Gary Rubinstein heard that Teach for America corps members were persuaded not to take part in teachers’ strikes.
But did they stay neutral?
They are scabs if they don’t strike. They risk their Americorps funding if they do.
What do they do?
What do you think?
Nancy E. Bailey warns here that Teach for America has been not only a disservice but a disaster for children in special education. They are not appropriately prepared to teach the children with the greatest needs.
She writes:
Since 1990, America has put many school children, usually poor, in classrooms with Teach for America Corps Members (CMs) who get five weeks of training. They’ve also placed novices in special education classrooms.
There’s no evidence that TFA CMs teach better than professional teachers, but today I focus on how TFA has failed k-12 students in special education.
The ultimate goal for TFA is not to create a teaching service to fill the need for a teaching shortage, as advertised. Their objective is to privatize public education and end the teaching profession…
In Matthew A. M. Thomas’s 2018 study “‘Good Intentions Can Only Get You So Far’: Critical Reflections From Teach For America Corps Members Placed in Special Education,” we learn that TFA CMs receive minimal preparation to work with students with a variety of disabilities.
They lack the groundwork of a professional teacher in the following areas:
Inclusive Pedagogy. They don’t learn how to help students adjust in general classrooms
Diagnostic Tools. They don’t understand the kinds of diagnostic assessment to pinpoint academic and social difficulties.
Instructional Strategies. They aren’t sure how to teach students with disabilities.
Self-Contained Classrooms. They can’t manage a classroom with students who have disabilities.
Upholding Federal and State Requirements. They know little about IDEA and its mandates.
Writing IEPs. They don’t understand the logistics of how to plan with staff, parents, and students, to carry out objectives, and evaluate outcomes.
Legal and Liability Issues. They lack a basic understanding concerning what is and is not acceptable while working with students.
Assisting With Critical Transitions. Helping students with disabilities make positive transitions from school to college or career, for example, is not something TFA do well.
TFA training is mysterious, but it seems to center around instructional texts and “boot camp” instruction that takes place within five weeks.
CMs are cultishly inducted into the core. They work with other TFA CMs, and practice on students in summer school. They write lesson plans and make teaching materials while they learn about TFA and its mission.
Thomas found that many TFA CMs don’t want a special education placement, but the TFA organization places them in those spots anyway, especially if they check “interested” on the application form. Compare that to well-prepared, career teachers who choose teaching and special education as a vocation, a calling that is a personal challenge and commitment.
Bailey adds:
TFA alum Penny Schwinn became known in Texas for trying to give a special education no-bid contract to another TFA alum, Richard Nyankori’s (see Mercedes Schneider’s Deutsch29, SPEDx: State SPED Data in the Hands of a Former TFAer?), for-profit data mining company known as SPEDx. I could no longer find SPEDx online. Fortunately, parents caught it and the plan was foiled, despite Texans losing $2.2 million of the $4.4 million that was supposed to go to the company. Schwinn is also a graduate of The Broad Academy.
Schwinn was hired by Mike Morath, the commissioner of education for the Texas Education Agency. Eyes are on Texas for the harmful privatization reforms. Morath is a software developer and investor. It is well-known that he is transforming the TEA with TFA alums.
Texas is seen as a Lonestar Turnaround State by TFA.
The other TFA alum I’d like to highlight is Louisiana’s John White who is state superintendent. White likes to brag about the success of New Orleans’ controversial charter schools. But that city has failed its special education students for years.
Until the American public becomes aware of how public education has been infiltrated by this group, we will continue to see Teach for America badly influence how students learn, and that is especially unsettling when it concerns our most vulnerable students.
Please read the full post.
It is alarming that the neediest students are given the least qualified teachers.
Gary Rubinstein raises an interesting question: where are the kids who were “saved” by ed reform?
Where are the kids who graduated from Urban Prep in Chicago, the ones that Arne Duncan claimed to “save”?
Where are the kids featured in “Waiting for ‘Superman’”? Remember, they were “saved” from their public schools and a Catholic school by miraculous charter schools.
Then there was the boy saved by a TFA teacher who taught him rugby, which got the boy into college and the teacher on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list. Apparently, the boy is homeless now.
How long do the “saved” children stay saved?
He asks for your help:
“You’d think that Davis Guggenheim, the director of ‘Waiting For Superman’ would keep in touch with his subjects — see if they graduated high school — see how they’re doing.
