Well, that didn’t take long!
The Biden administration has selected a TFA person for one of the plum jobs in the White House.
At least half a dozen individuals recently appointed to positions in the White House include those with teaching experience and others who have worked with education-focused organizations. While several have most recently worked on the Biden-Harris campaign — and didn’t necessarily jump straight from the classroom into government — they’ll still have direct knowledge of issues that matter to both teachers and parents.
The incoming White House staff, for example, includes Kaitlyn Hobbs Demers, who taught fifth grade in the Gwinnett County Public Schools in Georgia and spent 2013 and 2014 advising Teach for America “corps members” and interviewing future candidates. Demers has been appointed special assistant to the president and chief of staff for the Office of Legislative Affairs.
The director of policy at DFER (Democrats for Education Reform), which consists of hedge funders who oppose teacher tenure and advocate for high-stakes testing, expressed his pleasure at the appointment.
I wonder if the Bidens know that TFA is a favorite recipient of gifts from the anti-union, anti-public school Walton Family Foundation.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
OMG. OMG. OMG.
HORRORS.
Sickens me.
That’s it. Biden gets NO MORE money from me. I don’t give much, but for me this is a matter of principle.
This is the state of American politics and policy today: A choice between a center right group–Biden, Obama, Clinton–or neo-Nazi-Confederates led by the guy we hope is leaving. Oh that we had chosen Sanders or Warren. Maybe next time.
We did choose Sanders and Warren, but the majority of Democratic voters didn’t. Maybe had there been only one of them in the race, it might have been different.
Actually, maybe if Obama hadn’t stepped in and told everyone to drop out, then maybe Bernie would have been our new president
If Clyburn hadn’t chosen Biden
As a Sanders-first/Warren-second supporter in the past two elections, I am swayed by the argument that Biden won with the support of Black Americans and that this would likely not have been the case with either a Sanders or Warren candidacy. Democrats cannot win nationally without the Black vote. Period. I’d rather fight Biden on education issues than the Idiot on every other issue under the sun.
My preference was also Sanders then Warren (Bernie in 2016, too, FWIW).
I think Bernie read the populace as being unwilling to sign on to his “radical”, as it was being framed, policy positions like Medicare for All and a living wage. Then covid tore down the curtain and revealed how close to the chasm so many Americans are. So he stepped down from the race to solidify opposition to Trump behind Biden. As Chair of the Senate Budget Committee, he’ll be able to push forth exactly those policies.
I read that Clyburn, in speaking to his Black constituents, found they endorsed Biden because he never gave any hint of resentment in playing wingman to Obama. It earned their respect for Biden that he was not pertubed in the least by the optics of being a White guy in a “subservient” position to a Black one.
Let’s not forget that Jim Clyburn (D- PharMa) put his thumbs on the scale in South Carolina, a state that has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in decades.
Let’s also remember that when Elizabeth Warren had a chance to drop out for Bernie Sanders, like the centrist candidates did for Joe Biden, she refused.
And, lastly, let us remember that it was DFER who bragged about sponsoring the South Carolina presidential primary debate, where seats were “sold” for $1,700 donations and Bernie was repeatedly booed.
Thanks for the post.
Much of the so called “liberal” media like Washington Post, New York times , CNN, MSNBC, NPR et al despised Sanders and to a lesser degree, Warren, and did their damnedest to make sure neither of them succeeded in getting the nomination.
What is really remarkable is that they got as far as they did given the opposition.
The Washington Post was the worst because Jeff Bezos hates Sanders.
All the editors lick Jeff’s boots to start their day.
Why did they both run? They split the progressive vote
I always thought they should have agreed to have one run and the other become VP.
But that’s a separate issue from the quite obvious media bias against them.
i agree with you Diane (as usual). the failure of progressives to line up behind one candidate with a firm opposition to business as usual in ed policy will haunt us for a long time. the failure of the Biden administration (and that is NOT Jill Biden) to pick our candidate for Education Secretary will result in an immediate and ugly fight over testing, what a tragic waste of our time. Meantime, where i live in napa there is one ICU bed and yet the school district is keeping schools open!
We should be relishing that fight.
“Meantime, where i live in napa there is one ICU bed and yet the school district is keeping schools open!”
Yep, the adminimals are doing what adminimals do best. . .
