Live Blogging from Teach for America 20th Anniversary Summit, Part 1

A GEM TFA alum is in the house.

NOTE: Some people have been confused thinking I wrote this - note I'm a bit old to be a TFA alum.


Diary of the Summit by Summit blogger

On Saturday, Feb. 12, a Real Reformer member of the Grassroots Education Movement went down to DC for the TFA 20th Anniversary Summit. The blogs came through all day with extensive coverage from the perspective of someone who is not a true believer. Let me say that Summit Blogger is still teaching a self-contained elementary school class years after most TFA's have gone on to other things. Here are links to each segment.

Part 1: Live Blogging from Teach for America 20th Anniversary Summit
Part 2: Live Blogging from Teach for America 20th Anniversary Summit - Randi Weingarten

Part 3: Live Blogging from Teach for America 20th Anniversary Summit, - Afternoon Session

Part 4: Live Blogging from Teach for America 20th Anniversary Summit, With Closing Plenary

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Teach for America 20^th Anniversary Alumni Summit

8:00 AM

Arrived at the convention center to register. This is a seriously huge event—11,000 alumni (and some current corps members). At check-in we received a bunch of literature along with our name badges and tote bags—drink tickets for the evening reception (!), a Village Academies water bottle and brochure, as well as two flyers about LEE (an organization that claims to foster public sector leadership for TFA alumni.)  Village Academies is a charter school operator with two schools open in Harlem. Interesting (but not surprising) that TFA is promoting this school—they donated serious cash to TFA for this event (as is stated in the program brochure). I recently looked up Harlem Village Academies on the DOE website and found some interesting information about their enrollment. Their schools enroll students in grades 5 to 10 but not in equal numbers. As their students get older, the enrollment numbers drop drastically. What accounts for this attrition? Are they counseling out their students? Or are they simply leaving of their own volition? Either way, its clear they are not keeping their students.  Their brochure conveniently doesn’t mention any of this, and talks only about how great it is to work at their schools.

Village Academies, as well as many other charter school operators have booths set up here. Perhaps later, I’ll have to go and ask them myself. There are over 100 organizations tabling here at the summit, including: PAVE Academy, KIPP, Achievement First, Noble Network Charter Schools (whose teachers are all here in full uniform—their t-shirts are emblazoned with “BE NOBLE”), Success Charter Network, and the list goes on.  There are a few public school districts (D.C., L.A., Boston) here with tables too, but not nearly as many as are here to promote charters.

9:15 AM

The Summit has opened with a rousing performance by a high school marching band. Got to get the troops inspired and energized.

Opening remarks by Kaya Henderson, interim DC Chancellor and’92 TFA corps member. She’s well-received and calls DC the “hottest city for education reform.” Then she goes on to explain how DC’s education department is filled with TFA alumni, and that DC’s highest performing charters are run by TFA alumni. She claims that soon the person in the White House will be a TFA alum.

“DC’s school are tearing it up. We went through a bloody battle to get here.” Is she referring to Michelle Rhee’s tenure and inappropriate firing of teachers? I wasn’t aware that DC schools were now suddenly so successful? Did I miss something? I think the bloody battle is still going on and it sounds like she is planning to continue it. But the only people being hurt are those she is claiming to help.

She’s really going for it here. She closes with a “Let’s do this” mantra, followed immediately by the marching band again.

9:35 AM

Wendy Kopp takes the stage to a standing ovation, minus myself and my two friends.  51 people are here from the very first corps of TFA, 1,000 from the 2008 corps. And 3,000 from the current corps. 1500 of the alumni here are teachers. ONLY 1500?! That doesn’t include the 3,000 current members, but that is still 1500 out of 8000. 18%? Is that really success? Our education system needs people who stay and work in the classrooms.  

Her comments are quite generic. Sounds pretty much like what I heard here say when I was a corps member in training. She’s talking about how people “used” to think that ones socio-economic background determined ones possible educational outcomes. She is now telling a story about a Bronx teacher who got her 117 9^th graders to pass the Biology Regents test.  She then explains how there are not that many teachers like this one. “We can foster the impact of successful teachers by creating transformational schools.” She calls out three charter school leaders as playing a crucial role in education in our country. She is now talking about North Star Academy Charter School in Newark. Is this what the whole weekend is going to be like?! I expected some charter plugging, but this seems like a charter school summit completely.

“North Star’s leader has embraced a different mandate….she is working to put students on a different socio-economic path. She obsesses over hiring great teachers…and does whatever it takes to meet the end goal.”

Does that include firing teachers and/or students? What does it mean to do “whatever it takes”?

“We can provide children facing poverty with an education that is transformational….We don’t need to wait to eliminate poverty. We can provide them with a way out…”

She then claims that DC and New Orleans are home to the fastest improving school systems. Wow! I guess creating a two-tier educational system is what TFA is all about? There is such great inequity in education in these two cities. But almost everyone here is just nodding along with Kopp. I heard from another alum that last night at the New Orleans regional reception, people were talking about how TFA had single handedly helped the New Orleans schools recover after Hurricane Katrina.

She claims to know what we need to fix education in this country. She is talking about “transformational leadership” as the key in schools and school systems. What does transformational leadership mean? Is it such a vague statement, but it sounds powerful, so everyone is clapping.  

“Incremental change is not enough, we need transformational change.” She is now explaining how she wants to expand the program, but mentions only pushing people into leadership roles. No mention of the role of the classroom teacher.

10:00 AM

FROM TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE TO RADICAL CHANGE!

Next up, Walter Issacson, CEO of the Aspen Institute, a leadership/social entrepreneurship organization. He is up here to welcome the panelists to the stage. Rock music welcomes them:

1. Jon Schnur, Chairman of the Board, New Leaders for New Schools (moderator)

2. Michelle Rhee, former DC Chancellor

3. Joel Klein, former NYC Chancellor

4. Geoffery Canada, Harlem Children’s Zone

5. John Deasey, superintendent, LA Unified School District

6. Dave Levin, KIPP co-founder and superintendent of NY KIPP

*Klein is speaking now. “Is this our Egypt moment? Will we seize the moment? We will talk to each other and go home. I challenge this group to seize the moment. We no longer believe that poverty is permanent…Education…this is America’s issue. What will change it? Each one of you must insist that each school out there is one that you would send your kids too.” He takes it to a new level. He says “transformational change” isn’t enough—we need “radical change.” More empty statements from the former chancellor.

