Gary Rubinstein wrote recently about the TFA leader in Nashville, who was swiftly removed. Gary speculated that he was removed after a video surfaced showing the TFA leader expressed some outrageous views about his students, apparently at a Tea Party meeting.
But the story became more tangled when anonymous sources contacted Gary and left a comment on this blog. The tipsters said the leader was removed for a different reason.
It seems that the leader allowed TFA members to transfer out of unusually abusive schools. And he offended the hierarchy of TFA.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thanks for the addendum. If the commenters are correct, the dark side of Tea Party ideology is o.k.? Compassion for teachers, not so much?
What a surprise that the Waltons provide funding.
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Linda: bizarre is the new normal—if you’re a charter/privatization fangirl/fanboy.
Gary R’s posting, from an anonymous email:
[start]
Adnan came in in January 2015. Saw how many charter school teachers were responding to the high pressures of their schools. Working 80-90 hour weeks, even hospitalized bc of stress. He decided it wasn’t healthy and wanted to let corps members transfer to a different school if they wanted to. Some corps members immediately put in for a transfer. Supposedly, Wendy Kopp heard about this and called Adnan immediately from India and put him on administrative leave.
[end]
While I await further clarification, the idea that a TFA VIP micromanaged from India a situation in Nashville, is fully consonant with the rheephorm adherence to the top-down kiss up-kick down style of organization.
Am I succumbing to rheephorm-style hyberbole? From the same posting by Gary R:
[start]
Teach For America has never been flexible about teachers requesting transfers. They are very controlling so even letting one person transfer, they seem to fear, will lead to everyone wanting to transfer so they rarely approve of one. An extreme example happened last year when a corps member named Spencer Smith got into a life threatening car accident. Doctors thought he may never recover from traumatic brain injury, but somehow he did. He wanted to return to teaching but needed a transfer to be closer to his doctors, and they denied him this request. He wrote about the ordeal here.
[end]
We may not have seen the end of this yet…
😎
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“Without TFA, RePublic can’t function. So, because RePublic and its leader, Ravi Gupta”
That’s the part of charter school chains that is the most bizarre, in my opinion.
Is there another part of the public sector where people just create a publicly-funded position for themselves and then essentially appoint themselves “leader” for life, outside of these high-profile, multi-state charter operations? I can’t think of any.
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Another reason for congressional hearings.
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