. . . blindly following others with more power than they have.
“Oh, the powers that be tell us it’s okay to open schools, so we, being Good German administrative types, i.e., adminimals, we will obey” and then play Sargent Schultz when the damage is done “I know nothing”. . .
Which is a true statement of the non-working of their minds.
Biden has pledged to open all schools within 100 days of taking office at the same time that there is new research from Germany showing that kids get SARS-Cov-2 at high rates and are ASYMPTOMATIC TRANSMITTERS of the disease. One of the studies says explicitly that because they are asymptomatic, they aren’t tested, and because they aren’t tested, people don’t know that the disease was transmitted by them.
Doing this in the midst of the surge is insane.
Bob, the LA Times today has an article about young children apologizing to their elders for exposing them to COVID.
Oh, Lord, Diane!!! That is so terribly sad.
Let’s get everyone vaccinated. THEN, let’s reopen schools.
Imagine the guilt those children will have if their grandparents (or parents) die of COVID
The thing that puzzles me more than anything else is the push to open schools immediately when the vaccines are going to soon be available for teachers in many places. My own state has teachers slated to get vaccinated as part of the first round of vaccinations.
That demonstrates that there is a “damn the torpedoes full speed ahead ” attitude at work here.
But it’s not only the teachers/staff that need to be vaccinated.
TFA has long been a stepping stone for Democratic Party political operatives for many years. It is interesting to note that DFER has changed its name to “Our Turn” in an PR attempt to clean up their image. According to their website they are trying to rebrand themselves as agents of “educational justice.” How does moving black and brown students into separate and unequal schools amount to social justice? https://www.itsourturn.org/education-secretary-demands
They are also trying to sell this organization as a grassroots student-driven agent of change. This is more marketing strategy than substance.
Our Turn is trying to capitalize on the success of BLM.
You mean, Our Turn/DFER is co-opting BLM as a way to dilute the genuine calls for equity and justice. The real grassroots BLM is calling for structural reforms in government, business and the legal systems that are a threat to capital expansion. Wall St wants public education and the end of unions. They’ll buy whomever to get what they want..
so reminiscent of Dr Martin Luther King’s thoughts about White moderates being more dangerous than many organized White supremacy groups: Willing to push for a negative peace over actual justice
Thanks for letting us know this. Another Orwellian name in a long line of disingenuous advocacy organizations. Americans for Prosperity, American Healthcare Association…
I presume Our Turn is aligned with CAP and the BiPartisan Policy Center, both of which are funded by billionaires.
Someone, tell them…
Yes, starting with you, me, and everyone else who cares about this. Someone…else is too lame a response. Waiting for others to act is no longer acceptable. May I suggest NPE rallying larger organizations together with the smaller grassroots efforts it already does? Teachers unions, labor unions, universities, school boards, etc. Check the record, while disappointing, THIS IS NOT UNEXPECTED. (Yes, I was yelling that last part.) So let’s not get started on “What if?” whining. May I suggest some this as a first draft for rallying language to build a coalition:
Public schools, teachers, and students have been used as political footballs for too long, to the detriment of our nation. Undermining public education has, unfortunately, been bipartisan. Getting rid of Betsy DeVos was a step forward, but not the only step needed. Too many Democrats have supported policies that were championed by DeVos, including teaching to standardized tests, demoralization of the teaching profession, and diverting public funds to privatized, unaccountable interests like charter schools.
When we supported the candidacy of the incoming administration, our hope was that a change of direction would address these issues. Signals coming out of the transition have not been encouraging. While we do not oppose the choice of the incoming Secretary of Education, we remain concerned that a lack of a track record of commitment to the issues that value public education as a central strength of American democracy. We are concerned that a timid response to yesterday’s wrongs will perpetuate past injustices.
We are particularly concerned with the naming of the special assistant to the president and chief of staff for the Office of Legislative Affairs. This individual has close ties to Teach for America, which has undermined public education for years on many fronts, and Democrats for Education Reform, which has disingenuously rebranded itself as Our Turn. We will vocally oppose any policies that continue to chip away at the foundations of public education. If this is the turn the incoming administration will take, it should know that future support from teachers and public education is not to be taken for granted. We have had enough. The existence of public education is at stake. We expect this administration to act accordingly.