*Dave Levin is now speaking, with a KIPP shirt on (many KIPP teachers here are in full uniform as well). At KIPP, he claims to have quadrupled the graduation rate of kids from high poverty neighborhoods. But, just like Harlem Village Academies, KIPP has a history of high attrition. If you achieve 100% graduation but your class is only 30 kids when it should have been 100, are you really doing the true work of educating our children?!  I think not.

Michelle Rhee is up, and she seemed to have forgotten her masking tape. She is giving a speech pretty much on par with her usual--We need to be aggressive, some people might not like us, controversy will arise, opposition will arise, but we have to push past it. Meaning, we must squash it and cover it with masking tape.

Canada’s turn. He talks about this “revolution” and claims, “We can really win!” Everyone cheers. “As a nation we have become soft in terms of fighting for what we believe in.” He forgot to mention how our educational leaders, especially those in NYC, are working so hard to silence the voices of public school parents, teachers and students. He closes with “we need to ratchet it up.” So many vague statements from all of those on stage.

John Deasey. “This is an issue around courage. We have the skill. How courageous are we going to be? What if 11,000 people descended on LA to demand change.” Hmmm, didn’t LA teachers recently take to the streets to demand what they wanted? Maybe their message isn’t what he wants to hear.

He is now talking about how he needs people to come to LA and work?

Klein is speaking again. He is so well received by this audience. Every time he speaks the crowd responds. Where am I?!

Moderator: “How important is it to drive success in this country, to change parents, educators conception of this fact?” His questions are just plain confusing.

Canada: He is talking about how some people in our country simply accept that some children don’t learn because of poverty. He says he rejects this notion. All from a man who kicked out an entire class of students! The pure arrogance on the stage is hard to stomach. My palms are sweating. How do we counter this? “When any kid comes to me they are going to get an education.” I refer back to my previous statement—his schools also have serious issues with attrition. But this crowd doesn’t see it. How do we bridge these gaps?!

And why don’t his schools fill the empty seats in their schools?

Rhee: “The only issue isn’t parents lack of involvement.”

Moderator: “We see reasons for hope…Joel, what is is going to take to go from the KIPP schools and district school successes to system wide success?”

Klein: “It’s is going to take teachers who understand it isn’t just about good teaching. We cannot have the unions be the monopoly for teachers voice… Teachers need to have their own voice. “ Is he serious? Teachers need to use their voice? Clearly, he means if their voice is the same as his. We in NYC know how little he cared about teacher voice. How many PEP meetings did he preside over where he blatantly ignored the voices of teachers? He silences people who do not agree with him. He does thank the teachers from his new teacher group for speaking up. People are clapping for him again.

I think I have an ulcer.

Deasey: “I am tired of going to schools and hearing people say this is what I need and I am not being heard.” Wow, in just 10 minutes he has completely contradicted himself. He previously said he wanted teachers to have a voice.

Rhee: “ I have not demonized the teachers union. I have been trying to show people that the teachers unions are doing exactly what they are supposed to do.” What planet does she live on? Maybe it’s not really her? Nope, it is. We’ve just moved into the part of the session in which all the speakers are going to contradict themselves

She is plugging Students First, her new organization now, as the solution to the teachers union.

Candada: “ The union’s job is to stop innovation….”

Klein is offering his solutions. Here is what he says:

“First, We have to professionalize teaching and make it respected. We treat teachers like widgets and that isn’t going to work. Last in, first out is a huge problem. Excellence in teaching is the hallmark not senority in education…Second, we must stop monopoly providers. We must insist on choice…Third, we need innovation.”

Respect teachers? When has Klein ever done that? Widgets? He wants teachers and students to be cogs in a machine.

Moderator:  “KIPP schools don’t have the constraints of public schools. How scalable is your approach?”

Dave Levin” “This is the hardest work on the planet…the unit of change for an individual kids life…starts and ends with school…we need as many committed teachers and school leaders as we can get…”

He didn’t answer the question. Perhaps because even he knows that his isn’t a sustainable approach to education.

Moderator: He is closing with a “Ra! Ra! Let’s praise the people on stage. Join their schools and organizations.” These people are creating more educational INEQUITY in the name of equity. I need to redeem my drink tickets stat. 

NEXT SESSION: Randi Weingarten - my ulcer is pulsing in anticipation

From Parents Across America - New Orleans Nightmare

Choice really means: 

"Schools choose [students] and parents and children lose. We really don't have choice."

PAA's Karran Harper Royal at the inaugural PAA event on Monday night share her experiences with the ed deform privatization scheme in New Orleans where choice turns out to be between KIPP and KIPP.

"Charter schools' solution to school improvement is to change our students."
"The principal became a CEO and her salary went from about $80,000 to $250 thousand."

See our future under ed deform, when public schools only exist for students unwanted by charters, in all its glory.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7-an30xLS8




Afterburn

Fascinating experiences of TFA novice in the Bronx  at EdWeek.

A must see! Make sure to watch the video as well as read the transcript.

http://bit.ly/fJq1LI

Quarterbacks For America- Wendy Kopp New Venture

With research showing that the most important factor in the success of a football team being the quarterback and with so many NFL teams showing poor performance - the achievement gap between the Washington Redskins and the New England Patriots has not only not been narrowed, but has actually widened - Teach for America founder Wendy Kopp has come up with a plan to close the gap and improve performance throughout the NFL by starting a program to train NFL quarterbacks. The new program will be modeled on her brainchild, Teach for America and will be known as Quarterbacks for America, or QFA.

"We know that the success of teams depends on the quarterback. Did you know that the majority of NFL QBs rate in the bottom third of their class, as opposed to places like Finland where their quarterbacks come from the top quartile," said a spokesperson? "We intend to reverse that trend by recruiting from only Ivy League colleges. Naturally we prefer people who have never played football since it is so obvious the college training schools have done such a poor job."

