Opinion of Teach for America

[Blue3]

Opinion of TFA (Teach for America)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teach_For_America

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Vile.

[Blue3]

Vile.

Why?

[7,052,770]

FF (obviously?)

[TNF]

A naked attempt at busting unions and destroying American public education.

[7,052,770]

A naked attempt at busting unions and destroying American public education.

What? You seriously think it's all just a right-wing plot?

What about the placings in non-unionized places like the Mississippi Delta? Teach for America is a salvation to those places...

[Indy Texas]

The problem with TFA is that it overlooks the fact that what makes a good teacher is experience and consistency. That is precisely why teacher pay and benefits are structured to encourage as low a rate of turnover as possible and why school district HR policies err on the side of keeping teachers rather than having a constant churn of firing and hiring.

When students from Harvard or some other selective school more or less drop in for a year or two and then leave, it sends the message that white people who went to good colleges (because that's basically the only people who do TFA) are such inherently superior beings that an inner city child will be better served by being taught by one of them with zero experience than by someone from their own neighborhood who has made education his/her life's work rather than a fleeting project to pad one's resume on the way to McKinsey or Goldman Sachs or Yale Law.

[7,052,770]

... an inner city child will be better served by being taught by one of them with zero experience than by someone from their own neighborhood who has made education his/her life's work rather than a fleeting project to pad one's resume on the way to McKinsey or Goldman Sachs or Yale Law.

There just aren't enough of "someone from their own neighborhood who has made education his/her life's work" to go around in the schools where TFA sends teachers. Having a well-educated person come in and fill in the gaps in these areas is a godsend, even if the TFA don't have always have a great grasp of what it's like to grow up poor.

[Stranger in a strange land]

... an inner city child will be better served by being taught by one of them with zero experience than by someone from their own neighborhood who has made education his/her life's work rather than a fleeting project to pad one's resume on the way to McKinsey or Goldman Sachs or Yale Law.

There just aren't enough of "someone from their own neighborhood who has made education his/her life's work" to go around in the schools where TFA sends teachers. Having a well-educated person come in and fill in the gaps in these areas is a godsend, even if the TFA don't have always have a great grasp of what it's like to grow up poor.

True. This is why on balance, despite some rather obvious shortcomings, TFA is a Freedom Program.

[CatoMinor]

I don't understand how people can not like the program. Its not like the teachers are sent to areas that need no help. They are sent to poor that could desperately use some help. The people they send do not intend to stay forever and do not have 20 years under their belt of teaching, but is that really worse than not sending anyone?