Must see video over at Chancellor's New Clothes from CBS asking the magical question, "Where did the money go" and will the upcoming $12 million in fed funding to TFA be monitored a tad bit more closely?
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Does Teach for America Have a Future - In Handcuffs?
Must see video over at Chancellor's New Clothes from CBS asking the magical question, "Where did the money go" and will the upcoming $12 million in fed funding to TFA be monitored a tad bit more closely?
13 comments:
Comments are welcome. Irrelevant and abusive comments will be deleted, as will all commercial links. Comment moderation is on, so if your comment does not appear it is because I have not been at my computer (I do not do cell phone moderating). Or because your comment is irrelevant or idiotic.
It's become sort of the American Way that unionized employees are vilified at every turn for the high crimes of having health insurance or making a living, while privatizers can pretty much do whatever they like with no consequences. It worked for Haliburton. It's worked for Tweed. So why shouldn't it work for TFA?
ReplyDeleteHello! When are the newspapers and the UFT going to target the targeting of veteran teachers so as to drive them out of teaching to make way for the cheaper Teach for America folks? How many teachers at your school, successful and rated satisfactory for years, received Unsatisfactory ratings this June? Please call your representatives at city, state and federal level to decry this perversion of the civil service system!
ReplyDeleteThis is such a hack-job by CBS - they should be ashamed of themselves. Teach For America has documentation, just not the rigid and overbearing documentation the USDOE demanded. I know you guys love bureaucracy and the educational failure it produces, but even you have to be smarter than to believe what you're writing here.
ReplyDeleteHere's the audit:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oig/auditreports/fy2008/a02h0003.pdf
You can judge for yourself
So it appears that when "accountability" is used to vilify teachers and public schools, it is ok, but when that same "overbearing and rigid documentation" is demanded from Teach for America it is a hack job?
ReplyDeleteIt's funny that when public school teachers, who work harder than most people I know for a heck of a lot less money, are trashed in the media, no one says a word. When inner city public school employees, who work against incredible odds and devote enormous amounts of their personal time towards helping children, are defamed in the media, no one cares.
ReplyDeleteYet, when Teach for America is asked to explain why they can't account for money that is being provided by the public, people are upset?
Hack job? Before this video mainstream media has supported TFA despite the fact that students are suffering under the revolving-door system that has become acceptable.
ReplyDeleteThe sad thing is not that TFA has finally gotten some bad press, but that it took a money scandal to make it happen.
The sad thing is that brainwashed idiots come to blogs of educated people and try to defend a system that has done nothing but turn students into guinea pigs for "elite" bored college graduates to experiment on.
You want to defend TFA, I suggest that you do it some where else. We know what they're all about.
Oh, and by the way, when you write off your payments to Scientology- the ones that help you become CLEAR- be sure that you provide adequate documentation. Also include the receipt for the bridge in Brooklyn that you bought from the Easter Bunny on April 1.
Good point. Corporate media rarely publishes anything about TFA other than feel good fluff pieces, which is not so strange when one looks at their list of "donors":
ReplyDeletehttp://www.teachforamerica.org/about/our_donors.htm
"The sad thing is that brainwashed idiots come to blogs of educated people and try to defend a system that has done nothing but turn students into guinea pigs for "elite" bored college graduates to experiment on."
ReplyDeleteSigh...
Educated people? Hardly. Most of what you write is your own twisted conjecture, with no basis in fact. The rest are just plain lies.
ReplyDeleteI agree with my buddy Socrates - er- anonymous - we teach together somewhere in Newark. Or is it in NY? I forget. But youse people are louses and lyers.
ReplyDeleteNo basis in fact? Perhaps he used one of these sources:
ReplyDeleteLink to the CBS transcript:
http://www.cbsnews.com/
blogs/2008/07/11/couricandco/
entry4254754.shtml
Link to the CBS video:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories
/2008/07/11/eveningnews/
main4254956.shtml
Link to the actual audit from the Department of Education:
http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/
list/oig/auditreports/fy2008
/a02h0003.pdf
Link to the Philanthropy.com article:
http://philanthropy.com/news/
philanthropytoday/4903/federal-
audit-raises-concerns-about-teach-
for-americas-spending
Link to the ASCD article:
http://www.smartbrief.com/news
/ascd/storyDetails.jsp?
issueid=4F0E35DA-4FFB-412F
-9222-2E4997B8BDCD©id=
2180203C-F138-4EC8-B67D-
49AA5DBC35B0&sid=9a375f81-
708d-44e5-a5f7-ca5c11478ab7
&brief=ascd
Link to the New York Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/07/
washington/07teach.html?_r=1&ref=
education&oref=slogin
Link to USA Today:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/
education/2008-06-06-
teach-for-america_N.htm
Maybe they are all lying- wait, you're not one of those conspiracy nuts are you?
Just because I live in Newark, and sometimes in Houston, doesn't mean I'm not a 30, I mean, 15, I mean 5 year teacher. And stop picking on TFA. Haven't you figured out that I went through the TFA program? You hurt my feelings when you make fun of Teach for America.
ReplyDelete