Teach for America is no longer simply filling gaps in areas with teacher shortages. The superintendent of Kansas City Public Schools just fired nearly 100 teachers in order to replace them with Teach for America Recruits. The same thing recently happened in Los Angeles, where teachers were told they would be fired during administration of the state standardized tests. One teacher who did not lose her job in the L.A. fiasco wrote, “It's been a horrible week here. Very depressing. Plus we're in the middle of our state tests. How smart is that to fire teachers while they are giving their students the TEST? We work for idiots.” As I hope I made clear in my previous post “Charity vs. Equity”, I don’t believe the expansion of TFA is a healthy decision for children and communities. I also don’t understand how this makes financial sense in a time of budget crisis, considering the hefty recruitment fee TFA demands for the placement of its teachers.
*Thanks to Sydney for the link!
Yikes. Did you see this article? http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/opinion/01eggers.html?_r=1&smid=fb-nytimes&WT.mc_id=OP-SM-E-FB-SM-LIN-THC-050111-NYT-NA&WT.mc_ev=click Or have you heard of the book? http://www.amazon.com/Teachers-Have-Easy-Sacrifices-ebook/dp/B003QHZ4NM/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_1 I'm a big fan of Dave Eggers, so I think I'm going to check it out. I would also love to talk to you about public school teacher recruitment. I'm shocked by the sorts of questions that I'm required to answer in multiple-choice form. (For example, "Do you get irritated at slow students? A) Often, B) Occasionally, C) Slow students do not deserve education or D) no.) Perhaps I exaggerate a bit, but it is truly appalling. I can't think of another profession that asks potential employees to answer such inane questions.
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