All those chosen will be given a 6 week summer crash course in quarterbacking before being sent off to lead NFL teams.

Michael Fiorillo at NYC Educator blog: Ivy League Union Busters, Then and Now

There is a history of tensions between college educated elite and the labor movement. Michael Fiorillo provides a good history lesson tying the Teach For America mentality towards unions today in the context of the past. For those who read it at NYC Educator but tend to forgot history, I'm cross posting to make sure you are not condemned to repeat it.

Michael's piece elicited this comment from Pogue at NYC's blog:
Wow, great piece. What a fascinating historical perspective. So, the TFA'ers aren't the first to be a part of union busting policies. Strange how past anti-war demonstrations were led by college students where nowadays we have a president whose conservative-like policies are given a pass by our youth.

 

Ivy League Union Busters, Then and Now

By special guest blogger Michael Fiorillo

Conventional wisdom holds that universities are repositories of liberalism and progressive politics, in which innocent students are indoctrinated into holding borderline deviant, un-American beliefs. Right wing authors, pundits and politicians are forever bemoaning how American universities are controlled by a liberal/left wing/anti-free market orthodoxy. And in marginal and declining humanities departments that may be the case. But a review of US labor history and current labor issues shows that in reality elite universities have often been a source of reactionary, anti-labor attitudes, policies and actions. A brief look at early 20^th century labor history, and current academic efforts associated with so-called educational reform, bear this out. While the recruitment of student strikebreakers one hundred years ago was couched in the explicit language of class warfare, today anti-labor ideologies and recruitment is spoken in the superficially milder, pseudo-scientific language of ideologically-framed education research, economics and human capital deployment. One hundred years ago, largely unorganized manual workers bore the brunt of this assault; today it is teachers and their unions.

Ralph Fasanella: “Lawrence,1912:The Bread and Roses Strike”

In one of the paintings that Ralph Fasanella did of the great Lawrence, Massachusetts, textile strike of 1912, a detail shows the state militia entering the city to help break the strike, while the strikers and their supporters are massed along the sidewalks. Standing there are three little boys, each holding signs that together read “Go Back to School.”

While the meaning of those signs may not be so clear today, at the time it was obvious to all concerned what they meant: that students from Harvard, Tufts and other elite universities in the region had willingly joined the state militia, with the support of their school’s presidents, to break the strike.

Indeed, according to Stephen Norwood, whose “The Student as Strikebreaker: College Youth and the Crisis of Masculinity in the Early 20^th  Century” (Journal of Social History, Winter, 1994), “…college students represented a major and often critically important source of strikebreakers in a wide range of industries and services.”  Student strikebreakers, often but not limited to athletes and engineering students, were involved in strikebreaking in the 1901 dockworkers strike in San Francisco (Berkeley), the 1903 Great Lakes seaman’s strike of 1903 (U of Chicago), 1903 teamster and railroad strikes in Connecticut (Yale), the 1905 IRT strike in New York City (Columbia), and many, many others. During the great strike wave that followed WWI, Princeton president John Grier Hibben told officials of the Pennsylvania Railroad that his students were “ready to serve” in the event of a railroad strike. The Boston and Maine Railroad actually placed an engine and rails on the MIT campus to help train student strikebreakers.

Today, elite colleges produce endless studies and turn out cadre to facilitate the privatization of the public schools, which occurs under catch phrases such as “the business model in education,” “school choice,” “market-friendly policies,” “social entrepreneurialism” and others. These efforts presuppose the avoidance, neutralization and ultimate elimination of teacher unions.

The fact of student strikebreaking in the early 20^th century is not so hard to understand. Unlike today, a university education was limited to a tiny percentage of the population, and the student body was composed of a homogenous group composed almost entirely of wealthy, white males who aspired to and identified with the interests and ideologies of the captains of industry at the time. According to Norwood, there was an additional overlay of obsessive concern with toughness, strength, and the “cult of masculinity” associated with Teddy Roosevelt’s “bully” persona. These tendencies combined to make it easy to see why “Employers considered students to be the most reliable strikebreakers of the period,” since their complete remove from the conditions under which working people lived at the time, combined with the prevailing attitudes of Social Darwinism, combined to make their antagonism to labor unions of a piece.

“Fight Fiercely, Harvard:” Massachusetts Militia (composed  largely of Harvard students) confronts Lawrence strikers in 1912

In fact, public and private universities at the time were so identified with monopoly capital that their very nicknames stand as signposts of their class identification: “Standard Oil University” (U of Chicago), “Southern Pacific University” (Stanford), “Pillsbury University (U of Minnesota).

Today, with the near-total collapse of private sector unionization, the last bastion of organized labor in the US is in the public sector. And among public sector unions, teacher unions have become a major focus in the effort to “reform” or “rationalize” the educational workplace, and to shape and form the “product” (aka students, according to NYC Department of education consultant and management avatar Jack Welch)) that is to be delivered to employers upon graduation. While this effort is always couched in the language of “Children First,” “The Civil Rights Movement of Our Time” or other such PR and focus group-generated slogans, the reality is that recent efforts to change public education are largely motivated by a desire to control the labor process and labor markets within and outside the schools. The language of corporate education reform rarely, and then only half-heartedly, invokes the now-quaint language of citizenship or democracy. Instead, it openly discusses the purpose of education as producing students who meet the needs of employer-dominated labor markets and a globalized, neo-liberal economy.

So, having taken a peek at the Ivy League (and other) union-busting efforts of one hundred years ago, what do we see today?

Let’s (to use only one of numerous examples) briefly look at Harvard, where in 1904 university president Charles W. Eliot described strikebreakers as “a fair type of hero.” Harvard is the currently the home of The Program on Educational Policy and Governance (PEPG), which is affiliated with the Kennedy School of Government, and has notable alumni such as Michelle Rhee (whose anti-teacher and anti-labor behavior needs no introduction) and Cami Anderson (who is currently busy privatizing and charterizing NYC’s District 79/alternative high schools).

