Posted earlier today at Schools Matter:
I talked with a TFA recruit last week in Memphis, and she had 20 days of working with kids last summer as her teacher preparation for working with children this year who need the most experienced and professionally prepared teachers. If she makes it for two years, she will then go on to a career, while continuing to congratulate herself on what a fine thing she did for the poor children of Memphis. She will continue, too, to be inundated with propaganda from the TFA home office that will try to recruit her into service at one of the total compliance chain gang schools like KIPP or Uncommon Schools or YES Prep. If she says yes, she might end up as a high level admin type for Kevin Huffman, who also is a TFA alum.
Meanwhile, more professional teachers of color within the poor communities will be "excessed" and discarded, thus perpetuating the income inequality that is eating Memphis and other urban centers alive. And children in these poor communities will remember school as comprised of a successive string of temporary young women who were clueless about their lives and communities.
If a more racist and classist system could be contrived, I am not sure what it would be. And to top it all off, the TFA cult members are not doing as well raising math and reading scores as the "failing" teachers they are replacing. What's wrong with this picture?
Below is a clip from the Executive Summary of the TN report from this year:
I talked with a TFA recruit last week in Memphis, and she had 20 days of working with kids last summer as her teacher preparation for working with children this year who need the most experienced and professionally prepared teachers. If she makes it for two years, she will then go on to a career, while continuing to congratulate herself on what a fine thing she did for the poor children of Memphis. She will continue, too, to be inundated with propaganda from the TFA home office that will try to recruit her into service at one of the total compliance chain gang schools like KIPP or Uncommon Schools or YES Prep. If she says yes, she might end up as a high level admin type for Kevin Huffman, who also is a TFA alum.
Meanwhile, more professional teachers of color within the poor communities will be "excessed" and discarded, thus perpetuating the income inequality that is eating Memphis and other urban centers alive. And children in these poor communities will remember school as comprised of a successive string of temporary young women who were clueless about their lives and communities.
If a more racist and classist system could be contrived, I am not sure what it would be. And to top it all off, the TFA cult members are not doing as well raising math and reading scores as the "failing" teachers they are replacing. What's wrong with this picture?
Below is a clip from the Executive Summary of the TN report from this year:
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