To be exact, why does TFA need $907 million?
That is the amount that TFA raised from 2006-2010.
EduShyster has done the numbers and explains it all here.
During that time, TFA groomed some 28,000 teachers.
But more important, it groomed leaders like Kevin Huffman, state commissioner of education in Tennessee, now planning for vouchers; and John White of Louisiana, now implementing vouchers; and Michelle Rhee, now raising millions to give to candidates who support vouchers. That’s what really matters.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Because “need” is not part of their vocabulary—more is more is more. There can never be too much $$$$$$.
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“need” rhymes with . . . “greed.”
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This is no secret. TFA’s own literature agrees with you. TFA is no longer just looking to groom teachers; its newest program is the School Systems Leaders Fellowship.
http://www.cvent.com/events/school-systems-leaders-fellowship/event-summary-8d5b97be460842c9bcefb56787bec86b.aspx
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$32,000 per highly effective teacher and future leader does not seem crazy
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Why do you think every TFA teacher is “highly effective”? And if they were (the independent research says they are not), it is not a good investment if most are gone within three years.
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Didn’t read the article, did you?
“Or at least that’s the case for the school districts that have to cough up a finders fee of up to $5,000 for each TFA recruit, in addition to paying their salaries. The only part of the transaction that TFA actually pays for is the brief summer training that recruits receive prior to bringing their excellence into the classroom.
Ooops—scratch that. When the state of Ohio and a group of private foundations ponied up more than $2 million to bring 30-40 TFA recruits to Northeast Ohio this fall, the savvy bloggers at the excellently named Plunderbund discovered that TFA was billing the schools for much of the cost of the summer training.”
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Plus, districts must cough up the actual salaries and an extra “finders fee”, TFA member must pay for moving costs and living expenses, and districts lose money as they have to continously train new recruits every 2-3 years as TFAers cycle through. In addition, the 5 weeks of training and additional support throughout the year are full of highly rigid, rote teaching techniques and formulaic lesson plans (all you can really do in such a short time) taught by TFA alums (who themselves have only the 2-3 years in a classroom and are not master teachers by any standard.) TFA’s trainning model is simply not high-quality.
Also, teacher effectiveness is HIGHLY correlated with experience and training. It is absolutely unconciounable to place TFA novices with only four weeks of experience working with children with our neediest kids, including the large number which are placed in special education classrooms. No first year, uncertified TFAer would ever be allowed to teach in an afluent school’s classrooms, so why do we allow this for low-income children of color? TFA perpetuate inequalities. Why can’t the future “leaders” go and play teacher on the children of the wealthy for a change?
TFA could change its program, they could offer a year of internship before placing recruits in classrooms alone, they could use their funds to give grants and scholarships to quality candidates to enter highly-respected masters programs, they could change their focus to giving veteran teachers teaching assistants to support teaching and learning in our neediest classrooms. Instead, TFA chooses to spread misinformation and lies about the effectiveness of their teachers, it lobbies Congress to change federal law (highly-qualified teachers stipulation in NCLB) so they don’t have improve their trianing program, and continues to raise $100s of millions to expand to more and more regions with NO teacher shortages.
TFA has become a toxic combination of hubris and ignorance. I see no redeeming qualities. All that money wasted on this program is, absolutely, crazy.
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Oh, and let’s not forget the $5000 per year Americorp stipend (tax payer money, not TFA money) for graduate school expenses. Seems like a wasted investment considering how few TFAers actually remain in the classroom long-term. As a teacher who chose to complete a Master’s Program BEFORE I entered the classroom despite having six years of experience teaching overseas, (I believe that every child deserves a well-trained teacher from day one) I know I could have really used that type of money for school. Why give it to someone who is only committing to two years? That’s not right.
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“…they could change their focus to giving veteran teachers teaching assistants to support teaching and learning in our neediest classrooms.”
I LIKE THIS! It will never happen, because that would be akin to TFA aiding and abetting its enemies, the public school teachers. But, you are so right, if their real purpose is to help children in poor urban districts, they could do it in other more altruistic ways.