PEPG describes itself as “a significant player in the educational reform movement” that provides “high-level training for young scholars who can make independent contributions to scholarly research… foster a national community of reform-minded scientific researchers… and produce path-breaking studies that provide a scientific basis for school reform policy.” (I’ll have some more to say on the ideological basis of the pseudo-science that forms their “scientific research”)

A quick look at their Advisory Committee and major funders, shows it to be made up almost entirely of pro-privatization and anti-labor individuals and groups. Its funders include foundations such as the Walton Family Foundation, Bradley Foundation, Olin Foundation, Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation and the William E. Simon Foundation. Its Advisory Committee includes Jeb Bush and a host of investment bank, hedge fund and private equity interests. Its affiliates include the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, The Hoover Institute and The Heritage Foundation (with the Brookings Institute thrown in for a bi-partisan gloss). While claiming to be independent and non-partisan, it in fact espouses and is dominated by the free-market fundamentalism that has served the US so very well in recent years, and is now (to use a term from the Wall Street backers of corporate ed reform)) engaging in a hostile takeover of the public schools.

Studies and reports by the PEPG show an obsession with vouchers, charters, merit pay, the “inefficiencies” and failures of collective bargaining, and other “market friendly” topics and policies. While ostensibly using the scientific method, the entire premise of their research is based on assuming as a given the existence of so-called self-regulating markets: in other words, unquestioned assumptions and ideology masked as science, and a latter-day counterpart to the 19^th century medical “science” that strove to “prove” the efficacy of bleeding as a medical procedure.  A 2009 paper co-authored by PEPG director Paul Peterson purported to “scientifically” show how for-profit school management companies were superior to both traditional public schools and non-profit school management entities. Independent and non-partisan, indeed.

The PEPG’s 1998-99 Annual Report, in a prominent sidebar to an article entitled “Do Unions Aid Education Reform?” (I bet you can guess their answer to that one), stated that collective bargaining and unions “reduce the diversity of instructional methods, reduce low-and high-ability test scores” and “increase high school dropout rates.” Sounds scientific, no?

Unlike the early 20^th century, union busting emerging from the academy no longer takes place at the (literal) point of a gun, as in Lawrence. At least, not yet. Instead, it is done in calm, measured, reasonable-sounding tones, using the façade of faux scientific inquiry, and by creating an academic, philanthropic (or in this case, malanthropic might be a more accurate term) and media echo chamber that endlessly repeats its unexamined assumptions, half-truths and outright distortions. Additionally, in the realm of real world practice we have the union-busting efforts of Teach For America (founded by Princeton grad Wendy Kopp, and recruiting exclusively among graduates of elite colleges and universities), which happily supplied replacement workers (aka scabs) for the schools in post-Katrina New Orleans, where the entire teaching force was summarily fired.

While it would be grossly inaccurate, and is nowhere near my intention, to tar all college students, professors and administrators with an anti-labor, anti-humanistic brush, the reflexive assumption that universities are always exemplars of social progress is due for some revision and skepticism. That elite universities should be so complicit in the ongoing destruction of public education is a cruel paradox that exemplifies the many dilemmas teachers face today.

History, however, should teach us not to be too surprised.

A Parent Vents At Teach for America

Hi D,
I have a friend whose kid just signed up for Teach for America. Wasn't that the program that gave [your daughter S] so much trouble? Care to elaborate? I'm sure they'd be interested in more info. Maybe [S] can write directly to her son. Thanks.
L

Hi L,
Teach for America only has one program, which is for recent college graduates from prestigious universities with no or little educational experience and training. TFA gives them about one month's worth of training, mostly in record keeping, along with room and board, but nothing else. TFA then puts them in an inner city classroom (for which they get an undisclosed fee of about $1,500 to 5,000 from a school district), based on the totally erroneous assumption that high achievers can get by with determination, some mentoring (which in S's case was denied by the elementary school in Brooklyn she was assigned to two days before school began), and taking a few mediocre education courses.

S initiated all types of interventions at the school directly, through Teach for America, through her union, and through an attorney we hired to get Teach for America to intervene at the school to get the mentoring she was entitled to, but TFA told her she was not working hard enough at being a leader. S also attempted to get a transfer to a school which wanted an untrained, uncertified teacher, and TFA flatly refused the request. TFA also refused to provide us a copy of the contract between TFA and their teachers, as well as between TFA and the NYC Department of Education.

TFA also flat out lied to us when they said S would be flown to NYC for placement interviews before her "training" began. They also mislead us to believe that the placements took place during training. Finally, we were upset to find out that there was no compensation to get her to NYC, while she lived in their dorm, and while she was on her own for one month between the end of training. She only got her first pay check in October, which meant she was dependent on us for about a half-year after our first parent's briefing from Teach for America..

We also discovered that because of its foundation supporters and general philosophical outlook, that TFA is fanatically anti-union. They never tell their trainees that they will be in a unionized work force, and their staff even told us in writing that if they were to attend a meeting at S's school with a union rep present, that TFA would fire them from their staff positions!

Later we discovered the work of the foremost scholar on teacher education, Linda Darling Hammond of Stanford (who was Obama's chief education adviser during the transition period). She totally slams Teach for America and told us S's experience was not that unusual. She also is an advocate for serious teacher training, which means getting an MA after graduation instead of five weeks of summer school training.

Bottom line, it was a horrible experience in a horrible program. Your friend's son should turn to a serious program in teacher training.

A few of the articles we got, largely from Prof. Darling-Hammond, are attached. I will also copy an education blogger in NYC, Norm Scott, who published something we wrote about her experience in TFA. He may have more material. Also an old friend, who is now the president of the state Federation of Teachers, may have more thoughts, especially about TFA's strong anti-union outlook.
D

Darling-Hammond article is posted at http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcj5ndsz_28cdp2gbhd
There is also a pdf of a Slate article but only available as a pdf from email.

TFA, TQ and NTP

Teach for America Trolls Pay A Visit

Ever wonder how people who work Teach for America spend their days?

Their trolls search the web for negative publicity.

