George Schmidt taught for many years in Chicago until he was fired by Paul Vallas, then the CEO, for revealing test questions (to show how idiotic they were). He now offers advice on how to succeed as a teacher:
Thanks for making me laugh this otherwise unfunny Chicago morning. Around here, the best way to become one of the “best” teachers is to get as far as possible away from the hard core segregated impoverished inner city schools (where I had the privilege of teaching for decades before being purged and blacklisted by Paul Vallas & Co). Step one in the “Two Step” is to transfer from a “bad” school to a “good” school within the city. That trick has been done regularly here in Chicago. I remember two decent English teachers who transferred from Chicago’s Collins High School (in the North Lawndale community) to Lane Tech High School (selective enrollment forever), and suddenly they were relieved of all the worries about having their school subjected to “turnaround” etc., etc., etc.
The Big Step then is to wrangle a job in the suburbs — say at New Trier High School, where Rahm Emanuel and his brothers went to school. (I know: Rahm’s a Chicago guy — not). If you become a New Trier teacher, as two people I knew in Chicago did, then you become one of the best teachers in the USA.
Forever.
The only downside is that you have to teach bratty kids like a young Rahm Emanuel, and deal with parents who will remind you in a pinch (say, when their kid gets an “F”) that they are smarter than you and that if you had any brains, ambition or talent you would be in business and not teaching…
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Very depressing but so funny.
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Sorry, off topic, but here’s a pretty well done piece on TfA by Eric Zorn’s “contributing editor” Jessica Reynolds (a Tribune intern): http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2013/07/teach-for-america-chicago.html
Eric’s comment threads tend to be quite active and attract a pretty diverse cross-section of the political spectrum (although the rightwingers tend to be the most vocal and can overwhelm the discussion at times), so I’d encourage people here to join in. It’s a good chance to educate the lay population.
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Right on target, Mr. Schmidt.
It’s quite amazing how great teachers are concentrated in well-heeled suburbs, along with all the wealthy, well-heeled, above average students. Too bad for the below proficient teachers who can’t get homeless children, or abused children, or the children from traumatized families to score better on tests.
That’s how we decide who’s a good, or great, teacher, and who’s a great student.
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You’re exactly right, as soon as you get out of an inner city school, you are not subjected to all the ‘interventions’, that supposedly help to improve the school. These interventions are useless,unplanned busy work for the students and teachers who by the way had no input in their development. Getting out of these schools is the problem. Don’t be an older, veteran teacher because you’ll always get the worst transfer or no transfer at all. My solution to being rated a good teacher is to allow educators who know your subject area and who have no biases do the evaluation. Good Luck finding that. All the evaluators seem to be veteran administrators that know less about curriculum than your average teacher.
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