I received the following article from a current high-level administrative employee at Teach for America. The organization is undergoing a major shake-up. He wanted us to know what was happening behind the scenes. He must remain anonymous, for obvious reasons.
***
March 17, 2016
Turmoil at Teach For America: Rounds of layoffs, leadership exodus imminent
Teach For America (TFA) is laying off employees from its national and regional staff.
CEO Elisa Villanueva Beard announced on February 29 that 250 TFA staff positions will be eliminated, calling the cuts “painful” in an internal TFA employee webcast. She said 100 new positions will also be created, leaving the net job loss at 150.
Despite the flashy celebration at TFA’s 25th Anniversary Summit held in Washington D.C. last month, TFA did not meet its recruiting target for the second year in a row.
2015 was the first time in its history that TFA laid off employees, and now it’s happening again.
But something appears to be different this time around. It’s not just the rank and file staff employees who are getting the ax, like they did in Spring 2015. This year it goes all the way up to the C-suite.
Sources say several senior leaders are “voluntarily” resigning amid alleged rumors of mismanagement and questionable business practices by the nonprofit organization.
Notifications went out two weeks ago to the first round of laid-off employees.
Unlike last year’s layoffs, when impacted employees were given notice several months in advance, this year TFA accelerated the termination process by breaking it into two separate rounds of layoffs. Employees who were given notice this week will be released on a memorable date, April 15 (Tax Day).
A second round of layoff looms, and survivors of the first round may still have cause for concern. The first round is supposed to be “mostly” national staff while the second round is “mostly” regional staff.
Employees who are part of the second round of layoffs will be released at the end of the fiscal year 2016, on May 27.
In addition to the staff layoffs and job restructuring, Villanueva Beard told TFA employees that the Office of The Chief Diversity Officer (OCDO) will be eliminated in September. Despite TFA’s self-professed commitment to diversity (it’s one of the organization’s core values), the decision to eliminate the OCDO comes only months after the new chief diversity officer was announced on TeachForAmerica.org.
The chief marketing officer, along with the executive vice president of TFA’s Public Affairs Team are also allegedly “voluntarily” resigning, although that wasn’t shared in the webcast two weeks ago.
The exiting executive vice president, Massie Ritsch, is CEO Villanueva Beard’s right-hand man, and he’s well-liked by TFA employees. Prior to joining TFA in January 2015, this former senior member of the U.S. Department of Education (DoE) worked under ex-Education Secretary Arne Duncan for many years. He directed communications for the DoE, just as he’s been doing for Villanueva Beard at TFA.
The U.S. Department of Education has given TFA hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants since 2008. Government funding comprised 38% of TFA’s budget in 2015, totaling $69.7 million dollars that year alone, according to TFA’s 2015 annual report*.
*Note: scroll to bottom of the linked web page for actual report, which is a PDF.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It may be that these “Temps For America” employees may need to find other temping jobs after they lose their current positions.
They probably can’t go into teaching, at least in the public schools…they aren’t qualified.
I like this understanding of short-term hires: TEMPS for America makes a lot more sense than what we’ve actually experienced with TEACH for America. I wrote about my own awakening to the short-term teacher solution inside our low-income schools when I first heard my “fixer” principal snort, turn aside, and snidely refer to our newest hires as “Teach For A Minute” girls. ciedieaech.wordpress.com TEACH FOR A MINUTE
“To Fail America (TFA)”
To Fail America, train five weeks
Choose the haughty Ivy geeks
Supermen without their capes
Climbing down the fire escapes
“Climbing down the fire escapes” (in their Gucci’s)
TFA has been in the news before, facing accusations of TFA leaders engaging in corrupt financial practices. Watch then-spokesman and high-up leader Kevin Huffman (later State Ed. Supe in Tennessee) being put on the hot seat during a CBS piece:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/teach-for-america-gets-schooled/
Good stuff here.
Watch Michelle Rhee’s ex-hubby go hommina, hommina, hommina… to the financial malfeasance questions asked of him in this video expose by CBS News’ Sharyl Attkinson.