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What makes a TFA recruit a highly effective teacher? I argue that a teacher with a degree in education makes a highly qualified and effective teacher. The idea that 6 weeks of summer school is equal to a 4 year degree in education is ludicrous! We also do n ot need “future leaders” with the same mind set as Michelle Rhee or Wendy Kopp!
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Mr. Pink,
How long should the $32,000 teacher stay in the trenches teaching before he/she moves on to a “leadership” position?
Can future leaders stay in the classroom AND lead?
How many effective teachers will we have left if all must move on to be considered worthy of the TFA standards?
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That’s $32,392/teacher for an average of 5 weeks or about $6,000/week/teacher. That’s a lot of money to do nothing. And yet they have to fund the astroturf of the Broad Academy and TFA afterall. If they do not promote with vast amounts of money their failed ideological agenda people might think and throw the bums out. Students First is really what I call “Students Last.” This is a very Orwellian world we live in now. Since Citizens United the floodgates to a fascist courtry are opened wide. Our entire system has been compromised by those with the most green at hand to use for whatever purpose they desire. After all you can never have enough profit centers now can you?
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I still have trouble understanding what the trouble with vouchers is. The parents get a ticket to enroll their kid in a school that they like. Granted it is tax money, and if the money goes with the kid, it deprives the usual public schools of funding, but isn’t the freedom to choose from several options worth that? If there is more choice, I don’t see how that adds up to “fascist” control of education. It would seem that vouchers would work directly against “fascist” approaches to government.
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you wrote the problem … ” it is tax $ and if the $ goes with the kid, it deprives the usual public schools of funding……. … IT DEPRIVES THE USUAL PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF FUNDING….. got it ….
kinda takes the public $ and hands it to private sources … I believe this is also called stealing ……
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I was replying to Sue saying “takes the public $….”
That is just what a Pell grant does.
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Stealing????? Now when a Congress passes a stimulus bill that is directed by the executive branch exclusively to pseudo businesses whose CEOs become bundlers for said executive (SOLYNDRA), when legislators vote funding for union members whose dues are automatically deducted by the employer and go to the union to fund the legislator’s campaign, when people who don’t work get section 8 housing, food stamps, medicaid, and welfare from tax money extracted from the working half of the country and vote for said executive and he then wants to raise taxes, you have the gall to call tax money used by parents to educate their own children, their own children, their OWN children, stealing, I now know why the prejudice against the teachers of public education exists—because they can’t tell real stealing from equity. And these people, however heroic they me be in combat, in the line of fire, as the teachers who died at Newtown are, they certainly ain’t moral exemplars any more than Hector and Paris are just because they die courageously. Sheeeesh, Sue. The MONEY DOES NOT BELONG TO THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OR THEIR STAFFS. The money belongs to the people who made it, and no one else. The workers in the interest of compassion and self-interest have tolerated the high level of taxation (which depresses the whole economy), but no more, if we can manage it. Everybody works in the future. No free ride, never, no more again.
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You mean to say that Pell grants are stealing?
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Harlan, we are not talking about vouchers to public schools but rather vouchers to any school. When this has been tried in other countries, it results in a lot of storefront schools staffed by unqualified teachers for the poor while the rich people take their vouchers to elite private schools that charge a large supplement to the voucher. It also leads to a lot of fraud, with private and charter school operators siphoning off high profits for themselves while paying teachers the lowest salaries possible. Vouchers in other countries have resulted in a two-tiered system, one for the middle class and rich, and the other for the poor and the disabled. These schools also take away the citizen’s right to govern tax-supported schools. Once these vouchers go to private, parochial, or charter schools, the parent loses all input, except to remove his child. Other citizens have nothing to say or do, except to pay the taxes to support these schools. This is antithetical to our democracy.
On a personal level, I want my tax money to go to public schools that are overseen by citizens elected to do the job.
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Do you object to federal grant and loan programs that go to students in private schools like Stanford and Williams?
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To a certain extent, I do object. Many affluent students take their grants to Stanford and Williams, while the poor go to Pay n Pass Technical Institute and come out with huge loans and few skills. As long as the money is carefully monitored, I don’t object. For K-12 students, I support open enrollment in all public schools.