Thus, not long after posting Studies Show Teach for America Teachers Are... , Ed Notes got these visits from TFA offices in 2 cities:

Organization TEACH FOR AMERICA/ MCGRAW COMM , Washington
Organization TEACH FOR AMERICA, Chicago

Must be a light week at TFA.


Teacher Quality and the New Teacher Project

There are other trolls out there who tell us about "studies" and "research" with vague references. often by biased self-interest groups. Joel Klein and his minions do this all the time. As does the press. Eduwonkette and Skoolboy have pretty well demolished the "teacher quality studies show" line of bullshit.

This post Skoolboy Savages Kristof was visited by "Jacob" a Socrates-like clone (Socrates posts responses to attacks on the phony ed reformers all over the web under various aliases and pretenses and clearly shows signs of being a paid responder) who disingenuously wrote:

There is actually ample evidence, see any report by the new teacher project, the national counsel on teacher quality, or the national governors association. For information regarding the effects of effective teachers see the work of Sanders or Goldhaber among others.

To use research by the New Teachers Project is akin to accepting a North Korean study showing the high level of democracy in that nation.

Rebecca responded:

The "teacher quality" debate is about classism-pure and simple.
Have you ever noticed that the debate rarely centers around middle class suburban students and their relationship to their teachers? Why do you suppose that is?

It's because most middle class suburban children arrive at school with their needs already met. Their teachers simply teach and miraculously the children learn.

The debate is an attempt to draw attention away from the vast inequities in lifestyle, health care, nutrition and wages which exist in high-needs schools.
It is an abomination that private interests push the teacher debate as a way to avoid the horrendous class divisions which they have helped to create.

It is laughable that the above comment directs attention to the New Teacher Project for evidence.

The same organization that consistently short changes high-need children by sending in poorly trained teachers?

When the truth comes out about what these private interests have been doing, the public will be outraged.

Make no mistake about it-it will come out.
More importantly, however, how do these individuals live with themselves?

NYC Educator followed up:

The New Teacher Project takes millions from NYC, then writes reports suggesting we fire TPD teachers, twisting and manipulating statistics so outrageously that a layman like myself can detect it on one cursory reading. I wouldn't trust Tim Daly as far as I could throw him.

Incredible he can take all that money from Klein and have the audacity to present himself as an objective observer.

Studies Show Teach for America Teachers Are...

....Ten thousand times more effective than other teachers.

The hype grows and grows and grows. The Detroit News editorial today says:

Bring 'Marine Corps' of teachers to Detroit schools

Guess who they are talking about?

A growing [like a fungus] body of [uncited] research shows Teach for America instructors' impact on student academic achievement is two to three times that of teachers who have three years of experience.

Wow! The factor of effectiveness keeps growing - like Pinocchio's nose.

Last week we read this:

What's the Best Way to Make Teachers?

A new federal study on teacher quality has found that teachers who enter teaching through an alternative route have roughly the same impact on student achievement as teachers who come from regular teacher education programs.

As we all know from these growing studies, TFA first year teachers are at least thousands of times more effective than any other teachers that ever lived. That ought to raise Socrates from the dead. Of course all these "studies" are based on test results and no other factors. I knew every trick in the book on getting good results, tricks that I used sparingly because they cheated the kids of real teaching time. If I were still teaching, I could be the most effective teacher ever and qualify for all sorts of bonuses. Darn!

You can read both articles at Norms Notes:

Studies Show Teach for America Teachers Are...

The Left Wing of Teach for America

Updated Thurs Dec. 4, 8PM:

Chancellors New Clothes has an excellent post on Teach for America (and not because she mentions me favorably a few times) on how some TFA's really do get it.

Two weeks ago I attended a Teachers Unite (check out the new web site) social at a bar in downtown Brooklyn. I've been working with TUs' director Sally Lee for a few years and am on the steering committee of TU. A 5th year TFA alum still in a NYC classroom is also on the steering committee.

At the social (it was wonderful to see how many teachers are interested in the work TU is doing) Sally introduced the TFA alum to another TFA alum. "The left wing of TFA," said my fellow steering committee member.

Many TFA's really do get it.

Note: We are currently working with others in the UFT and TU to develop a series of workshops on the UFT and teacher union activism that goes beyond a narrow definition. It will be aimed at the recently arrived teacher corps with a focus on those who have decided to stay and make teaching a career. We expect a number of TFA's to be involved.

They see beyond the single-minded phrase "the achievement gap" and will look to be active in the union in a way to promote true ed reform and not to attack career teachers as being ineffective. You know the mantra. The system has failed so many students. Teacher effectiveness is the single most important factor. Ergo, the failures must be due to these teachers. Like a geometric theorem to the official TFA world.

Step up to the plate Teach for America

I posted an article from The Feministe by "Anna" called "Why I Hate Teach for America" on Aug. 24, 2008. One of the things TFA'ers who comment on critics say is that they are filling a breach that other teachers won't go into even if it's only for 2 years. In NYC with 1400 unassigned teachers (ATR's) due to closed schools adn excessed positions, TFA continues to pour people into the NYC school system. The cost to the system has been estimated to be $70 million.

Amazingly, the blame has been placed on these experienced teachers by Tim Daly of the New Teachers Project who has a contract to train new teachers and a vested interest in attacking these experienced teachers. His biased reports may in fact be a hidden part of his contract.

Groups in NYC have been calling on the DOE to place a moratorium on TFA recruitment until all these teachers are placed or use them to create more classes where feasible to reduce class size.

The anonymous comment below on the "I Hate TFA Post" came across the other day.


I am a traditionally trained teacher. I have a dual degree in elementary and special education. I'm currently working on my M.Ed in Literacy. It pains me to think of the disservice we are doing our students with TfA.

I've seen people with no background become literacy coaches in 3 years, teaching new recruits how to teach! It's an absolute joke.

We are putting the wrong people in the neediest situations and often watching them fail. With programs like TfA we are putting a band-aid over a huge flesh wound in the American educational system.

I believe that alternative programs can be a part of the certification process but TfA is missing the boat, big time.