“My own private detective skills led me to find one of them, Daisy Esparza, on Twitter. I tried to contact her, but didn’t get a response. The other three, I wasn’t able to find anything. Maybe they are on Instagram. If anyone knows anything — six degrees of separation and all that — leave a comment.”
I received a complaint about the wording of the title accompanying the post by Leonie Haimson. Leonie’s post was titled: “Leonie Haimson: Warning! The New York City Department of Education Is Infested with Broadies, TFA!”
Mike Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute (and Foundation) [net assets: $44 million] was offended by the title. He asked me not to refer to people as “bugs,” because an “infestation” of Broadies and TFA implies bugs. I wrote the title, not Leonie. I have been writing snappy titles ever since I worked as an editorial assistant at the now-defunct Democratic Socialist magazine called “The New Leader” in the early 1960s (where it was always “Five Minutes to Midnight” somewhere in the world.)
So out of deference to Mike’s wishes, I want to make clear that people who are Broadies and TFA are definitely not bugs.
The term “infestation” usually refers either to pests or parasites. But not always.
They might be zombies. There is such a thing as a “zombie infestation,” like when a whole lot of people trained by Eli Broad or Wendy Kopp (neither of whom was ever a teacher) arrive to kill your school and scatter the children. I googled and found that “zombie apocalypse” and “zombie infestation” are interchangeable. There are numerous references to “zombie-infested” as an adjective and “zombie infestation” as a noun. The zombies are trained to eat your public school and give the facilities to private management.
Do you have another word that fits with “infestation”?
Whatever you call them, anyone who makes a living by closing public schools belongs on the blog’s Wall of Shame. I’m adding the Broad Foundation and TFA.
This is a great post by Nancy Bailey, offering 19 ways you can save public schools from the clutches of the billionaires in 2019!
Here are the first six, keep reading to learn about the other thirteen and see her links:
1. Kindergarten NOT The New First Grade
Kindergartners should be treated like the four and five-year-old students that they are and not pushed to be first graders. The activities and instruction for this age group are well established.
Real educators should take charge and ensure that there’s much free play and age appropriate activities.
2. School Systems NOT “Portfolio of Schools”
For years, corporate reformers have unfairly claimed that school systems fail. They want privatization through a portfolio of schools involving charters, private schools and choice. This will end public education.
We need efficient school systems for traditional public schools only, that serve all children.
Taxpayers don’t need to fund unproven portfolio schools they don’t own or control.
3. School Boards NOT Privatization Partners
School boards are critical to keeping public schools public. Elected officials must listen to the voices of those in the community that elect them. The school board is democracy at its finest.
However, school board members have signed on to unproven initiatives by the Gates, Broad, and Walton foundations and others. Newer groups like School Board Partners encourage school boards to carry out a privatization agenda. Outside groups include Stand for Children and The City Fund.
Ask those running for school board about their goals for schools before they are elected. Demand transparency.
4. Teachers NOT Teach for America
Teachers choose teaching as a career. Teach for America is a substandard turnaround teaching pool. Sending young college graduates into the classroom as real teachers makes no sense.
Here are the businesses and individuals that donate to this group. What if they donated to real teachers and smaller classrooms, or other school needs?
Renew the focus on teachers, their credentials, their preparation, and their support. Elevate their professional status to the importance teachers richly deserve.
5. Principals NOT New Leaders
Next to teachers, principals fulfill the critical job of running the school. Their jobs should be to support and evaluate good teaching fairly and compassionately. No one should become a principal unless they have classroom experience and adequate university preparation.
New Leaders was created to weaken the principalship. Individuals from outside education with no classroom experience are placed in school leadership positions. Like Teach for America, New Leaders weakens the structure of public education. They follow the privatization directives of philanthropists who seek school privatization.
Hire principals with long-term experience working with students. Ensure that they have the support and know-how to lead their schools in what matters.
6. Superintendents NOT CEO’s
Many state superintendents have little educational experience, or they have been through Teach for America. Often they are seen as CEOs overseeing a business. But schools are not businesses. Children are not products. Most of these superintendents have little to no experience with the children they are supposed to serve.
Many come from The Broad Academy where they learn how to collect data and transform schools to choice and charters. They are about school privatization.
Ensure that those who lead America’s schools have the right intentions and backgrounds to serve the needs of students.
Gary Rubinstein, ex-TFA, finds it startling that TFA issued a reading list that included “Waiting for Superman,” the discredited propaganda film of 2010.
