Former TFA teacher says TFA has "noble purported aim", but mostly about influence, federal money.

Run time: 12:07 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-LW31oQ-bc   Posted on YouTube: December 15, 2010 By YouTube Member: bilbyjg Views on YouTube: 616   Posted on DU: February 09, 2011 By DU Member: madfloridian Views on DU: 1415

 
This is an excellent video, a very thoughtful one.

I am very impressed with this guy. He sounds like he really cares and wants to succeed as a teacher. Said his TFA experiences were mostly negative.

One of his first remarks was most interesting. He said the TFA summer institute was supposed to prepare them to work with high-poverty children of color in an urban setting. Or to prepare them to work with high-poverty children in rural areas in "many poor Southern states."

That is one reason many of us have sounded off so much about this group. In too many cases there are layoffs of experienced teachers in such areas, and they are replaced with TFA trainees with 5 weeks camp behind them. It is not enough.

This guy puts it into words...what we have been saying. Their goal sounds good if you are not privy to the fact that these high-poverty areas are usually the ones losing resources. I taught in such a school, and we had aged textbooks..if any. The schools in richer areas had new texts, some magnet schools having two sets...one for the classroom and one for home.

So it is not a worthy goal to begin with. He gives an eye-opening account of his time in South Bronx with no textbooks and little help.

Susan Ohanian posted about this video, and she has some comments at her blog.

Ed Dispatch: A Former TFA Teacher



Bilby mentions how everyday he went home feeling like a failure. He says one parent started a fight with another parent in the classroom. (I had that happen...it's scary and needs outside of the classroom help to keep others from being hurt.) Luckily I got that help by pressing the buzzer to the office.

He further mentions that when he turned in his 2-weeks notice to TFA, he felt expendable. Seems to me he's saying that as much as he cared they were not as concerned with his feelings as about keeping a good relationship with the principal. He says TFA doesn't seem to care if the workplace environment is toxic, if the administration is unprofessional.

He said he felt like his final meeting with the TFA rep and the principal was to comfort themselves and make him feel as though his failure was all his fault.

He made an amazingly thoughtful statement. He said he thought the TFA has "a noble purported aim" but that it is mostly about "access to influence and access to federal money."

He talks about having meetings with the donors on Park Avenue in apartments on the upper east side. He says it was in stark contrast to where he was teaching which seemed like a prison with so many policemen. Then to go to the Park Avenue apartments where none are educators...just funneling huge money into education.

Says it was a culture shock.

He says that after he withdrew from TFA he has decided to go back and get his teaching certificate by the more traditional route. He plans to be back in a classroom within a year or so. He says he hopes his conversation will provide some "counterbalance" to the education reform narrative which is controlled by big money groups.

Very impressive guy. Good for him for speaking out. He will make a good teacher someday.

The booklessness most likely has to do w. someone funneling the $$$ elsewhere, BTW.

There's plenty of money for books. In my school , they piss it away or divert it to pet projects staffed by patronage people.

The school system here ( NYC) sucks but TFA is the proverbial cure that is worse than the disease.

Some schools with two sets, we had only one decent set. We did get our reading texts replaced every 5 years. But other schools had new math and science, and some even had brand new social studies. Our science was like 20 years old and worn out, and our math texts were ancient and dated back to another era of teaching math.

We had one advantage. Most of our teachers were experienced and very good. When a new one came in both the administration and the students and parents chewed them up and spit them out. Even with experience it was tough, very tough.

My heart went out to this kid. He had no back-up support system. He really wanted to do a good job, and the system failed him as well as the students.

One more thing about NYC...Bloomberg has too much power.

But as we were writing curriculum this past summer, we realized that the previous adopted textbook in one subject was a better fit for our curriculum. So we had to scramble to find enough of those books to put in each classroom.

In other words, a textbook company had a friend in our district. :)

and because I spent a long time writing out what he said.

It's good to see those involved waking up a little.

This teacher's experience resonates for me. My first teaching contract was in a middle school that had a brand new school building, but the same staff from the previous year. I found out (after the fact) that the principal of this school had an annual routine of targeting one new teacher to threaten with a district-wide 'no-rehire' status in lieu of a 'voluntary' resignation. I was her target that year. Of course, I resigned, rather than forever lose the option to teach in that district.

Spending one's own money on supplies for the students was a standing joke. All but a few of the teachers in our school spent various amounts, depending on our subjects and the needed materials. I tried to keep track, but it soon became obvious that keeping track was moot. If I wanted my kids to learn, I had to make sure they had pencils and paper (our students were all poverty level or very low income). The few teachers who refused to provide materials for their students knew that their peers were providing essentials like pencils and paper, so they would occasionally ask us for paper, or a few pencils, because they 'just ran out.'

With regards to books, we math teachers had new textbooks (huge, long, and poorly written) and new workbooks. Our teacher's manual came with prefab overheads, videos, mini-labs, and a plethora of other resources, all of which sat unused on the shelf. In fact, my mentor teacher advised me to 'throw away the workbooks, since we won't be using them.' Ironically, our 'team' took turns copying the worksheets we were using weekly--straight out of the workbooks.

I wanted so badly to tell my principal that firing me through forced resignation did not change the fact that she is a bad administrator. The students had zero respect for her, and it showed. Actually, as we teachers already know, it was the CHILDREN who got short shrift. I was advised to lie to my students, and tell them that I had to move. They were very upset, since they had been under the impression that I would track forward with them and teach their next year of math. (That reminds me: one of the assistant principals accused me of 'trying to be friends with my students'!)

I have been underemployed for the past two years, and am now drawing unemployment, because I did census work this summer and the feds set it up so that census workers could apply for benefits when the census ended. I 'teach' algebra and trig at a small community college, but I'd rather teach middle school students and help them really GET math. Alas, I cannot get an interview, both because of my age (55) and my advanced degree (they'd have to pay me more).

One thing this teacher said is VERY relevant. RTTT IS an accountability movement. Arne Duncan and the fat cat philanthropists who are driving a stake into the dying heart of public education want someone or something to blame for the 'failure' of the system, so they can destroy our unions, and justify privatization.

When, exactly, did that turn into churning out recent college grads into teaching, likely as a short-term first job?! :wtf:

Buy low (recent grad/bicycle) and sell (experienced/ advanced degree / mercedes) at the same price = higher profit margin.

It's the same model as offshoring.

He will graduate in 2 years and there will be ZERO jobs waiting for him. All he'll have is his rage and his debt.

He said he felt like his final meeting with the TFA rep and the principal was to comfort themselves and make him feel as though his failure was all his fault.

Welcome to Corporate America, Inc.