An Incomplete List of Things That Continue To Be Lame, Despite The Best Efforts Of This Blog To Enact Meaningful Change
1) Oprah takes on education reform! She's so inspiring. In a move that surprised no one her entire series consisted of America's favorite tech-nerds and America's favorite charter school. While I want to be simultaneously outraged, saddened, and disgusted, I'm struggling to muster the necessary emotions. Like her Book Club selections of As I Lay Dying and Anna Karenina -- where a man plows a field for nearly 100 pages -- her choices here are stale, obvious, uninsightful and add nothing to what passes for national debate on this issue.
2) Teach For America loves teachers!* A friend of mine, an exemplary classroom teacher who has worked tirelessly to become so, tells me recently about the repeated attempts to recruit her out of the classroom and into a staff position. I've written about this before, so I won't belabor the point, but this willingness to lure teachers from teaching positions infuriates me a little more each time I hear it. This organization should understand, moreso than anyone else in the educational landscape, the critical importance of quality teachers. This organization should understand, better than anyone else, the potential of those individuals in drastically improving life outcomes for low-income, under-taught children. TFA's continued willingness (at least in the Bay Area) to harm those communities in the name of bolstering support structures and improving the performance of regional offices is, at the very least, disappointing.
3) I used to think this:
but then I read this:
and now I don't know what to think.
*Offer good for two years.
2) Teach For America loves teachers!* A friend of mine, an exemplary classroom teacher who has worked tirelessly to become so, tells me recently about the repeated attempts to recruit her out of the classroom and into a staff position. I've written about this before, so I won't belabor the point, but this willingness to lure teachers from teaching positions infuriates me a little more each time I hear it. This organization should understand, moreso than anyone else in the educational landscape, the critical importance of quality teachers. This organization should understand, better than anyone else, the potential of those individuals in drastically improving life outcomes for low-income, under-taught children. TFA's continued willingness (at least in the Bay Area) to harm those communities in the name of bolstering support structures and improving the performance of regional offices is, at the very least, disappointing.
3) I used to think this:
but then I read this:
and now I don't know what to think.
*Offer good for two years.
posted by Kilian Betlach at 2:22 PM
3 Comments:
All that white flour will just increase your waistline, so I'd counsel laying off in either case.
Did you know that TFA is now asking new corps members if they would like/accept a charter school placement? A friend's sister just accepted a position in the NY corps, and she was asked immediately whether she'd consider working in a charter. I was floored.
I'm floored.
Seriously.
I'm on the floor.
That isn't even remotely defensible. That isn't even remotely connected to improving, in a systematic way, the educational opportunities for low-income kids.
Oh, that's gross.
One day, some children...
Dear TFA intern assigned to google the organization's name and report findings:
Please ask your bosses why they've given up on public education.
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