It’s an embarrassment that TFA wants to dwell in the glorious past, but also an admission that their thinking is stuck in the past, the good old days when the future looked bright.
Ed Johnson, one of the most astute analysts of education in the nation, has offered a plan to rate the leadership of the Atlanta Public Schools. Please read his linked document. He frequently sends letters to the Atlanta Public School board and they regularly ignore his sound advice. The president and vice-president of the Atlanta board are TFA. The board is determined to disrupt the district and impose charters wherever possible, despite parents’ objections. His following comment describes a rating system for APSL (Atlanta Public School Leadership). Given that we already have ample evidence that corporate Reform is ineffective (see, for example, the $100 million spent and wasted on the Achievement School District in Tennessee), why do leaders of Atlanta persist in their demand for disruption? Because they can.
He commented:
Kindly forgive my intruding with the following long post broken into three parts to offer more perspective, but it’s a desperate situation here in Atlanta. Please help as you see best.
Part 1 of 3 from my “APSL design to rate schools, public design to rate APSL,” emailed 14 November 2018 (original email at https://tinyurl.com/ybk2e9u5):
APSL stands for Atlanta Public Schools leadership. The abbreviation distinguishes understanding the leadership of APS as being different from APS, the district, itself.
The APSL are the currently serving Atlanta Board of Education members, collectively and severally, and the Harvard-trained Meria Joel Carstarphen, Ed.D., as Superintendent.
Right after civil society of Austin, Texas, effectively dismissed Dr. Carstarphen, effective school year end 2014, for imposing school choice and charter schools upon their Austin Independent School District in opposition to the public’s interests, the Atlanta school board’s Superintendent Search Committee, chaired by Ann Cramer, saw fit, for some unfathomable reason, to select Carstarphen as the search committee’s sole finalist.
Consequently, in April 2014, the Atlanta school board approved hiring Carstarphen to succeed Interim Superintendent Erroll Davis. Carstarphen is now in her fifth year as Atlanta superintendent, and APS is now nearly a decade removed from Dr. Beverly L. Hall’s tenue in that position and the history-making test cheating crisis Hall’s behavioristic practices applied to teachers and their administrators spawned.
Always generally busy with some manner of rushed, attention-grabbing, self-aggrandizing activity about “moving forward” with change, but never effecting improvement, the APSL are now busy with “Creating a System of Excellent Schools” under the auspices of their “Excellent Schools Project.” An aspect of the project is the involvement of a 57-person Advisory Committee comprising top-level APS administrators, some APS principals, and mostly other persons said to be representing “the community.”
The APSL Excellent Schools Project Advisory Committee met most recently … on Monday, 12 November 2018. The facilitated work of the committee in this meeting was that of responding to, and giving feedback on, the 18-page DRAFT Excellent Schools Action Framework (“DRAFT”). A scanned copy of the DRAFT, in PDF format, can be viewed and downloaded from my Adobe Document Cloud space, at this link (light blue highlights on the PDF are mine):
First, see in the DRAFT that pages nine (9) through 18 present action items to “Rate on a scale of 1-10 your belief that this action will help increase access to excellent schools across APS.”
When, at the end of their Monday meeting and after having concluded their facilitated work, the Advisory Committee asked for input from members of the public present. I was the only member of the public present.
In rising to the floor to speak, I respectfully and humbly introduced myself as someone who has been called “that Deming guy” and then offered this feedback on rating the DRAFT action items:
On a scale from 1 to 10, I would rate every action item zero (0). Unfortunately, your allowing me to deliver just a two-minute monologue is not enough time to explain, why zero. Thank you.”
(Note that in keeping with the APSL practice of legally ending public meetings immediately prior to allowing public members to speak for two minutes maximum, so the APSL will have no legal obligation to dialogue with the public nor to legally include public input and feedback in meeting minutes and in the public record, the Advisory Committee Meeting asked to hear from the public only after having concluded the meeting’s work.)
Part 2 of 3 from my “APSL design to rate schools, public design to rate APSL,” emailed 14 November 2018 (original email at https://tinyurl.com/ybk2e9u5):
Now, be alarmed by the DRAFT. Be very alarmed, if not angered.
Be alarmed by the DRAFT because it embodies what students, researchers, and practitioners of continual quality improvement (not “continuous improvement”), such as that of Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s humanistic philosophy and teachings applicable to education, readily recognize to be what Deming calls “Evil Practices” and “Forces of Destruction” operating.