Thanks for the post, Greg.
Well stated, Greg!
“…we remain concerned that a lack of a track record of commitment to the issues that value public education as a central strength of American democracy is missing.”
Missed the “is missing.”
Love it.
Thank you, Greg!
It’s extraordinarily important that the major teachers’ unions finally stop being complicit in child abuse and call their students out into the streets to stop the Bush/Obama/Duncan/DeVos failed “accountability” scheme that has had such dire consequences for our nation’s kids.
Slam dunk, Greg.
I read this news this morning. Not good news, but another example of successful cons by TFA’s and DEFR.
The deed is done, but Biden has relied on terrible advice and these positions are not easily reversed.
If Senate Confirmations are needed for any of these professionals at demeaning schools, that is perhaps the last change to salvage a sane policy for PreK-12 education, postsecondary education (including community colleges, Dr. Jill Biden’s turf), and teacher education programs.
Perhaps Diane can tell us which, if any, of Biden’s education nominees require Senate confirmation. I know that he has a Plum Book, and I know he has at least 1200 positions to fill. These education picks reflect a serious lack of knowledge about the damage done to public education for at least two decades.
chance not change.
If Biden relied on ‘bad advice’, then he must have picked bad advisors (not a good way to start).
A ‘leader’ is responsible. A fraud makes excuses.
YEP!
Public private partnership! Skills gap! Human Capital! Learn To Code!
Get ready for all the buzzwords that sound like they came out of a business seminar, because they did.
Oh, well. Very little of it will reach public schools because they don’t actually do any work on behalf of public schools- always the last priority-so we’ll just get the slogans.
It’s kind of horrifying when you realize how much influence the Walton heirs have on public schools, especially since the Walton heirs are ideologically opposed to the existence of our schools.
Here’s the US Department of Ed selling ed tech product to public schools – salespeople all come out of the Walton org:
“Then, Assistant Secretary for Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development (OPEPD) Jim Blew will moderate a discussion on the power of individualized learning platforms with two examples for how to approach personalized learning for your students, Gooru and New Classrooms”
Echo. Chamber.
What can teachers do to tell Biden that he just made ONE BAD and HORRIFYING decision?
I truly am SICKENED and most DISGUSTED by Biden’s choice. Is he drunk?
Ask Gov. Beshears to tell Biden the appointment is a mistake?
Naw, he’s just being Corporate Joe, the candidate who promised his wealthy donors that “nothing would change.”
What has he promised the rest of us?
I’m gonna keep hope alive. Elizabeth Warren’s staffer, Josh Delaney, was originally embedded with the Senator via TFA. Warren has come around on charters and the value of public schools, in part because of the outreach of MA teachers during our successful fight against the Waltons to eliminate the charter cap in 2016.
Perhaps, as the TFAérs mature, they gain perspective?
Delaney wrote this piece in the Boston Globe on the insurrection at the Capitol:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/01/07/opinion/horror-confederate-flag-us-capitol/
I hope you’re right. I like your encouragement.
And good for the MA teachers who educated Elizabeth about TFA and other connecting matters.
Elizabeth was a public school classroom teacher. So she didn’t drink all of the kook-aid.
It will be interesting to see how many Biden Education people have gone on the former Gulen trips to Turkey. Before the coup in Turkey a few years ago, a lot of elected officeholders and their staff went on Gulen junkets to Turkey and received campaign contributions.
Since there are a lot of Gulen affiliated charter schools [Concept, Harmony, etc.] in the U.S., having Gulen sympathetic Dept of Education people can have a big effect on draining resources from traditional public schools.
Frances,
Thanks for bringing up Gulen. What a coup for Gulen.
The appointment of Wall Street’s, anti-pension Gina Raimondo to Commerce Secretary was a precursor.
most depressing supposition: “I wonder if Biden knows…”
Oh, we’re NOT gonna start THAT again, are we? What we did w/Obama–writing him letters (ha,ha–that his aides answered!), wringing our hands. Wasting time ruminating, “wonder if Biden knows!”
EDUCATION IS WOUNDED. PRESSURE MUST BE APPLIED!! *
NO pass!
*As soon as all of this craziness is over & we have a new administration, the pressure MUST begin.