However, this didn’t stop the rise in Kev’s career in the least, however. I’m guessing that nobody played this video during Kev’s confirmation hearings in Tennessee.
Here’s the text of this news report:
——————————
Teach For America Gets Schooled
by Sharyl Attkisson CBS
July 11, 2008, 6:49 PM
Since 1990, Teach for America has trained college graduates and professionals to work as teachers in needy schools.
Today, the group has 5,000 teachers-in-training and a $75 million budget – a third of it from local school districts, state and federal government. That’s your tax dollars, CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports.
Which is why it was such a blow when Teach for America recently got a failing grade on the subject of handling the public’s money.
The Department of Education Inspector General examined a small slice of the group’s federal funding. What they found was shocking.
In all, Teach for America failed to account for half the money audited.
Time and time again the audit said there were no basic records or receipts: None for a $123,878 training expense; none for a $342,428 bill.
Teach for America vice president Kevin Huffman chalks it up to poor record keeping.
“We’re confident, we’re confident that we spent the money on the training of new teachers,” Huffman said.
Attkisson said: “There was no agenda; no description of meals; no list of attendees. That sounds like a little more than just sloppy bookkeeping.”
“I think it’s a question of what records we should have kept,” Huffman said.
They should have kept records on a tab for more than a quarter million dollars for food and lodging ($277,262) and $26,812 for teacher certification – but didn’t. Auditors say there was no documentation that any teachers actually attended and completed the class, or that there even WAS a class.
“Alarm bells start to go off usually when you start seeing a recipient of a grant or an earmark not being able to provide basic information,” said Leslie Paige of Citizens Against Government Waste.
Tax watchdog Paige says it’s astonishing that Teach for America has gotten so big without proper accounting systems.
“I mean, how do you prove that what you are spending the money on is working?” Paige said.
After the audit, Teach for America tried handing over some newly-found documents, but it didn’t help. The Inspector General said they contained “significant discrepancies.”
“What you provided didn’t match up with what you gave them before,” Attkisson said to Huffman.
“We gave them … the wrong documents the first time and then we realized the mistake,” Huffman said. “We gave them better documents the second time.”
But still not good enough. The audit concluded they should pay taxpayers back the disputed amounts – with interest.
Teach for America says it’s learned a lesson, and switched to new accounting system.
Taxpayers better hope so, the group is slated to get $12 million more federal tax dollars this year.
It is amazing that such a huge scandal is off the radar of the public’s consciousness. If this type of impropriety had been in a public school, every news outlet would have jumped on it. What is more shocking is that the federal government is throwing $12 million more tax dollars at them after they failed an audit. Something is rotten in Denmark!
Jack – The video won’t open in this story. Have you got a better link to that? lpbharley@aol.com
It opens in the comment section so click “comments” and you can view it there.
It works for me. Granted, it takes forever to load, and I had to click “SKIP AD’ on a pop-up, but if you’re patient, you’ll eventually see it
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/teach-for-america-gets-schooled/
or perhaps you need a certain kind of media player on your computer that you don’t currently have. Try someone else’s computer, or one at the library or wherever.
Nevertheless, the transcript is word-for-word.
“… the group is slated to get $12 million more federal tax dollars this year. ”
Seriously? This is incomprehensible after the report.
Also incomprehensible was the CBS lead-in to the story about how successful TFA is in placing good teachers in schools. No mention of the “thorough” five week training period.
TFA left something off their list of “core values”: $$
Must be just an oversight.
While I understand it isn’t very gallant, Teach for America’s misfortune makes me very happy….
Best news I’ve heard in a while involving the toxic “education reform” movement, and the elite TFA chalartans!
I have just finished reading “Why Is You Always Got To Be Trippin’
School Reform And The Racial Divide”, by Ciedie Aech.
The sections on TFA and the philanthropists’ idea that “perky” was a necessary attribute of female TFAers is both hilarious and sad. Given her account of the way the TFA kids are treated in some schools it is not surprising that enrollment is down. And of course it is not surprising that many hands are held out as public money flows around.