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“As long as the money is carefully monitored, I don’t object.”
What does this mean?
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I mean as long as there is strict accountability of the money, with no “operators” making six figure salaries from schools with a few hundred students. Schools supported by the taxpayers belong to the public so they should not be turned over to private individuals. I am against the privatization of public schools. These schools belong to the people and that’s where they should remain. Parents who want “choice” should be able to choose any public school.
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Eligability for Pell grants is not totally determined by income, but the chances of being eligible are greatest for students from falsies earning less than $30,000, and you have vertually no chance of a Pell grant if the family income is more than $60,000. Perhaps you would feel better about the Pell grant program.
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I would describe the current public school system as having at least two tiers, so a do not think that is a difference between the two systems.
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Yes, there is a two-tiered system now but it’s not permanent. Once these voucher schools take hold, the poor and the disabled will find themselves shut out of many of the “better” schools and will be relegated to schools of last resort. This is what has happened in other countries. At the beginning of the film “To Sir With Love,” the Sidney Poitier character is told by the principal that “We get the kids no one else wants.” Once these undemocratic customs get a foothold, they’re very difficult to get rid of.
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Why do you think it is not permanent?
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In the American city in which I live, a poor person can easily move his child out of a “failing” (i.e. poor) school. He can choose any school in the district (open enrollment) can move to a city that has low-income housing near “good” (i.e. affluent) schools, or can apply to another district. Where I live, a parent can get a job or a babysitter in an affluent city and enroll his children there. So he can work at Taco Bell and send his kids to the local schools. That’s how I know that being in the lower tier is not permanent at this time.
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In my state, admission is determined by geography. I would be interested to know how many jurisdictions allow open enrollment within a school district and how many allow open enrollment across district lines.
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Linda — I don’t think you live in a typical city. In a typical city, public school options are bound by district, and even by neighorhoods within districts, and poor people cannot “easily” move their families to other cities with better schools. If this were true on any meaningful scale, poor people would have nobody but themselves to blame for not taking advantage of all the easy choices of better schools at their disposal.
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The problem with vouchers is that students cannot just attend any school they want. Often, upper class public schools and private schools simply increase their cost beyond the value of the voucher.
The voucher only covers a portion of the cost of going to a “better” school, usually located in an upper income area There is no transportation to these schools, another barrier. My urban students
take the bus and often rely on what is called a TAP card – that is a free taxpayer funded voucher just to make it to the public school I teach at. How will they get to “upper class private school” 45 minutes away? And then there is the fact that a good portion of my students are on probation or have kids themselves. Will the private school take them? They don’t have take them even if they have a voucher and therein lies the rub. If the prospective student has not been parented properly, the “good schools” don’t want them.
A pell grant is a different situation. The student has already been admitted to a college to receive that.
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A Pell grant gives taxpayer money to private organizations so students can get an education. As far as I can tell, this constitutes “stealing” under Sue’s definition.
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Pell grant $ are funds the government sets aside for post K-12 students who have already been admitted to 2 or 4 yr schools …
Voucher funds are being taken directly from the PUBLIC schools coffers and given to fairly unaccountable non-public k-12 schools . This is what I feel is ‘stealing’ as they are leaving the public schools with less funds for the remainder of students … Again, why is it that if all these ‘reformers’ want to assist students in public schools…why did they not come to the public schools and inquire how they could help … not just set up a parallel system …
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That is more detailed than your original answer, but who knows how the money for Pell grants might have been spent. Perhaps it might even have been spent in the public school systems!
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And that is the problem right there! You said it youself. “If a prospective student hasn’t been parented properly, the ‘good schools’ don’t want them.” So who is left to teach these children? It is NOT a teacher issue or a failing schools issue. It is a greater societal issue that no one seems to want to address!! Many people want to have children but aren’t interested in real parenting anymore. Politicians and policy makers want teachers and schools to fix everything. Wake up – we exist to educate children, not to raise them.
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Maybe I’m missing something really obvious, but I don’t see any source in this link for the “$1 billion” assertion, and I don’t see any numbers that edushyster has done to explain it.