I wonder if Charlie Brown knows
That Lucy will pull the 🏈
Kaitlyn is the typical affluent white kid who had a rapid ascent to DC politics, from the brief stepping stone stint in TFA. The well-worn path she followed guarantees the 99% will be screwed whichever party rules. Kaitlyn’s father’s a city court judge in Glen Falls, N.Y.
I am not posting to defend Biden’s picks. I am posting to ask whether a pick of a former TFA-er is typical or simply one of many picks, the majority of whom are NOT ed-reformers.
When I read the article that this post is linked to in “The 74”, I learned that Corina Cortez, a top Biden pick as special assistant to the president for presidential personnel, is a former senior advisor to the National Education Association. But despite Biden choosing a person once connected to the teachers’ union, I don’t think that means Biden is guaranteed to do the union’s bidding. So when I see that Biden also chose a former TFA-er as another non-education staffer, I don’t assume that means that Biden will do TFA’s bidding.
“Kaitlyn Hobbs Demers, who taught fifth grade in the Gwinnett County Public Schools in Georgia and spent 2013 and 2014 advising Teach for America “corps members” and interviewing future candidates.” “Interviewing future TFA candidates” seems like a pretty low-level job that sounds like the next step up from being a TFA teacher. Not really all that impressive and note that she is NOT advising on education.
Here is an article from the local Glens Falls, NY paper about how her TFA teaching made her aware of immigration issues:
““There were a lot of undocumented families,” said her mother, Carol Goodsell-Hobbs. “She really developed a passion for kids that didn’t have anything, and immigration issues. She wanted to be helpful to immigrant families and children.”
So she went into law, surprising her father, who also had a law degree.
“I thought I had scared everybody away from going into law,” Gary Hobbs said with a laugh.
She graduated from George Washington University Law School in 2016. Then she went to work for a Washington law firm, Covington and Burling, where she worked on congressional investigations. She also worked pro bono on immigration cases.
Now, in the Biden administration, she could make a bigger difference on immigration.
She knows Biden well. She worked for him as associate counsel when he was vice president, and since May she has been a senior associate counsel on his transition team.”
Demers isn’t in the Biden administration to push education reform. She seems to now be a lawyer interested in immigration issues, not in pushing education reform issues in the department of education.
I want to watch out for the DOE staffers and their connections to ed reform. But I don’t think anyone who has ever worked for TFA in a relatively low-level position for a couple of years is automatically bad because of that. She doesn’t seem to be an “education reformer”, she is a lawyer interested in immigration issues.
My thoughts too. Will these folks influence how schools will work now? If Ed. Sec. Cardona puts TFA or those who worked for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in the US. Dept. of Ed. which could happen, that will be the concern.
Yes, I don’t see this appointment as particularly outrageous or even “pro-education reform”. Just like I don’t see the appointment of former teachers’ union advisors as proof that Biden will do whatever the union tells him to do.
But if and when Biden puts TFA and ed reformers into top positions in education and the advocates for real public schools are MIA in the DOE, then that is outrageous. But that hasn’t happened yet as far as I can see.
Chief of staff to Office of Legislative Affairs is not a low-level job.
She will be the gatekeeper for all Biden legislation.
Yes, I wasn’t calling her job in the Biden administration “low level”.
I meant that her job at TFA seemed pretty low-level. She graduated from college in 2011 and graduated from law school in 2016, so she didn’t do TFA more than a few years. She went to law school and seems interested in immigration issues, not education issues.
It would be interesting to hear Gary Rubinstein’s take as to whether she was a low-level TFA staffer or someone who seemed committed to ed reform.
That is concerning then. Very much so.
For football fans out there, think of this position as the executive branch equivalent of an offensive coordinator.
The appointment reflects Biden thumbing his nose at the average American. Kaitlyn’s undergrad university tuition was $42,000 a year. Her GWU tuition was at least $60,000 a year. She’s between 35 and 45 years old and her experience with immigration is extremely weak. We are witnessing a snow job- attaching pretty packaging to a noxious product- unmerited privilege.
Correction- Lycoming’s tuition is almost $60,000
“Unmerited privilege”??
Kaitlyn went to Lycoming College, which is a private college that gives almost all students large financial aid or merit scholarships to defray cost.
