Lindsay Wagner of NC Policy Watch reports that a Teach for America alum in the legislature is pushing legislation that would clear the way for more charter schools staffed by TFA.
She writes:
“Rep. Rob Bryan (R-Mecklenburg) is pushing a bill that would pull five of the state’s lowest-performing elementary schools out of their local school districts and put them into a state-controlled ‘achievement school district.’
“This new achievement district would be able to fire all teachers and staff and enter into five year contracts with private charter school management companies to handle the schools’ operations..
“Asked whether or not the proposed legislation would include standards for hiring high quality teachers to teach in the ASD schools, Bryan said the charters can be trusted to hire good teachers.
“Bryan also highlighted research that indicates Teach for America corps members have good outcomes in low-performing schools, suggesting that those teachers could make for a good hiring choice in the ASD schools, despite their poor track record of staying in the classroom beyond a few years.
“[TFA teachers] don’t stay,” acknowledged Bryan, a TFA alum himself. “But you would be better served to have a TFA teacher every two years all the way through. Your results, based on the existing data—that would be better for you.”
Rep. Rob Bryan (R-Mecklenburg) is pushing a bill that would pull five of the state’s lowest-performing elementary schools out of their local school districts and put them into a state-controlled ‘achievement school district.’
This new achievement district would be able to fire all teachers and staff and enter into five year contracts with private charter school management companies to handle the schools’ operations.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Let’s just pretend for a minute that TfA is all that it’s cracked up to be and that having them in “low performing” districts would be a good thing. Where are they all going to come from? To date, after more than 20 years, TfA has trained about 47,000 corps members. So there must be maybe a few thousand left still teaching. How many “low performing” districts are there in the country? How many teachers would it take to staff all of those schools? Where are we going to find all these brilliant, elite, (smarty-pants, know-it-all, wet-behind-the-ears) college graduates who have what it takes and want to teach in “low performing” districts even for two or three years?
Maybe they will follow Pearson’s lead and advertise on Craig’s List.
TAGO!
Interesting and fair questions. At the same time, Rep Bryan claims that charters will be able to hire the best and the brightest – where will THEY come from?
As far as I can tell, government is getting tired of being beaten up in election cycles over our kid’s education. They’re trying to kick that can into the next alley and make someone else be responsible for a poor job.
“best and brightest” willing to work for low pay and no job security nor benefits? And, if they are in Ohio, there’s the potential to get caught up in a corruption case or, to report for work, and find the doors chained shut.
Doesn’t seem like a workable plan.
http://hrweb.mit.edu/worklife/youngadult/brain.html
The car rental companies know something. Teachers licenses should not be given to anyone under 25.
Although the trucking industry doesn’t. http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/18-year-old-truck-drivers-lack-of-decent-wages-cause-worker-shortages/ I guess these legislative fools are following this model. Not reassured by either. Too bad kids of school age can’t vote these folks out.
Thanks for posting this. I just contacted my North Carolina state rep about this bill. These things never work, and they are simply another nail in the coffin of public education.
What a shame!
Raised by a teacher. If Mom is still with us I wonder what she thinks?
http://www.friendsofrob.com/about
I write about TFA in my book and online here… one of the biggest weapons of mass deception being used against us. There is a group of $$$ changers who want control of our schools and our minds. It’s up to us to stop them. http://weaponsofmassdeception.org/5-teach-for-awhile-fake-teachers
Bravo for TFA, once again. TFA and their ilk will not stop until every school is a charter, staffed by uncertified, unqualified, poorly trained revolving door temps. Perhaps after they have infiltrated and taken over every school, they will raise the salaries and give each elite teacher a decent salary and state they should be career educators, paid well and given perks not available to the current lowlife stupid dumb as rocks veteran, properly trained, certified teachers in public schools currently. Its all about the elite.
I don’t think so at all. It seems to me that the admins will eat most of the revenue pie and keep turning over teachers. I don’t think I’m comfortable with treating teachers like McDonalds employees.
“Rob is a lawyer at Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, the largest law firm headquartered in North Carolina, where he has built a successful commercial real estate practice. He has led commercial real estate development projects involving condominiums, assisted living facilities, residential subdivisions, shopping centers, medical office buildings, multi-family housing, and office and industrial parks. He has represented both landlords and tenants in leasing retail, warehouse, industrial and office space throughout his 16-year legal career.”
When Ron meets with potential clients does he tell them that his 16 years experience in commercial real estate practice doesn’t matter at all because he learned absolutely nothing past his 1st or 2nd year, so really they could do this a lot cheaper by hiring a brand new lawyer?
Somehow I doubt it. His work experience has value, which is why he touts it on his website.
Of course. And his experience in commercial real estate tells you exactly why he’s doing what he’s doing.
BINGO!
“Bryan said the charters can be trusted to hire good teachers.”
Um, Yep, and I’ve got some great ocean front property over at Lake of the Ozarks in Central Missouri to sell little ol Robby quite cheaply.