I teach special education in an inner-ring suburb of a large metropolitan area. I think of what our students are missing by having teachers, with less than 8 weeks of training, standing in front of them, especially in the elementary grades. Research proves that these primary years are the most important in shaping our academic success and our nation is willingly letting people with no experience or background teach literacy and math.

Unfortunately, this is the way it will be unless this great nation of ours realizes that we need to turn things around, supporting our students at home and our teachers in the classroom. Our profession has lost its nobility.

Students are disrespectful and are supported in their poor choices by parents. We need to reward teachers who pursue higher education degrees and continue to teach with higher salaries and an ounce of appreciation for the often thankless things we do and the countless hours spent helping students beyond our contracted day.

Teach for America perpetuates the problem by supporting the idea that teaching is a stepping stone to bigger and better. In my mind, teaching is the bigger and better. Teach for America boasts that high expectations are required for student achievement. I agree, and I have higher expectations for programs like TfA and the people who have chosen this path.

Step up to the plate TfA and require your recruits to enter the field and continue with their training to TEACH!


Ed Note: I do not agree with the "Students are disrespectful" part of this comment because it brands all students. However, since I also taught special ed kids with emotional difficulties as a cluster teacher - and believe me, I was completely untrained to deal with them - I can understand why this teacher may feel this way.

A Great Debate on Teach for America

...over in the comments section at The Chancellor's New Clothes (click here) where TFA's and critics duke it out.

TFA focuses on the narrow educational issues ignoring the other issues such as health and poverty that come into play. Maybe there's a sense that touching on them becomes an excuse. Klein says that all the time. Certainly they never raise the class size issue and the kind of political battle it would take to have an impact. But TFA's supporters are anti-class size reduction as a union ploy to get more members.

This ties into the social justice theme that some TFA's who stay in the system are beginning to take a look at. Fighting the bigger fight while doing your best to address educational needs (believe me, just a focus on this narrow aspect will never be enough) is the next logical step. If TFA truly believed in closing the achievement gap, they would also encourage their people to work to close all the other gaps. But when you are being used as part of a campaign to privatize the schools, while also undermining the concept of teacher unions (think: don't they undermine your individualism) the social justice aspect will never be part of a TFA program.


TFA Rose makes some good points:
I agree that the issues of inadequate nutrition and health care should be addressed, and that resources ought to be spent in finding those answers. However, as an individual and a professional I am not at all qualified to do any of those things. I am not a politician, a doctor, or a social worker. Instead I have chosen to take the path of a teacher to help show my students the opportunities they need to find their way out of poverty.

That Rose considers herself not qualified in other areas but somehow qualified after 5 weeks, is puzzling.

A Voice in the Wilderness responds:
In the years since TFA started, with all of the teachers who have been sent in to schools, has it not occurred to anyone to say to Wendy Kopp-”Look at the conditions of the low income neighborhoods. Look at the conditions of the low income schools. Something needs to be done to improve these conditions?”

If something were done, maybe the conditions that Kopp likes to cite over and over again as being an “injustice” would not be there.

I find it hard to believe that such conversations have not occurred given the amount of intelligent people who are recruited by TFA.

Another aspect of this debate are the traditionally trained teachers vs. the TFA's, who make the point that if they weren't there even for 2 years, classrooms may remain empty.

TFA Sarah has the line down pretty well:
If teaching is to be a respected profession, as so many educators implore it to be, then why shouldn’t teachers be held to similarly high standards as every other profession? In the real world outside of the gripping union contracts, if a person is not adequately performing their job function, she is removed from that position. Why should it be any different for teachers? Who made teaching the one profession where it’s virtually impossible to get fired? And who thought that was a good idea for the students? At least in corporate America, someone sucking at their job isn’t usually affecting dozens of children’s lives.

Anti-progressive teachers: if you want your work to be respected and valued, be willing to hold yourself to high professional standards - and that means showing quantitatively AND qualitatively that your students are learning! If you can’t or won’t do that, then find another job. Our kids don’t need warm bodies collecting a paycheck at the front of their classroom.

Deborah responds:
This is exactly the kind of clueless rhetoric I expected to hear. How miserably disappointing. If you think for one splint second that lousy employees and cronyism doesn’t occur in the private sector, that you truly have lots to learn.

Head over and chime in with a few comments of your own.

Teach for America: The One That Got Away

I've been attending a July 4th party out here in Rockaway for about 30 years. I've seen my friends' kids and all their friends grow up - from 10 years old to 40 today - yikes. Their son has kept in touch with many classmates as far back as kindergarten.

Some of the best conversations I've had over the past 15 years has been with Eric, who has taught at an elite Manhattan private school for the past 12 years.

"The year I graduated was the first year for Teach for America and I went to one of their presentations. I saw immediately the idea was not for me. Six weeks to become a teacher? Of the most needed kids? No way!"

Eric fit the TFA profile. Ivy League, accepted at medical school, but wanting to try his hand at teaching even though he had taken no ed prep in college. Coming from a family with 3rd world roots, he would have been an asset to TFA to pump up their poor statistics in recruiting people of color.

Eric chose another route: two years as an assistant teacher in early childhood classes in another city. The obligatory MA from Teachers College and a full-time teaching job in kindergarten at an elite Manhattan private school, which he has been at for 12 years. Even ended up marrying the woman who was his assistant teacher and she is teaching there too.

Top private schools insist that teachers do a year or two of apprenticeship before turning their kids over to them. Anything hinting at a TFA model would be laughed at.

"But you're comparing apples and oranges," you might say.

The point is that all the very people claiming that closing the achievement gap is a civil rights issue, promote a program that provides a very different educational experience to the kids most in need. We hear the term "quality teacher" bandied about all the time. Yet none of these people advocate a plan that would train teachers to the point where they would actually be ready to go in and teach effectively. They use the TQ issue to engage in witch hunts for supposed "bad" teachers - which in their parlance means failure to demonstrate high test scores – rather than try to come up with a permanent solution that might cost, say, a fraction of the money used for wars or corporate bailouts.

But that wouldn't fit the very different models the corporate supporters of TFA and other schemes have.