The NYT has an excellent interactive chart “Some Colleges Have More Students From the Top 1 Percent Than the Bottom 60. Find Yours.” When I checked out Lycoming College, in Williamsport, PA, in that chart, I saw that it had less than 1% of students in the top 1% and over 34% of students in the bottom 65% of family income.
It was ranked 782nd!! That is far behind those bastions of privilege like Iowa State University, Ohio Northern University and Western Michigan University — all of whom have “richer” student bodies!
And George Washington U. Law School is a perfectly good law school and is expensive like other law schools but also is one of the few with part-timers. It accepts a fairly high percentage of applicants compared to other more “exclusive” law schools.
To call someone who attended Lycoming College as the recipient of “unmerited privilege” really makes the definition of “unmerited privilege” worthless.
She sounds more like Biden. Her dad is a judge, but in a small upstate city.
Average cost after financial aid at Lycoming College is $19,449. See https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/lycoming-college-3293/paying
Evidence about her financial aid?
Tuition at Ohio State university school of law for in-state students is $26,000.
BTW- when you cherry picked Ohio Northern, rhetorically, did you know it is a private university?
The “unmerited privilege” is a description of (1) her private school education- bachelors, where she majored in theater and education (2) a law degree at a private school that is almost 2.5 times more expensive than OSU. Private colleges are known to give preference to legacies and recommendations from the privileged (3) her access to Biden’s attention presumably greased by her GWU degree and her TFA experience (4) a high level job at a young age while having so little seasoning that her promoters have to trot out what is likely very little pro bono work related to an area that is intended to make her look like a do-gooder for the people, with her meager time in the classroom tacked on for good measure.
Privilege is when a person (may be white, may be educated in private schools) gets a job for which others are more qualified but, lack the same access to those who hire.
Would her husband or another relative fill out the picture of how Biden/Obama and Covington and Burling Law firm came to learn about her for plum jobs?
Linda,
I’m just pointing out that small so-called “2nd and 3rd tier” liberal arts colleges give out generous merit scholarships that can make them more affordable than a state college where a middle class family pays full tuition. Large public high schools have college admissions counselors that encourage middle class families to look at those private colleges, especially if their kid is in the top 25% of admitted students.
A student who attends a small private college like Lycoming (in Pennsylvania) is going to classes with students who are overall much less advantaged than those who attend a state university like Penn State. There are almost no students whose families are from the top 1% and the median family income at Lycoming is $84,500.
Compare that median income at Lycoming with other private Pennsylvania colleges that really are where privileged students attend. The median family income at Franklin & Marshall is over $212,000!!! The median family income at Penn State is over $100,000!
Lycoming is NOT where privileged families send their kids. The students there come from families most similar to Bucks County Community College.
Do you know Juniata College in Pennsylvania? Those students are very rich compared to Lycoming.
This woman may very well have horrible politics and be anti-public school, but her background — Glens Falls (public) High School in upstate NY and Lycoming University is the type of background that is very typical of a middle class kid and is NOT typical of a privileged one. She would have found more privileged students at SUNY Plattsburgh! And likely paid a higher tuition because for middle class public school families that don’t qualify for need-based aid, small, barely known private schools can be much cheaper because they will give good merit aid packages to middle class kids.
The general point in the case you’ve singled out to make is interesting.
Pennsylvania and New York are vastly different than Ohio – small, often rural, private colleges have more diverse student populations, in terms of family income, race, culture, national origin, and religion, than do public universities or community colleges.
Mr. Charter School, establishment, centrist, Democratic, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown did something similar to Biden in his appointment of a GWU grad, short-stint TFA as an advisor for policy. Hillary did something similar when she selected an elite to run her campaign in Ohio.
TFA selects the recruits they think will go on to become excellent subversives in government and finds jobs for them where they can do the most damage while reaping profits for their real bosses.
Back to the future. Way back.
Hey, I know, let’s double down on absolutely failed policy!
Everybody sing:
“When will they ever learn?
When will they eeeev-er learn?”
OK. This is the last straw. I am going to have to waste a lot of my time finally writing a detailed expose of the high-stakes tests in ELA. Clearly, the new administration is going to continue the utterly failed policies of the past based on ignorance of the realities about these tests. The devil is in the details, and it’s obviously going to be necessary to spell that out.
%@&@@(&#@*!!!!! This is NOT how I want to be spending my time, demonstrating the obvious to the ignorant.
