The district calls Teach for America "questionable" ya think!?! (rough draft)
Okay before the Teach for America apologist crowd lambastes me, let me say I am sure there are great and dedicated Teach for America teachers and people who have had all the training and education in the world who have probably chosen the wrong field.
It's not the people who show up to work with our kids that I have a problem with, it's the very expensive program, that exasperates teacher turnover, belittles experience, and gives our neediest students novice teachers when they need veterans, that I do.
From the Times Union.
In the strategic abandonment report, the reading and the math coaches were listed as questionable. At total of 14 of the 37 programs were questionable, including Teach for America, a national nonprofit which recruits, trains and places teachers in high-poverty schools, including 50 in Duval schools this year.
6.5 MILION DOLLARS!!!!!
http://www.qeafund.org/investments/
I did a piece a while back and the district spends more on TFA teachers than it does on ten year veterans. Also remember the vast majority of these TFA teachers leave after two years assuring a revolving door in our most vulnerable schools.
What would have happened had we used that money to recruit veteran teachers? You know people who weren't killing time until grad school and to whom being a teacher was the career they had chosen?
What if we had spent that money on mental health counselors, or social workers, something many of our most vulnerable children need more than a novice teacher without an education background?
How about spending that money to make classes smaller, or provide summer school and after school opportunities? Any of these would have been a better use of the money.
Questionable? My %$#, it's a bad deal for our schools and kids no matter how you slice it.
It's not the people who show up to work with our kids that I have a problem with, it's the very expensive program, that exasperates teacher turnover, belittles experience, and gives our neediest students novice teachers when they need veterans, that I do.
From the Times Union.
In the strategic abandonment report, the reading and the math coaches were listed as questionable. At total of 14 of the 37 programs were questionable, including Teach for America, a national nonprofit which recruits, trains and places teachers in high-poverty schools, including 50 in Duval schools this year.
Over the past three years, Duval has spent $600,000 with Teach for America, not counting teachers’ salaries. The report says the teachers’ students do as well as other Duval students in reading and slightly better in math.
Six hundred thousand dollars beyond salaries, let that sink in. Now prepared to get outraged. What we have really spent, when we include the QEA initiative is 6.5 million dollars over the last three years.6.5 MILION DOLLARS!!!!!
http://www.qeafund.org/investments/
I did a piece a while back and the district spends more on TFA teachers than it does on ten year veterans. Also remember the vast majority of these TFA teachers leave after two years assuring a revolving door in our most vulnerable schools.
What would have happened had we used that money to recruit veteran teachers? You know people who weren't killing time until grad school and to whom being a teacher was the career they had chosen?
What if we had spent that money on mental health counselors, or social workers, something many of our most vulnerable children need more than a novice teacher without an education background?
How about spending that money to make classes smaller, or provide summer school and after school opportunities? Any of these would have been a better use of the money.
Questionable? My %$#, it's a bad deal for our schools and kids no matter how you slice it.