THANKS Howardat58! As an older teacher who wasn’t necessarily all that “perky,” it truly hurt to hear this idea — that modern-day teachers need to be perky and vivacious — bandied about. ciedieaech.wordpress.com/2015/09/24/perky-and-vivacious
The key question here is not about the layoffs and assumed turmoil but about what the organization will look like afterwards. If TFA, by some wildly improbable chance or inspiration decides to shift their focus to supporting parents and communities in their efforts to help kids show up at school ready, willing, and able to learn, in other words if TFA decides to focus on confronting the effects of poverty on children that degrade their innate ability to learn, well that could be a good thing on many levels if done correctly, done correctly being the essential test of the switch in focus. I’m not holding my breath though as TFA has long functioned as enablers of the poverty deniers and apologists. The reality is that this is merely TFA deciding to subject themselves to the same disruptive change inflicted on others in order to continue business as usual.
What do you expect of an organization of scab workers, created to undercut regular public school teachers and as a supportive arm of the deform movement. Good riddance and may the collapse be complete. For those employees truly interested in education, jobs exist in the real public sector. It will require a real commitment of time and effort but it used to be well worth it.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of parasites, predators and scabs…
Hear Hear! Bravo!
If I recall correctly TFA was in trouble at the beginning of the Obama administration and was essentially bailed out by the new administration. With the departure of Duncan and the end of the Obama presidency looming TFA will see less prosperous times in my opinion, hence the departures.
Not if Hillary Clinton is president. Then TFA will be able to funnel some money to the right places and keep on going in its mission to undermine the teaching profession.
Watch this… sad, unutterably sad…
One comment under the video says it all:
————————————
Laura Speegle 1 month ago
To think I supported the President. Who knew he would support union busting and charter schools?
————————————
I know, I know… I phone-banked 15 hours/week for him back in Sept-Nov. 2008… What a disappointment.
Michael Moore said that decades from now, they’ll list one achievement for Obama. ” ‘He was the first black president.’ AND THAT’S IT.”
I also wrote about how disappointing it was to have President Obama get into office and suddenly become the number one “vilifier ” of teachers. ciedieaech.wordpress.com THE FINE ART OF VILLIFICATION
What happens to a TFA Corps Member who questions the party line?
Read this:
http://www.progressive.org/news/2013/09/184340/why-teach-america-kicked-me-out
– – – – – – – – – – – – –
JAY SAPER:
“It was not until I asked why Teach for America was strikingly absent from the countless community demonstrations for schools I attend each week.
“Concerns only materialized when I asked why my body was being used to dismantle the Philadelphia public schools.
“Concerns only materialized when I asked to talk about fostering critical thinking, supporting students’ identities, and approaching the classroom with love, instead of merely discussing how to control bodies.
“Concerns only materialized when I refused to strictly follow the command ‘obedience leads to freedom.’ A phrase I will never bow down to for millions of my ancestors were brutally massacred in genocide waged under its translation: Arbeit macht frei.
“Concerns only materialized when they realized I refused to displace veteran teachers, disrupt community, and instill permanent instability, a feat they arduously worked to achieve by placing the rest of the Philly corps of over 100 in teaching positions despite layoffs of 1 in 5 veteran educators.
———————————————-
Just before being fired, he’s told by his non-educator
TFA supervisor:
“Jay, your opinions need to remain silent.”
The video explains why for one reason (among many) I refer to Obama as “Duplicitor”-in-Chief. He ignored or reversed so many positions from candidate Obama (2008).
Too bad our Democratic Senators have no interest in eliminating the wasted tax dollars that are used against the American people, like TFA dollars. I assume the recent $71 million from the Dept. of Ed., to expand Ohio charter schools, will be used to hire the laid off people, so that they can undermine public education, while receiving public paychecks.