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Actually the $1 billion figure is probably too low as according to TFA’s 990 reports the ended 2008, 2009 and 2010 with more than $300,million in assets. Those reports are available here: http://www.eri-nonprofit-salaries.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=NPO.Summary&EIN=133541913&Year=2009&Cobrandid=0&sourceid=
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Then where is Diane getting the figure of 907 million? That’s not your calculation? Confused about this.
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Ok, “public support” listed as follows on page 2 of Schedule A of TFA’s most recent report. This would appear to be the source of the $907 million.
2006: 76,939,083
2007: 142,345,312
2008: 251,515,886
2009: 193,027,434
2010: 243,647,246
Total: 907,474,961
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Seems they are now working worldwide .. .which is news to me … I was at a neighborhood holiday party the other nite and one of the moms was informing me about how her daughter had done TFA in US and is now with Teach For ALL ( still TFA) in India and is now learning from the Indians that they like to have family involved in education … and are more interested in teaching the ‘whole child’ .. and how her daughter is bringing this ‘innovative info’ back to TFA US ….
This is the first I have heard of their worldwide scheme .. .but perhaps this is where lots of money is going …. altho this daughter is having to do lots of fundraising as the teachers in India only get around $50/month and they have to suppliment …
their website with locations and # of recruits
http://teachforall.org/network_locations.html
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Gadzooks, this is worse than “Up With People”! And they were plain (not mixed) n-u-t-z!
Does TFA pass the cult test? http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-cult_q0.html
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I played around with this idea a few months ago here: http://mskatiesramblings.blogspot.com/2012/07/controversies-and-cults-teach-for.html In my mind, seeing TFA as having cult-like tendencies helped me understand how so many TFAers can work so close to the problems in education and still believe in the nonsense that is corporate ed reform. I do believe most participants are well-intentioned, smart people,which is why their unwavering adherence to bad policy was always baffling. The insulation of TFA, that elite feedback loop-the EdReform echochamber, is key to EdReform’s current success.
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Let us keep talking and spreading the word, so it eventually leads to their failure. It is inevitable.
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I’ll bet some of that TFA money goes to advertising and lobbying.
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Calling TFA alums “educational leaders” is like calling your neighbor who plays paintball a “Navy Seal”.
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Why does everyone on this blog keep saying that there is only the brief summer training? TFA requires all members to complete additional coursework over the duration of their initial 2 year stint.
I am not TFA, and I wouldn’t have been TFA. But I have worked with about 12 TFAers over the past decade. There was not one bad apple in that group. One was one of the best teachers that I’ve seen right out of the gate. He stayed for 3 years, set up a department curriculum and then went on to medical school with the goal of working on public education of health issues. They were all hard working. None of them were union bashers. None of them had an ‘i’m better than you’ attitude towards other teachers. 10 out of 12 had the full intention of making teaching a profession. That most of them may not make it is not unusual. Most people who enter the profession don’t stay.
The amount of weekday/weekend/observations and additional work required made me wonder why anyone would put up with the program.
If you’re going to rip on the program (and I do), at least let’s get the information right.
Are the small numbers of examples that I gave representative of the whole? I have no idea. But they were all good enough people that I wouldn’t bash them with bad information.
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For many things TFA see Gary Rubinstein’s blog at http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/
Comprehension alert: Gary has more patience than I do when dealing with TFA hype, misinformation, and misleading information, so understand going in that he often severely understates the obvious in an effort to initiate and carry on serious discussions with posters who follow by the rheephormista playbook. This is not a criticism; I applaud him for his perseverance.
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On Day One of teaching on their own, TFAers have completed only five weeks of training. Certified teachers have completed that work including far more observation hours and student teaching work before having a classroom of their own. That is a pretty major differece, in my opinion. And to force first year teachers, who are alrady undertrained, to also complete graduate-level coursework at night and on the weekends, instead of devoting every minute of their work time to their classrooms, is wrong. Learning how to teach on other people’s children is irresponsible at best and positively cruel at worst. This is the fault of the organization, not the individuals, and I place on the blame on the TFA leadership. TFA needs to change, or be gone.