Folks in high level positions are vetted. They know all their affiliations.
I think folks should be very cautious about requiring a purity test for positions in the incoming administration. We do well to remember that even after the last 4 years, over 74 million of our fellow citizens voted to reelect President Trump.
We need a president that works for all of us. Folks might want to read It is Our Turn to Eat as a cautionary tale. https://www.amazon.com/Its-Our-Turn-Eat-Whistle-Blower/dp/0061346594
We don’t demand purity tests, we need political pH tests.
GregB,
You can call it whatever you like.
If the 74 million people who voted for Donald Trump do not feel that their concerns matter to the country they will behave like their concerns do not matter to the country.
Does that mean that the losers in every election should be considered the winners, lest their grievances turn into rebellion?
What about the sports field? Should the winners give their trophy to the losers?
If the losers didn’t believe lies (I.e. the election “stolen”), they would graciously accept defeat as Americans have for generations. If they choose to believe a con man, there is no reason to address their “grievances.” They are victims of a hoax.
Trump’s message dissing D.C. elites, resonated with voters.
Wouldn’t it be novel if competence achieved through work performed by public university grads in the midwest, mountain, southern, and western states led to jobs in Biden’s administration?
Sports, of course, are zero sum. I think that anyone who views politics as zero sum is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
I think you are wrong.
The losers don’t win if they lose.
Sore losers don’t win.
Insurrectionists should be jailed.
In other news, the US government has spent $15 billion on Trump’s stupid wall, and a total of 47 miles of new wall have been built where none previously existed.
I’m taking a wait and see attitude. I expected a diverse set of people in the education department and would have been surprised if the TFA wasn’t represented. Perhaps Kaitlyn has seen the downside of the TFA program and will advocate for positive changes. Besides,TFA is only one of our issues with the current education system. We might not win all our battles, but hopefully there will be some positive movement forward.
Kaitlyn’s experience is GWU. a private college that costs almost 2.5 times the cost of Ohio’s premier public university. Her undergrad degree is from a small private school. Her work experience is primarily with a “white collar” D.C. law firm. Her father’s a judge. It appears, reference to her husband evaporated from the internet. She’s a true woman of the people (sarcasm) brought in to be Biden’s gatekeeper for proposed legislation.
Let’s just not be naive. It’s quite predictable considering where Joe Biden comes from and the people who are competing to win his cabinet seat. I wasn’t really surprised at all when he appointed Neera Tanden as the next director of the Office of Management and Budget. She’s a notorious Center for American Progress president who pushed her pro-corporate agendas that have hurt so many Americans. I’m definitely not a fan of her.
Some of those who will assume the Biden’s administration are not necessarily progressive-friendly. Some of those are former national intelligence strategists during Obama administration. These are the folks who used to work for national intelligence industry complex–NSA, CIA, FBI, etc. They are ready to pursue US imperialistic foreign policy on the middle east, Central and South America, and cast a dragnet to capture Edward Snowden and Julian Assange for revealing their unlawful abusive practice of spying, surveillance, and atrocity. This could be a divided issue here, so I’ll leave it.
One thing I can find common between ex-TFAers and those taking a leading position in national intelligence is hunger for power and greed.
I just hope these folks would not intervene into the affairs that could affect the interests of public education and schools.
Neera Tanden and Gina Raimondo’s appointments serve as proof that Biden is billionaire-owned.
No surprise…nothing changes…and, hostility reaches the boiling point
The billionaires never met a failed Democratic strategist they didn’t like. Neere Tanden was Hillary’s 2016 strategist.
I have hopes that Kamala Harris will not be as supportive of the President on education issues as Biden was supportive of his president. It could make a huge difference in the defining issue of the testing industry. Go ahead and educate me if there is not any hope of her history with teachers which would not leave much to hope for.
Something needs to be done about this (obviously). The sheer lack of knowledge about the Assessment Industrial Complex and the powerful players within it are hugely problematic. We need the new administration to implement a task force focusing on the implications of the assessment industry and all the damage it has done to public education.
You are right but it won’t happen because the Assessment Industrial Complex is inside the gates
Given how horrible Biden and Harris are, this isn’t unexpected. The Bruce Reed hire concerns me more than the TFA hires though, although the former might be the sine qua non for the latter.