Reblogged this on Dad Gone Wild and commented:
Interesting because TFA is where my battle against corporate reform first started. Here’s a post from 2 years ago. https://norinrad10.wordpress.com/2014/01/16/i-know-some-jr-high-kids-that-could-bring-some-excitement-to-j-crew/
Bloomberg News —- no fan of traditional public schools or the unionized teachers who work in them — blasted TFA for its attrition:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-09/most-teach-for-america-instructors-plan-to-flee-teaching
—————————–
BLOOMBERG NEWS’ Akane Otani:
“A new study from a nonpartisan research organization adds ammunition to skeptics’ claims. More than 87 percent of TFA teachers say they don’t plan on remaining teachers throughout their careers, compared with 26.3 percent of non-TFA teachers working in the same subjects, grades, and schools, according to an analysis released last week by Mathematica Policy Research (PDF).
“The study suggests the risk of turnover is relatively high for the recent grads that become teachers through TFA’s program. A full 25 percent of them said they would quit teaching after the current school year, compared with only 6.7 percent of non-TFA teachers. And of those who plan to quit, 42.9 percent of TFA teachers anticipated leaving education altogether, compared with 6.7 percent of non-TFA teachers.”
————————–
I remember the exact opposite article was written a couple years ago, arguing that TFA’s stick around way longer and more often than the critics were claiming. It was accompanied by a photo of bright, blonde female TFA Corps Member. Someone then did a LinkedIn search of the teacher’s name and discovered that… wait for it … she did the minimum 2 years, then left for law school or MBA school or something.
Ooops!
Not exactly the best photo to accompany such an article.
—————
Here’s the rest of the above article… including the telling quote:
“TFA doesn’t provide the number of TFA recruits who don’t complete the two-year commitment, or who don’t stay in teaching.”
Gee, I wonder why.
———————————————
——————————————–
About 87 percent of the people the program trains as
educators say they plan to leave teaching
by Akane Otani
March 9, 2015 —
8:30 AM PDT
Teach for America, the mammoth nonprofit that grooms thousands of bright young college graduates to be teachers every year, is divisive. Advocates say TFA is on the front lines of fighting educational inequity; critics charge it’s little more than a two-year pit stop for Ivy League graduates eyeing careers outside of education.
A new study from a nonpartisan research organization adds ammunition to skeptics’ claims. More than 87 percent of TFA teachers say they don’t plan on remaining teachers throughout their careers, compared with 26.3 percent of non-TFA teachers working in the same subjects, grades, and schools, according to an analysis released last week by Mathematica Policy Research (PDF).
The study suggests the risk of turnover is relatively high for the recent grads that become teachers through TFA’s program. A full 25 percent of them said they would quit teaching after the current school year, compared with only 6.7 percent of non-TFA teachers. And of those who plan to quit, 42.9 percent of TFA teachers anticipated leaving education altogether, compared with 6.7 percent of non-TFA teachers.
The numbers point to attrition issues that, while perhaps endemic to the teaching profession as a whole, seem to be hitting TFA teachers –who are more likely than other teachers to be young, white, male, and educated at an elite college — particularly hard.
“We do encourage our corps members to pursue leadership in whatever way feels most impactful for them. That said, we are seeking ways to continue to get better and provide more options for those who want to stay in the classroom,” says Takirra Winfield, vice president of national communications for TFA.
Turnover can be damaging to any organization. After all, it costs money to recruit, hire, and train new employees. Yet critics say what makes TFA’s attrition particularly damning is that the organization puts teachers in exactly the types of low-income, under-resourced schools that could benefit from consistent leadership.
“I’ve heard stories from students who’ve said to me that they really like the TFA teachers, but they know they’re going to leave,” says Julian Vasquez Heilig, an associate professor of educational policy and planning at the University of Texas at Austin. “There’s a psychological impact on the kids when they know the teachers aren’t really committed to the school.”
To be sure, turnover in teaching is a problem much bigger than just TFA. Richard Ingersoll, a University of Pennsylvania professor, estimates (PDF) about 41 percent of teachers will leave the classroom within five years—meaning teachers quit at a higher rate than nurses, lawyers, and engineers. TFA teachers, 12 percent of whom leave after their first year in the classroom, contribute an untold amount to that turnover rate.