• DRAFT Evil Practices: “Institute performance-based incentive pay,” “Performance-based contract,” etc.
• DRAFT Forces of Destruction: School “Leadership transition,” “Merge” schools, “Close” school, etc.
Be alarmed by the DRAFT because its committee of creators and the APSL clearly aim to slink into parents minds and behavior selfish, consumerist school choice and charter schools expansion ideology that says, “It does not matter what kind of school it is – public, charter, or other – just as long as the school is an excellent school regardless of neighborhood.” In other words, the means don’t matter, just as long as one can get the end one wants regardless of the harm doing so will inflict upon others, even children, but just not “my” child.
Be alarmed by the DRAFT because it brazenly intends to lead to codifying behaviorism and Taylorism in greatly expansive ways even Beverly Hall did not do. Understanding that Hall’s practice of behaviorism and Taylorism as continuous improvement, with attendant numerical goals and targets for test score gains, is what drove APS to experience the greatest systemic test cheating crisis in U. S. history, then just imagine the damage and destruction the DRAFT portends.
Be alarmed by the DRAFT because it is so reductive and regressive in the extreme in going so far backward into the 20th century that it is reasonable to say the DRAFT makes behaviorism’s B. F. Skinner (life, 1904-1990; Harvard Professor, 1958-1974) and Taylorism’s Fredrick W. Taylor (1856-1918) rise from the grave to applaud it.
Be alarmed by the DRAFT because, intentional or not, its committee of creators and the APSL aim to seal the fate of current and future generations of Atlanta children, especially those labeled “black,” in being generally submissive and compliant cogs in a “college and career ready,” simplified, algorithm-driven, amoral and selfish and greedy world of corporatocracy (yes, it’s a word; see definition below), when the reality is that the world comprises a completely interdependent and interacting network of systems created by both Nature and man that gives rise to ever greater complexity, unceasingly.
Be alarmed by the DRAFT because it offers nothing, absolutely nothing, for working on learning to improve the internal capabilities of Atlanta public schools as a system that aims to prepare all students for complexities that will unfold, and have already unfolded, into the world, including public schools and other public institutions in service to sustaining and advancing democracy to benefit civil society.
Be alarmed by the DRAFT because it signals its committee of creators and the APSL, ironically, do not have even a Martin Luther King Jr kind of Systems Thinking wisdom and knowledge of what a system is nor of how systems give rise to complexity.
MLK Jr: “As nations and individuals, we are interdependent. … That whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. … This is the way our Universe is structured.”
To see an example of an MLK Jr kind of Systems Thinking in action, freely play around with my qualitative simulation of “Why APS cannot improve and why it can,” at this entirely self-contained link, shortened:
Part 3 of 3 from my “APSL design to rate schools, public design to rate APSL,” emailed 14 November 2018 (original email at https://tinyurl.com/ybk2e9u5):
Atlanta school board members who have no understanding of systems, nor of Taylorism, nor of behaviorism, nor of Carstarphen’s known bent for behaviorism and Taylorism, in the style she practiced in Austin, and now in Atlanta, are an inherent risk and danger to the moral and ethical development, education, and welfare of especially children labeled “black.” They should not be school board members. They should have the wherewithal to know to step down. They simply are not qualified for leadership in the ever more complexifying 21st century.
For this reason, now see in the DRAFT that pages seven (7) through eight (8) present the following APSL Excellent Schools Framework Rating design:
• Exceeds Expectations (also 5-stars or “A”)
• Meets Expectations (also 4-stars or “B”)
• Approaching Expectations (also 3-stars or “C”)
• Beginning (also 2-stars or “D”)
• Needs Improvement (also 1-star or “F”)
But then, in the sense “what is good for the goose is good for the gander,” the APSL DRAFT design for rating the level of a school’s excellence suggests the public might also have a similar design for rating the maturity of APSL quality.
Accordingly, the following design is offered for rating the maturity of APSL quality:
• Great APSL Quality
• Good APSL Quality
• Middling APSL Quality
• Fair APSL Quality
• Poor APSL Quality
Then taking the design for rating the maturity of APSL quality into considering that the APSL DRAFT Excellent Schools Action Framework, and the APSL Excellent Schools Project, clearly signal that the APSL aim to codify behaviorism and Taylorism as well as school choice and charter schools expansion, the rating “Poor APSL Quality” is justified, and so is hereby attributed to the APSL.