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Wilbert,
Thank you for putting a positive spin on the young people entering the profession through TFA. I like to believe that they are starry eyed, enthusiastic , educators – to – be who have wonderful intentionsa nd the energy and willingness to do their very best.
Let’s keep these novice teachers and their passion separate from the corporate end of TFA. Lumping them together is like putting local public school teachers in with the system and state departments of education.
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I have just sent J Crew an email notifying them that I will no longer be a customer. Urge others to do the same.
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The purpose of TFA is to revolutionize K-12 education in the United States. They are doing it by educating leaders to affect legislation in every state. They are very effective right now, primarily because of the depressed economy and the overabundance of teachers.
However, they have forgotten one thing: Just as they do not want to teach children for more than a few years, neither do many other people. Traditionally about 50% of teachers quit during their first five years of teaching, for various reasons, but often to find a better paying job. For many years women filled these roles but now they are able to choose from all fields, just as men are. All the talented young adult women that I know are in college teaching, law, medicine and business. Not one is a teacher of children or planning to be one.
If the economy stays depressed, I am guessing TFA will succeed in weakening the teaching profession to the great detriment of our nation’s children. On the other hand, if the economy improves, I predict a huge teacher shortage in all states without the captive women ready and willing to rescue desperate districts as in the past. When this happens will TFAs be prepared to staff the nation’s classrooms? Will anyone?
Basically it’s supply and demand. Only time will tell how it all turns out.
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Lets not forget about the annual $50 million hand out from federal taxpayers. TFA had a conniption when someone tried to eliminate that earlier this year.
I am not sure if they called that cut “reprehensible.”
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Apparently that $50 million was a better investment than the half billion that went to Solyndra to get recycled into the Obama campaign.
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Maybe they were both a waste.
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If only I hadn’t been running late for my flight! Earlier this month, I was flying out of the Orlando, Florida airport, with my spouse and child, running late for our flight. The line to go through the security checkpoint was extremely slow.
When we finally got to the conveyer belt, slipped off our shoes, and grabbed a tray, I froze in shock and disbelief at what I saw: I looked down at surface of the tray and it was completely covered with an advertisement, like a miniature billboard, for TFA!
Yes, every single one of the trays used at the Security Checkpoint at the Orlando Airport was being used as a TFA Mini-Billboard!
So, as soon as I got through the checkpoint, I took out my phone and tried to take a couple of quick snapshots—if for nothing else to just prove to myself that I wasn’t hallucinating this entire thing. And…I got a “MEMORY FULL” screen, advising me to erase one of the many vacation photos I had on my Android if I wanted to capture one more image.
Which is when I heard my spouse gently remind me—to her credit—that we were going to miss our flight which was scheduled to leave in just minutes. So, I had to run off, but I urge everyone who might be passing through Orlando, or any other airport, to look for the TFA “tray advertisement” and confirm my observation.
Why is this important? Because it underscores the vast resources and/or influence of TFA. They either have so much money that they now “need new ways to spend it” or their “good guy” image and influence is so widespread that they may have received this as a “gift” from the management of the airport. Who knows? But it is one more reason why we have to be actively working on this, letting the public know that there is more to TFA—and it’s not all “good”.
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From the Seattle Education Blog, full link below:
For KIPP charter schools, more computer time, less class time
Posted on December 26, 2012 by seattleducation2011 | 1 Comment
With the Race to the Top (RTTT) funds dwindling, charter schools are having to balance their books and keep their CEO’s well paid by cutting out face-to-face class time with teachers and instead, placing those students in front of computer screens.
They refer to this as “blended learning”. I have another word for it but I won’t use that word here.
First KIPP was replacing qualified and certified teachers with Teach for America, Inc. (TFA) recruits with five weeks of training now it’s cutting costs by adding computers and subtracting teachers. This is a trend that is, unfortunately, catching on in Seattle with the RTTT grant that will be received by Seattle Public Schools and six other districts. There will be more students, particularly those considered “disadvantaged” sitting in front of computer screens so that they can better comprehend math. A dubious undertaking at best, but some superintendents do seem to be thrilled with this approach.