The wealthy and suburban kids get skilled teachers and a broad based curriculum that prepares them to take a leadership role in the workplace.

The urban poor kids of color, except for the top performers who are skimmed off, are handed over to people trained for 6 weeks. Teachers are deskilled and expected to teach a narrow, test-driven curriculum which will prepare those kids who manage to get through high school for a job in data entry - basically handling the cash register at the local drug store.

See Under Assault's excellent analysis of Wendy Kopp's "selling" of TFA.

The Charlie (Rose) and Wendy (Kopp) Show

UPDATED:
I'm sure people will find their own favorite moment in her appearance but mine was when Rose asked her what percentage of Teach for America recruits are still teaching and her answer was 65% - are involved in education, some as lawyers doing some work connected to education.

I was waiting for his follow-up:
"I didn't ask you that. What percentage are still teaching kids?"

I'm still waiting.

Questions he could have asked, but didn't:

What would you say is the average time TFA's spend in the classroom - these committed people who have high expectations, which apparently is all you need? Why not look to see what it takes to keep these people in the classroom? Do they leave because of money? Burnout? Does Kopp think paying these people merit pay would make them better, or work harder, which is the mantra of the business community?

Why not put teachers who spend a decade or more in inner city classrooms on the show so we can talk about real ways of solving the problems instead of Kopp's smokes and mirrors?

As one who spent 3 decades, I agree with Kopp that we can really make a difference - I never entered a classroom thinking I couldn't. But I also learned that there was a lot more needed to have a long-term impact. It's not just about teaching, but about getting involved in the political struggles necessary to bring the same resources into classrooms as goes into wars.

Kopp just told anecdotes. I was thinking that in my 2nd year of teaching I also got kids to grow 2 years in one - and that happened to some kids numerous times.
Reforming the system is so not just about that.
She was right when she said all these gains disappear when they go to a lousy junior high - but it was her ad for her husband's KIPP.
When she talked about the difference in the way TFA's (high expectations, hard work) and traditional educators (kids motivations, parental involvement, etc.) see the way to solve the problems - note not one mention of class size reduction or other resources as a worthy goal.

Oh, if only all teachers could be TFA's- Rose was sort of trying to go there to see if that would work - but she slipped away.

It was like when I asked Chester Finn if we made every school a KIPP school, would we eliminate the achievement gap - and he slipped away on that one but did claim we would close it by half, an admission that it was not all about goals and low expectations.

Noel (a parent activist from Manhattan's lower east side)'s comment:

It was frightening to me how enthusiastic she was about the teachers being 100% "goal-oriented", doing "whatever it takes" to get those scores up. And I thought it was very telling that she simply could not, no matter how many times Charlie Rose asked her to, describe what in particular this fabulous teacher Gillette (?) had actually done to help kids. It all came down to sheer, monomaniacal focus on The Goal. Utterly sickening.

More of Noel's comments among others at this PBS site.
Add your own and demand that Rose have real teachers on to present the other side - which is reality.

Can TFA's Be Saved?

I was at a small meeting yesterday that was attended by a 4th year Teach for America alum. Not biased against the union, she understands what the UFT leadership is all about and is interested in knowing more so that one day she could run for chapter leader. She wants to know about the rights of union members and how to defend them.

"The first few years of teaching, you barely keep your head above water," she said, "and you don't think much about your rights." She talked about the TFA training, which she said is really dependent on the group leader. After the summer institute, recruits do not have much to do with TFA, she said.

We talked about reaching out to other TFA's, or those that stay. Maybe even a campaign to get more to stay. This TFA is a politically conscious about the larger socio-political context of teaching and feels sharing that viewpoint with others would be helpful.

"Teach for America is all about a narrow concept: closing the achievement gap. Results count. The idea of teaching the whole child is not really part of their equation," she said. "Luckily, I went for my masters at an institution that took the opposite approach and focused on the whole child. Maybe too much. So I got the benefit of both worlds."

This TFA gets it and is jumping into the broader social justice struggle that goes beyond the achievment gap and over time hopes to get other teachers to do the same.

Over time I got to see kids who did not have an achievement gap at my school still get lost to the streets and some that were behind find success later on. So I've never seen closing the achievement gap as the end all and be all. Fighting the lure of the streets and family dissolution seemed to be part of the bigger battle.


Read the followup: The story of A & E

Teach for America to Announce Accelerated Program

Updated June 16, 2008:

ED Notes News is reporting that Teach for America is planning to introduce a program to cut the time its recruits must teach from two years to two months. The NY Times is preparing to run an editorial in support of the idea that a teacher can make a significant difference in 2 months, as demonstrated by a study of 2 teachers in a school in New Orleans.

A TFA pokesperson gave the top 10 reasons:

Number 10: Do you know how hard it is to come up with a new plan to close the achievement gap every single day?

Number 9: Our people are burning at a tremendous rate. Spending two months in the culturally deprived ghettos of our cities should be enough for our people to impress future bosses with their willingness to sacrifice.

Number 8: Two years is way too long to take out of their busy careers. Now that I think about it, so is 2 months. Any chance we could get away with 2 days?

Number 7: After realizing that the achievement gap is not being closed due to their efforts might prove discouraging, get them out of there before they find out.

Number 6: If too many TFA recruits stay in the system they begin to see the problems go beyond their own classrooms with potentially cataclysmic results.

Number 5: Like, becoming critical of the wonderful reforms set up by BloomKlein.

Number 4: Or they begin to support the idea of public education while opposing TFA's role in its undermining.

Number 3: Instead of automatically supporting their supervisors, as we urge, the awful principals that have come empowered under BloomKlein turn them into carping critics, which distracts them from their main mission, which is to demonstrate the system is not a factor and only what they do as individuals counts. They lose the belief that if every classroom was filled with a TFA, all problems in society will be solved.

Number 2: Too long of an exposure to non-TFA lazy, stupid teachers with low expectations can infect them before they enter the corporate world and make oodles of money those same stupid lazy teachers who make careers of teaching will never do. Suckers!