Therefore, let it be known: Poor APSL Quality is the situation hobbling improvement of Atlanta Public Schools as a public educational institution and system of public schools.
Moreover, the Poor APSL Quality rating begs asking: What was it in the general minds, hearts, and souls of Austin civil society that came to reject Carstarphen and stand up for public education that seems lacking in the general minds, hearts, and souls of Atlanta civil society that has embraced Carstarphen and is amenable to destroying public education using the rationale that attaining an “excellent schools” end justifies any “school choice and charter schools expansion” means?
Again, freely play around with my qualitative simulation of “Why APS cannot improve and way it can,” as you wish. It will be interesting to vary P.Superintendency (public superintendency) quality and P.BOE (public board of education) quality. See below for definitions of the interdependent and interacting entities the simulation involves.
Ed Johnson
Advocate for Quality in Public Education
Atlanta GA | (404) 505-81776 | edwjohnson@aol.com
Our indefatigable reader and researcher Laura Chapman reports here on the organization called “School Board Partners,” which we first learned about yesterday. It is another astroturf group, funded by the usual billionaire dilettantes and designed to promote privatization and profit.
She writes:
I have been poking around the “School Board Partners” initiative.
Beware the word “partners” in this initiative. It is charter school, Teach for America, and take over as many school boards as you can so charters can thrive and supply high quality seats in a system free of elected school boards.
So far, there are only two staff, both from Education Cities and four members of a board of directors.
STAFF:
CARRIE MCPHERSON DOUGLASS worked for Education Cities for five years. In May 2017, Carrie was elected to the School Board for Bend-La Pine Schools in Oregon – a district with nearly 20,000 students. She has a BA in education from the University of Portland and holds an MBA from Boston University. She is an alumnus of the Broad Residency and Education Pioneers Fellowship programs. Among other jobs, she led the HR and talent departments at Aspire Public Schools for five years. She is on the board of EdFuel, talent management for education, based in D.C. See also a financial problem with her “relay” activities.
KEVIN LESLIE has several jobs in finance and operations for Education Cities and its two new initiatives: Community Engagement Partners and School Board Partners. He holds a with a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of California, San Diego, and a master’s degree in library and information science from San Jose State University. He lives in Memphis, TN.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS:
NATHANIEL EASLEY Ph.D., is Founding Chief Executive Officer of Blue School Partners, a 501(c)(3) public charity “focused on increasing the availability of high quality public schools in Denver through quarterback investments in educator/leader talent, high performing schools, and a supportive policy environment.” Prior to joining Blue School Partners, He served as President and Secretary of the Denver Public Schools Board of Education from 2009 to 2013. He is a current member of Denver Mayor Michael Hancock’s Education Compact, the National College Access Network Board, the Colorado Education Initiative Board, and co-chairs the Denver Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce Education Committee. He has served on the board of several charter school in Denver in addition to other activities cited at the website.
CARRIE IRVIN is the CEO and Co-Founder of Charter Board Partners (CBP)a national organization helping public charter schools build ” strategic” boards. She has delivered a TEDx talk about CBP’s work. Carrie chaired the Board of Trustees of the National Child Research Center and currently serves on the Georgetown University Child and Adolescent Mental Health Advisory Council. She is a graduate of Harvard Kennedy School and Brown University, and is a Pahara-Aspen Institute Education Fellow. She lives in the Washington, D.C. area .
THERESA PENA has twice been elected as an at-large representative on the Denver Board of Education. She also served as the Executive Director of the Denver Education Compact, a cradle-to-career initiative launched by Mayor Michael Hancock. She is a board member of the Denver Preschool Program, the Denver Community Health Services and the Colorado Community College System. She has a B.A. in sociology from Pomona College in California and MBA from Cornell University.
CARL ZARAGOZA is Senior Director of Elected Leadership at Leadership for Educational Equity (LEE) LEE prepares and supports Teach for America corps members and alumni as political candidates at every level of government. Carl was elected twice to the Creighton Elementary School District Governing Board in Phoenix and had two terms as President. He is U.S. Army veteran. he taught middle school civics in a Title 1 school in Phoenix. He has BA in Political Science and is studying for an Executive MBA at Arizona State University. He is a Pahara-Aspen Education Fellow, and member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
There is a strategy for School Board Partners. It is described in a paper titled FROM TOKENISM TO PARTNERSHIP by Charles McDonald. This short publication includes one chart that shows the intended strategy for privatizing the governance of schools in the manner of Mind Trust’s operation in Indianapolis..
