That is happening. Such alumni as
Michelle Rhee, Kevin Huffman (state commissioner in Tennessee),
John White (state commissioner in Louisiana), and Eric Guckian
(education advisor to the extremist Governor of North Carolina) are
using their power to promote privatization of public education and
to attack the teaching profession. In Atlanta, four
TFA alumni are running for school board and have a good
chance of winning. “Incumbent Courtney English (at-large Seat 7) is
a TFA alum. So is Matt Westmoreland, who is running unopposed for
the District 3 seat being vacated by Cecily Harsch-Kinnane. “So is
Eshe Collins, who is running for the District 6 seat being vacated
by Yolanda Johnson; as well as Jason Esteves, who is running for
the at-large Seat 9 being vacated by Emmett Johnson. However,
neither Collins nor Esteves mention TFA in their extensive campaign
biographies which appear on their respective websites. “Overall,
the four are a largely pro-charter school group. If all four are
elected, TFA alumni will constitute a near-majority voting bloc on
the BOE.” The linked article suggests that the four will advance a
pro-privatization agenda. At some point, TFA will be recognized as
a crucial cog in the rightwing effort to destroy public education
and dismantle the teaching profession.
This teacher describes a series of moves in Philadelphia to save money by hiring uncertified nurses and replacing experienced teachers with TFA. Superintendent Hite is a Broad Academy graduate.
She writes:
“It is a discouraging day for Philadelphia teachers. The school district has been scrambling/fighting to find $50 million to call back laid off employees in order to open schools.
“The mayor finally announced he would borrow the money, so we can now open schools on time. Then, the superintendent announced an “emergency” SRC (School Reform Commission- whose members are appointed by the state and mayor) meeting.
“This was a slick move on their part because it happened so fast to catch the union members off guard. Superintendent Hite asked them to temporarily suspend parts of the state school code to eliminate seniority, stop pay increases and hire uncertified nurses.
“This is a problem because they want to get rid of older, more experienced teachers to bring in cheaper Teach For America teachers, to be able to get rid of teachers easier, start paying teachers based on student test scores and bring in nurses to work in the schools who are not certified.
“I don’t buy their claim that this is “temporary.” I just don’t see them changing it back in the future, if this is the new national reform agenda.”
Black Agenda Report is a fierce critic of the privatization and dismantling of public education. Some of their rage must be due to the fact that the privatizers claim they are doing it to “save” minority children.
In this post BAR rages against Trach for America as a union-busting organization.
Bruce Dixon of BAR writes:
“Back in the days of organizing meat packing, steel and auto workers, employers couldn’t use tax-exempt donations to transport, pay and train their scabs, and they had to wait for strikes to deploy them. That was before Teach For America….
“What’s the Difference Between Teach For America, and a Scab Temp Agency?….
“If you’re a public school parent or student, there’s none. If you’re an educator or other school employee or a friend or relative of any school employee, there’s none. If you live in a community where the local public school is one of the last hopeful possibilities that might bind a neighborhood together, there’s none.
“If you’re a school CEO or administrator trying to hollow out your public schools to justify their closing and privatzation, or a mayor trying to justify those campaign contributions, there’s no difference at all, either. If you’re a hedge fund investor, like the charter school sugar daddies who contribute billions to Barack Obama and a host of black and white politicians in state and local government across the country; there’s still no difference.
“You have to be a taxpayer — and let’s understand that corporate elites and the wealthy have largely shed the burden of taxation onto the backs of the middle class and the poor in this the era of neoliberalism, to begin to see a little difference…. The Grapes of Wrath era scabs were generally not trained, transported or paid with tax-exempt foundation money.”
The article includes this rap from the HBO series “Treme”:
Davis M., rhyming to a musical collaborator:
Four years at Radcliffe, that’s all you know,
a desire to do good and a 4.0.
You’re here to save us from our plight, you got the answer cause you’re rich and white
on a two year sojourn you’re here to stay, Teach For America all the way
got no idea just what you’re facin’, no clue just who you’re displacin’
old lady taught fathers, old lady taught sons, old lady bought books for the little ones
old lady put in thirty years, sweat and toil, time and tears
was that really your sad intention, to help the state of Louisiana deny her pension?
Collaborator:
Hold it, hold it….
First of all the state of Louisiana fired the teachers, not Teach for America
Davis M.:
A scab is a scab is a scab…
There is a reason that people like Bill Gates, Chris Christie, Rahm Emmanuel, Jeb Bush, Andrew Cuomo, Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg and yes Barack Obama will never really listen to teachers voices. And that is because, in the competition for money, power, and position, which is what is all the that really counts to them, they see themselves as winners and teachers as losers. Regarding themselves as examples of what talent and ambition can achieve, they look at someone who spends their life in the classroom as lacking in drive and imagination, and therefore undeserving in having a voice in shaping the way we train the next generation of citizens and workers. Whether or not they will say this in their speeches, they certainly say it to one another, in their private meetings, and high powered policy seminars. It is why the only teacher training organization they really trust is Teach for America, because that organization shares their view that really talented people would only remain a teacher as a passage to a more rewarding career. Unless you understand this– you will never understand why editorial writers, television personalities, corporate leaders, and elected officials systematically exclude teachers voices, and why the policies they ultimately support prove disastrous on the ground. Every section of the American Elite is poisoned with a fatal arrogance, and getting through to them with sound arguments is well nigh impossible. They only understand and respect power.
Professor of African American Studies and History
Fordham University
“If you Want to Save America’s Public Schools: Replace Secretary of Education Arne Duncan With a Lifetime Educator.” http://dumpduncan.org/
Paul Thomas here discusses the amazing phenomenon in which the TFA brand is losing its luster.
The dissidents and defectors grow more numerous, and some are so angry that they go overboard.
Diane Ravitch's blog 