"Why Teach For America Is Not Welcome in My Classroom"
Aside from the somewhat socialist leanings of the article, thoughts?
http://www.laprogressive.com/education-reform/tea…
Aside from the somewhat socialist leanings of the article, thoughts?
http://www.laprogressive.com/education-reform/tea…
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All I hear from this article is "WAAAHHHHHH". He would rather have the bottom third of Flalafel State College teaching in these schools then Yale graduates just because they chose to go a different route in life after a couple years in TFA. Oh yeah and because his students didnt make the cut he is now butt hurt over it.
Moreover, it doesn't take a fucking PBK triple major from Harvard to teach multiplication to a bunch of 8 year olds. And I'd have to imagine that some super square white guy/girl from Scarsdale is going to be much worse at interacting with disadvantaged black kids in Mississipi than a black guy/girl from Falafel State.
lol... I never said Fordham was a bad school. I said this guy is butt hurt that his students didnt make the cut for TFA and now wont allow TFA in his classrooms.
^ basically
Based solely on this article alone, I would conclude that TFA favors the volunteers much more than the impoverished students themselves.
But tbh, TFA is a waste of time and resource imho.
Sounds pretty dead-on to me.
The absurdity of the program is that the TFA kids are paid as well as actual teachers and are less qualified academically and then get to quit after 2 years and never look back.
I think people should do good for the sake of doing good, not because they want an easier path to b school than the IBD/MC grind.
The whole point of TFA is to recreate the movie Stand and Deliver on a wider scale -- bringing in bright, unjaded kids that will push students from disadvantaged or at-risk backgrounds to pursue their education more seriously and be more competitive in the workplace. The problem is 1) most of these kids aren't qualified to do that and 2) it's a self-serving program that glorifies the teachers until they move on to totally unrelated careers right when they actually get the hang of teaching.
On an unrelated note, TFA is a non-profit -- there is nothing "socialist" about the program or criticisms of it.
And the average teacher from Falafel State is more qualified then the Yale grads? Why... because they got a gen education degree from Falafel State? I dont understand how you come to the conclusion that TFA students are less qualified academically. TFA tends to be somewhat rigorous to get into and brings some very bright kids who may or may not stay after the two years.
I am sorry, but the average teacher I know went to State U, majored in Gen Ed or Liberal Art X, and then went to the same State U to get their teaching credentials. They are most certainly not rocket scientists.
Regarding quitting after 2 years, aren't regular teachers not allowed to quit after 2 years? TFA is doing the same duties as "regular teachers", so why shouldn't they be paid a teachers salary?
You won't get an argument from me that HYP kids almost always have more raw intellectual horsepower than state U grads, and probably did better in their respective schools to boot.
The point that I think you are deliberately ignoring is that Intelligence/Academic Success != Teaching Ability. As I said, it doesn't take a PBK math major from MIT or Caltech to teach multiplication tables to 8 year olds. These are skills that a 9 year old could probably teach, so having a novel approach to proving Fermat's Last Theorem for a senior thesis doesn't necessarily translate to helping a struggling kid come to grips with multiplication. It doesn't mean that they won't be good at teaching either, but I really don't think that collegiate level subject expertise should be the sole measure of qualification.
K-12 for the overwhelming majority of America is mass socialization combined with some basic education. It doesn't take a genius to study Gen Ed or get a teaching certificate, but teaching still requires specific knowledge that a lot of TFA kids don't have coming in, and by the time they really master those skills they move onto something else.
TFA is greasing the wheels for these kids. They should be held to higher standards of commitment than regular teachers who don't get their education or training subsidized, otherwise TFA kids can take the traditional route to teaching.
The author is a little hysterical and butthurt about it, to be sure, but that doesn't mean his criticism isn't accurate. TFA would be better served by having a longer-serving but less prestigious corps of teachers than a bunch of 2 and outs from the Top 15.
Yale to Fordham: U jelly bro?
A good friend of mine did TFA with no intentions of staying in teaching long term. She has now been working as a teacher for underprivileged kids for about 7 years and plans to do so for the rest of her career. I'm not exactly sure how often this happens, but I know that without TFA she never would have become a teacher and her students likely wouldn't have ever had the opportunity to learn from someone as talented as she is.
TFA gives QUALIFIED graduates the opportunity to teach in an underprivileged classroom. These QUALIFIED graduates may decide to stay or may not. It opens up doors that were not there before, for both the students and the qualified grad. If only 5% of TFA candidates stay in education after the 2 years, that is still 5% more QUALIFIED graduates who are teaching the future of America, who may have gone a completely different route w/o TFA.
I do not see the problem?
There's a lot of truth in the article. I'm in the midst of my summer training for TFA now, and the vast majority of my co-workers don't REALLY care about these kids. It is a stepping stone, and a guaranteed job, by and large. I also have developed a tremendous amount of animosity towards the organization as a result of what I've seen in these past few weeks. This organization is NOT in it for the kids... it's in it for the "Corps Members" and their experiences.
They have us teaching summer school after only have ONE WEEK of formal training. These kids are getting REAL grades in subjects that many of the teachers have no prior knowledge of. I for one typically learn the subject I'm going to teach the night before the lesson plan is due. It's disgusting that these kids are used as our guinea pigs. Even the way their success is measured is a damn scam.
They are given the final exam on the first day and given 30 minutes to complete it. For the remainder of summer school, we are then forced to teach our objectives to this specific test, and it is given again on the last day of classes. They are given 2 hours at this point to complete it after having been taught essentially identical questions the entire summer. The questions we give on the final is the EXACT SAME as the ones given on that 1st day too. It's real easy to say that "little __________ made a 48 point gain in his subject" when you have those particular conditions. The shit is sickening.
I joined to try and do some genuine good, but this organization is no different than many of the private for-profit organizations. At least they're honest with their intentions. I would leave after seeing this, but there's too much of a social stigma attached for my professional ambitions to do it. smh.
We draw our teachers from the bottom third of college graduates.
The biggest joke credential behind a Series 7 is a Master's in Education.
Every teacher TFA brings in from the top pool of students is a boon to our schools.
Are there any data points that anyone here has, offhand, that demonstrate FTA compared to regular school?
I'm curious
On Wikipedia there's a study that shows that kids did .15 standard deviations better in math than some sort of control. No improvement in reading.
I don't doubt that a passionate Ivy Leaguer could be a better teacher than a bottom-of-the class state schooler, but the impact on the kids as measured is really quite minimal over the course of one year, and I seriously doubt that due to the general lack of commitment, TFAers are becoming a significant portion of the teaching pool in the long term. So while yes, any contribution they can offer is great, the program could allocate its teaching resources more efficiently and effectively.
Anyone else notice the writer of this article is a professor in African American Studies, but he's white . Reminded me of the scene in "How High"
For a good documentary on the education system watch :The Cartel" it is about the New Jersey public education system and how the administrations at these schools siphon money from the kids to their own pockets. Granted the solutions proposed are all conservative ideas (more charter schools, kill the unions, abolish tenure, ect) it is still a very solid look at the public education system.
I sent the article to my buddy who is doing TFA right now and this was his response:
I love the writers absurdity in thinking that people who go to Fordham are poor. Poor in comparison to the average Yale kid but not ghetto kids poor.
Reading anything from a progressive was your first mistake.
is it possible to do tfa while doin a masters?
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