Click to access 1cjmq5paf_935717.pdf
The author of this paper, Charles McDonald, is Executive Director for Community Engagement Partners (an initiative of Education Cities). His bio says that he “served as Senior Managing Director, External Affairs for Teach For America – South Carolina for four years. He also served as Program Manager for Education Pioneers’ Greater Boston Analyst and Graduate School Fellowship programs for two years….. He is a member of the 2016 Pahara NextGen Network cohort and is currently a member of the Pahara NextGen Alumni Advisory. He has a BA in Political Science from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. He lives in Columbus, OH.
McDonald credits help on the paper to” leaders at Donnell-Kay Foundation, Leadership For Educational Equity, Memphis Education Fund, MN Comeback, The Mind Trust, SchoolSmartKC, and United Parents and Students.
The new organizayion builds on the failures of education in Memphis, in Indianapolis, in Minnesota and many more cities enticed into faux partnerships with existing public schools.
Jan Resseger writes that HB 70, the law allowing the state to take over school districts because they have low test scores, will be a permanent stain on John Kasich’s legacy. Who knew that Republicans believe that the best way to “fix” schools is to eliminate elected school boards? Did anyone tell the Ohio legislators about the failure of state takeovers in Michigan and Tennessee? So-called “Reformers” despise democracy.
The bill was rushed through the Republican-dominated legislature, which prefers to abrogate local control rather than invest resources in districts enrolling large numbers of poor children.
First the state took over Youngstown, now it is taking over East Cleveland and Lorain.
The newly appointed leaders are hiring uncertified administrators and bringing in TFA. Just what vulnerable children (don’t) need: totally unqualified educators.
The implementation of state takeover has been insensitive and insulting. Ohio’s Plunderbund reported in March, 2018 that Krish Mohip, the state overseer CEO in Youngstown, feels he cannot safely move his family to the community where he is in charge of the public schools. He has also been openly interviewing for other jobs including school districts as far away as Boulder, Colorado and Fargo, North Dakota. And a succession of members of Youngstown’s Academic Distress Commission have quit.
Plunderbund adds that Lorain’s CEO, David Hardy tried to donate the amount of what would be the property taxes on a Lorain house to the school district, when he announced that he does not intend to bring his family to live in Lorain. The Elyria Chronicle Telegram reported that Lorain’s CEO has been interviewing and hiring administrators without the required Ohio administrator certification. Hardy has also been courting Teach for America. In mid-November, the president of Lorain’s elected board of education, Tony Dimacchia formally invited the Ohio Department of Education to investigate problems under the state’s takeover Academic Distress Commission and its appointed CEO. He charged: “The CEO has created a culture of violence, legal violations, intimidation, and most importantly they have done nothing to improve our schools.” The Lorain Morning Journal’s Richard Payerchin describes Dimacchia’s concerns: “Dimacchia claimed student and teacher morale is at an all-time low, while violence (at the high school) is at an all-time high…”
At last week’s Statehouse rally, Youngstown Rep. Michele Lepore-Hagan described all the ways HB 70 abrogates democracy: “The legislation took away the voice of the locally elected school board members and gave an autocratic, unaccountable, appointed CEO total control over every facet of the system. The CEO can hire who he wants. Fire who he wants. Pay people whatever he wants. Hire consultants and pay them as much as he wants. Buy whatever he wants and pay as much as he wants for it. Tear up collective bargaining agreements. Ignore teachers. Ignore students. Ignore parents. And he also has the power to begin closing schools if performance does not improve within five years. Nearly four years in, here’s what the Youngstown Plan has produced: Ethical lapses. No-bid contracts. Huge salaries for the team of administrators the CEO hired. Concern and anxiety among students, parents, and teachers. And the resignation of most of the members of the Distress Commission who were charged with overseeing the CEO. Here’s what it hasn’t produced: better education for our kids.”
Teach for America is advertising for a lobbyist. They want someone with real experience, not like the five weeks of training they think is enough for teachers. I got an email today from a friend who found out why Kansas paid TFA $270,000 to get three TFA recruits: the TFA lobbyist in Kansas sold a legislator on the idea. The legislator is embarrassed by all the publicity and is not likely to offer that bill again.
Mercedes Schneider writes anout TFA ad for a lobbyist. You can bet the lobbyist will be paid more than a TFA teacher.
Diane Ravitch's blog 