When TFA teachers leave, it’s not inconsequential. It costs $51,400 to fund each teacher for three years, starting from when the soon-to-be college graduates are recruited to when they finish their two-year teaching commitment, according to TFA’s data. There’s also a less tangible cost: the effect a rotating cast of teachers can have on children. “Students in grade levels with higher turnover score lower in both English language arts and math,” researchers found in a 2013 study (PDF) published by the American Educational Research Journal. “These effects are particularly strong in schools with more low-performing and black students,” they added.
Because teachers typically become much more effective starting in their third, fourth, and fifth years, according to Vasquez Heilig, it’s possible many of TFA’s inexperienced hires never reach their prime as teachers. “TFA should focus not on creating reformers who’ve only been in the classroom for two years before they run for a school board or go to law school, but think about creating teachers who are there for the long term,” he says.
TFA has countered that, despite losing some of its young teachers every year, a large share of TFA alumni who do finish their two-year commitment continue to work in an education-related job. The organization has more than 37,000 alumni (defined as those who served the full two years), according to TFA’s Winfield, of which she says about 11,000 are teachers, 900 are school heads, and 250 are leaders of district and charter school systems. TFA doesn’t provide the number of TFA recruits who don’t complete the two-year commitment, or who don’t stay in teaching.
“Teaching is tough work,” Winfield says. To try to boost the number of teachers who stay in the field, TFA launched a pilot program in several regions in 2014, offering graduate school and further coaching to corps members who can commit to an additional three years with the nonprofit.
TFA does struggle with turnover, she acknowledges, but it’s an issue that she says is far from unique to her organization.
“We all need to do more on that front,” she says.
Found the photo-snafu article about teachers sticking around (in general, not just TFA… though the picture is of a TFA-er):
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/news/2015/01/08/103421/despite-reports-to-the-contrary-new-teachers-are-staying-in-their-jobs-longer/
Peter Greene over at Curmudgucation caught this:
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2015/01/cap-and-teacher-retention.html
—————————————————–
“Sunday, January 11, 2015
“CAP and Teacher Retention
“The Center for American Progress got another quick lesson in ‘How the Internet Works.’
“In their haste to prove that beginning teachers are sticking around for years and years (well, six years, anyway) they slapped up a lovely picture of a TFA temp who finished her two year stint and headed off to her real career in a corporate office. They helpfully included her name (Gabrielle Wooden) so that her actual job history could be found by anybody with an internet hookup and access to google. Joe Bower (in Canada) worked out this tricky research problem as well, and in the last fifteen hours a very long list have people have emailed and messaged me to join this particular swimming party in the warm waters of Lake Schadenfreude.
“Did somebody in the photo department just not bother to tag carefully? Did the editor who attached the photo not pause to think things through? Was their googler broken? Did they not know the difference? Did they just not care? Can we expect more great headers from CAP such as the following:
(There follows some funny parody photos/captions… CLICK HERE to see them …
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2015/01/cap-and-teacher-retention.html
It’s important to recognize a devastating facet to this idea that TFAs “stay in education-related” jobs. Way too many of them barely teach, know only that they were seriously frustrated inside our nation’s poorest buildings, and then move on to work inside the world of EDUCATIONAL POLICY MAKING. A little knowledge, as they say, can be a very dangerous thing. (For example, is an ex-TFA who is now wreaking the worst havoc on teachers inside Colorado’s legislature.)
Wow. Just wow. I published a summary of this article and a link to it on UseABull.org.
http://useabull.org/2016/03/21/why-must-taxpayers-fund-teach-for-america/
“Turmoil at Teach For America: Rounds of layoffs, leadership exodus imminent”
I think the real “turmoil” is what they brought to the schools. “Turmoil For America”.
Turnover for America
Termites for America
“Tergiversation for America”
The number of individual, philanthropies, and taxpayer funds flowing to TFA since its founding have not produced wonders, in spite of the hype.
Please, save the last bullet for me.
http://edushyster.com/the-green-berets-of-excellence/
The bigger they are……