“In Raleigh, Rob puts his experience in the classroom to work, ensuring that our education system is more flexible and provides parents, teachers and principals with more options, so that our next generation is ready for the challenges of competing in a global economy.”
Right! Robby is my hero!! Put him in the TFA Hall of Shame!
““[TFA teachers] don’t stay,” acknowledged Bryan, a TFA alum himself. “But you would be better served to have a TFA teacher every two years all the way through. Your results, based on the existing data—that would be better for you.”
We know lawyers are paid to dissemble but that one falls into the category of pure bullshit.
AY AY AY
Duane Swacker: you write about ‘trust.’
Trust me when I write that TFA (the organization) resembles, and acts like, nothing more than a jobs program for a few adults at the expense of many other adults and even more students.
I still remember when TFA officially proclaimed that they didn’t want to, and wouldn’t and won’t, replace and displace and eliminate experienced career teachers.
Trust me when I write that in their pursuit of CCSS-aligned higher standardized test scores, they neglected some very old and very dead and very Greek guys:
“Words empty as the wind are best left unsaid.”
Needless to say, Homer will not be on the next TFA-approved bubble-in sheet.
😎
“A school would be identified for potential transfer to the ASD if it earned an “F” letter grade under the recently enacted school grading system for at least two consecutive years, received a School Performance Score in the lowest 25 percent of all elementary schools in the state, and was identified as “low-performing” by the State Board of Education. The district would then have the option of transferring the school to the ASD or closing it.”
17 charter schools in NC earned an “F” for the 2013-14 school year.
I wonder how many charters will be willing to takeover of a school that does not fill seats via a lottery.
“This new achievement district would be able to fire all teachers and staff and enter into five year contracts with private charter school management companies to handle the schools’ operations.”
This strategy is promoted by vulture capialists in order to get rid of elected school boards. They consider school boards a major obstacle preventing them from expanding their markets and profits. This strategy–getting rid of elected school boards–is listed in a fifteen year battle plan to make market-based education the national norm. That strategy comes from Global Silicon Valley Advisors, based in Chicago, which also lists Teach for America and KIPP schools in its portfolio of investments.
The interlocking relationships go much further. The school district of Charlotte-Mecklenburg has received multiple grants from Gates and a biggie from USDE to get pay-for-performance in place by using the invalid SLO process as a key evaluation and management tool. The USDE study came up with nothing but weak PR for the chief marketer of SLOs, William Slotnick, because his staff screwed up the “implementation” of the process. Concurrently there was a massive churn in the district administration.
Of course, all identifications of lowest performing districts are done by stack rating them based on statewide test scores. If you put the schools rated in the lowest 5% in a new special district without a school board, just a CEO and staff, you can do that again text year with all of the remaining districts. Just take out the lowest 5% again, and put them in a special district with another CEO. The process is endless and incremental. And you can accelerate this methodical and deliberate destruction of public voice in public schools by just setting the cut off say, to the lowest 10%, or lowest 15%. Meanwhile, as someone at the Brookings Institution opined, you can raise the test scores of many schools by doing a variant of this routine with teachers.
The latest issue of the Miamian, a college alumni magazine, features a story about a TFA grad. Not surprisingly, she doesn’t say how long she spent in the classroom before she became North Carolina’s TFA Executive Director. It appears a Harvard degree followed, from where else?….the Kennedy School (JFK’s turning in his grave over the attack on public education). Subsequently she went looking for employment at a “results-oriented organization that was firm in its mission… that was risk-friendly because that’s where people and organizations really grow.”
I’m curious if, after her experiences with poverty (however short or long), she intuited that children thrive in risk situations because, in the U.S., they’re immersed in them, even without adding the vagaries of corporate school funding, the turnover of TFA teachers and, the deliberate starvation of funds to their communities.
Yes Linda, our children need stability in their lives and school should be one of those places where the environment is consistent. My low performing Title I school has had such high turnover at the administrative level and in the teaching staff in the past few years that I am amazed the students know they’re in the same place.
The former TFA’er, was recruited to a “philanthropy”, where her employer, avoids taxes as a charitable organization.
Her “charity” provides a tax write-off for “navy blazers and bow ties” for children”, who wearing the outfits, feel “proud”. I deduce she’s part of the group that thinks the effects of poverty can be ameliorated by grit, resilience and pride.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
So there’s that Christmas carol “People look east:”
1. People, look east. The time is near
Of the crowning of the year.
Make your house fair as you are able,
Trim the hearth and set the table.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the guest, is on the way.
But I would change it to:
“teachers wake up, the time is near
of the kicking in the rear
take over our schools as they are able
put you to pasture or locked in the stable
teachers wake up and think today
_______, the _______, is on the way.
Fill in the blanks. ??
So, right, Involved Mom.
Wendy Kopp.
The legacy of Wendy Kopp.