It was bound to happen.

Teach for America recruits thousands of very smart young men and women and trains them to think like members of TFA, believing that high expectations and high energy will suffice to close the achievement gap.

With so many well-educated TFA corps members, there was bound to be a movement to think differently about TFA’s methods, its claims, and its ambitions.

On July 14, dissident members of Teach for America will gather to debate the role and future of TFA.

As this article in The American Prospect explains,

“Despite the endless outcry, no one has ever staged a coordinated, national effort to overhaul, or put the brakes on, TFA—let alone anyone from within the TFA rank-and-file. On July 14, in a summit at the annual Free Minds/Free People education conference in Chicago, a group of alumni and corps members will be the first to do so.

The summit, billed as “Organizing Resistance Against Teach for America and its Role in Privatization,” is being organized by a committee of scholars, parents, activists, and current corps members. Its mission is to challenge the organization’s centrality in the corporate-backed, market-driven, testing-oriented movement in urban education. 

“The goal is to help attendees identify the resources they have as activists and educators to advocate for real, just reform in their communities,” says co-coordinator Beth Sondel, a 2004 TFA alum who is now a PhD student in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin. Though the organizers don’t have pre-set goals, possible outcomes range from a push for school districts not to contract with TFA to counter-recruitment of potential corps members away from the program.”

TFA attracts bright, idealistic young people with the promise that they can be agents of social justice and that their future leadership role in other sectors will change attitudes towards education. But these same bright, idealistic young people have noticed that the leaders trained by Teach for America are key proponents of union-busting and privatization. They have observed TFA alums like John White, the advocate for Bobby Jindal’s extreme reactionary agenda in Louisiana, the goal of which is privatization. They have noted that Kevin Huffman is faithfully serving the far-right governor of Tennessee in his efforts to strip teachers of collective bargaining rights, eliminate tenure, and remove any pay increases for advanced degrees and years of experience. They are no doubt uncomfortable being in league with Michelle Rhee, now raising money for Republican candidates in state races and pro-voucher Democrats.

Where will the internal dissent go? Will it matter? Will TFA listen?

This conference shows how hard it is to create a corps of young people who will obey and conform, when their education has encouraged them to think for themselves.