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Here is a story about Victoria Soto, a woman who planned to dedicate her life to teaching, learning and leading children:
Professor Leslie Ricklin noticed it early on. Victoria Soto was different than the other teacher candidates in Ricklin’s social-studies methods course at Eastern Connecticut State University.
It wasn’t Vicki Leigh Soto’s boundless energy or even the effortless way that she became a leader in the class.
It was what she did with the information. She took it in, and turned, almost palpably, Ricklin recalls, to a point in the future, to a time when she herself would be in front of an elementary school class. And she envisioned, and crafted, how she would teach that lesson to not only a classroom of children, but to a group of kids of different aptitudes and attention spans and home lives.
http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/newtown-sandy-hook-school-shooting/hc-victoria-soto-1226-20121225,0,1760313.story?page=1
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There are, most likely, many different definitions of blended learning. What I’m implementing doesn’t require less teachers or less time for students with teachers. It is about ‘flipped classrooms’ and spending the time in class working with individuals and groups. It is about putting students at the center of the instruction.
I still have to prepare all of the materials and orchestrate everything. In class I don’t spend any time lecturing, I just facilitate and guide. I’ve had promising results so far.
While i’m sure that there are people who use it wrongly, you don’t have to search very long through TED talks for excellent examples. It is especially effective with kids who need extended time and language learners. All of the materials are available ‘on demand’ so they don’t miss anything if they didn’t get it the first time.
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TFA,……..Profits First. Always.
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Ah, what a dirty word, “profits.” It makes every teacher gag. 51% of the country can’t stand profits, except when they buy a burrito bowl with their bridge card stocked with cash from someone else’s profits. How immoral and hypocritical and shameless can one be? Oh, it’s easy, Mr. U. Our teachers told us it was justice. And teachers are puzzled at the wildfire of charters and vouchers sweeping through the country? There is a moral density and obtuseness in the teaching craft (it’s not a profession—even calling itself a profession is a symptom of its obtuseness) that is coming home to roost. Karma it’s called. What comes around went around first.
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I am certainly not adverse to the role of profits as a guide to investing resources.
We began a conversation about market failure. Did you wish to continue it?
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Why? To become a real estate holding firm and “company store” operation.
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/housingcomplex/2012/12/19/teach-for-america-to-collaborate-with-fundrise-to-build-new-office-apartments/
The plans are still vague, but Teach for America is joining together with the crowd-sourcing real estate investor Fundrise to build a new office and apartment complex in D.C.
The goal is a mixed-use project with more than 30,000 square feet of office space that will allow TFA’s D.C. staff, currently split between two K Street offices, to consolidate under one roof. It will also contain about 100 residential units, which TFA hopes to fill with its teachers but could theoretically be offered to other D.C. residents.
The complex will be modeled on similar TFA projects in Baltimore and Philadelphia, says Ahnna K. Smith, TFA executive director for the D.C. region. In both of those projects, TFA employees filled all of the apartments.
“This year we had 170 new corps members in DCPS, charter schools, and Prince George’s County,” says . “So the vision would be based on the demand and based on the set group of people we know might be interested in being housed.”
The “education hub” will also include common areas and shared equipment like copiers. Smith hopes that TFA will own the space rather than rent it, but that’s still up in the air.
The D.C.-based Fundrise, founded earlier this year, collects small investments for development projects from members of the community and gives them a financial stake in the projects—like Kickstarter with returns. The nature of TFA’s relationship with Fundrise is not yet clear.
“Eventually, our goal is to try and fit some part of Fundrise within the investment plan,” says Fundrise spokeswoman Molly Fitzgerald. The idea, say Fitzgerald and Smith, is for Fundrise to help attract investment for the project.
Fundrise has so far been mainly busy on H Street NE. On Dec. 5, the company registered LLCs for two new properties it bought, at 1214 and 1309 H Street NE, adding to its ample holdings on the strip. Fitzgerald says these properties are unrelated to the TFA partnership.
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How are the minions (the lesser imps and demons) selected as the foot-soldiers and messengers? For Rhee to simply be a speaker and disperser of dollars there must be someone that recruited and employed her. For people to jump from obscurity to leadership in a field they have very little experience in there must be someone opening the door and ushering them in. Is it the “big boss” again?
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