And the number 1 reason to cut the Teach for America program from 2 years to 2 months:
Some of our recruits who remain in the system see the need for a union and - horrors - a few have even become union reps.

Teach for America on NY ELA Exam...

... the debate begun by A Voice in the Wilderness continues at Eduwonkette. where Skoolboy digs out the rubric and even includes Wendy Kopp's speech. Are test makers using product placement to push their agenda?

Ed Trust's Amy Wilkins Agrees With Us (almost- I think)

I got this link from Russo's TWIE.

Blogger Maureen Trantham in her "Great Moments in the Teacher Quality Debate!" reports on how Ed Trust's Amy Wilkins practically assaults former Teaching Fellow Dan Brown at the Ed in '08 conference. See the video and come right back.

But you know something? Amy is right when she is critical of Brown's being thrown as a first year teacher with the poorest, neediest kids. She doesn't go after Brown per se but the policy makers that allow this. Hmmm! Are we talking about Teach For America, here? Wilkins and the Ed Trust are part of the reform crowd that believes we close the - and do I hate these words - achievement gap without investing resources. So does she mean let's give TFA and Teaching Fellows an internship in schools so they can really learn the ropes. But that costs money. So the "reformers" want to do it this way: kill union contracts to the extent that veteran teachers can be moved around like chess pieces. Supposedly that was what Klein claimed he wanted to do - to put the best senior teachers where they are needed,which turned out to be bogus when he launched air strikes on senior expensive teachers.

Dan Brown's defense on the video is not strong enough, offering no alternatives to a system shaped by the powers for their own needs, which is to plug a poorly trained (and cheap), de-skilled (so they can interchange parts) teacher into a slot in a poor neighborhood.

Oh what to do when schools in poor neighborhoods are a short staffed? Use TF and TFA's but really get them ready to teach. Stop taking short cuts.

NY State State Test ELA Used for Teach For America Propaganda

WOW! Wendy makes the ELA exam. This one by A Voice in the Wilderness at The Chancellor's New Clothes even surprised Susan Ohanian, the expert on outrages.

Here's a question for the next ELA:
TFA is a tool:
A. to bust teacher unions
B. to create divisions between newer and senior teachers
C. to promote the coporate agenda in schools
D. all of the above

NY Times Drinking the Kool Aid on Teach for America

Today's NY Times had an editorial praising TFA. They will grasp at any straw.
Some excerpts:

To maintain its standing as an economic power, the United States must encourage programs that help students achieve the highest levels in math and science, especially in poor communities where the teacher corps is typically weak.
... a new study from a federal research center based at the Urban Institute in Washington suggests that the country might raise student performance through programs like Teach for America, a nonprofit group that places high-achieving college graduates in schools that are hard to staff.
Critics have challenged the program’s usefulness, pointing out that the teachers it places are neophytes and that a majority leave the classroom after two years. But the new study suggests that talented young people can have a lasting effect even if they do not make a career of teaching. According to the study, Teach for America participants who worked in North Carolina between 2000 and 2006 had more impact on student performance than traditional teachers did, as measured by end-of-course tests. The difference was observed in several areas of science and was strongest in math.

Two years is by anyone's estimate a minimum amount of time to learn even the basic ropes of teaching. Traditionally trained first year teachers for all the critiques of these programs do get a lot of teacher training than can prove useful. I was also an instant wonder in a special program to attract men avoiding Vietnam to elementary schools in the late 60's and was very deficient compared to the teachers who came through education programs. It took me about 2 years to make up the gap.

Make sure to check out the Debunking TFA blog for counter research.

And Eduwonkette is right on the case today with this:

A special shoutout goes to the New York Times editorial board for making national policy recommendations based on the Urban Institute's study of Teach for America in North Carolina, which included a whopping 69 Teach for America teachers - a .5% sample of all TFA teachers placed during those years.

Set policy based on 69?
Does it remind you of the big deal TNTP's Tim Daly made of those 14 U-rated teachers who were ATR's, also debunked by wonkette.

While the instant teacher concept of TFA people who do not stay as opposed to traditionally trained teachers needs debunking, I know TFA people who do stay are many are fabulous teachers. Some even have gotten over the training they receive that older, traditional teachers are to be shunned. I resent the 2 year wonders (some numbers I've seen are that over 70% leave) who become instant experts on education. Believe me, when you to this as a career, you get insights, often from returning students and their children and even grandchildren, that make it clear the emphasis of the ed reform, union busting movement (TFA is a prime component of that strategy which is the real reason the business community so loves them) will not work until they invest in kids and schools to the same extent they do in wars and bailouts.

Eduwonkette did more extensive do not miss analysis of the study in a previous post here.
A short excerpt:

the authors presuppose that teacher turnover has no effect on the school as an organization, and that teacher quality is solely an individual attribute, rather than the joint product of individuals and organizations. (And what do we make of the tiny effects of experience? Is it possible that the most talented math and science teachers left to pursue more lucrative opportunities?)

It’s nearly impossible to build a stable school community and an ethos of sustained change in the face of regular turnover. Herein we have the classic chicken and egg problem in education: how do we create places where good teachers want to work - a key component of which is a stable professional community – if we can’t get strong teachers to stay? Programs like TFA are a fine band-aid, but they are hardly a solution.

Suggestion to NY Times: DO NOT PASS GO BUT GO RIGHT TO THIS POST AND THEN RETRACT OR MODIFY YOUR EDITORIAL OR AT LEAST PUT UP WONKETTE"S POST AS AN OP ED.

How I Joined Teach for America — and Got Sued for $20 Million

Just came across this article at: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/924317/posts

It pretty much lays out so many issues new teachers face, but this one is a nightmare.

Not only new teachers face this as my old friend and colleague, 22-year teacher Kathy Blythe, found out a year ago when she sat a 2nd grade girl who had already run out of the room twice (and was eventually moved to a special ed situation I am told) down in her seat and was arrested by 5 cops a few hours later. I posted the story here back in April. Kathy still sits in the Brooklyn rubber room awaiting her 3020A hearing to terminate her despite the fact that the arresting cop said the entire case was "bullshit."

Teach For America Chews Up, Spits Out Another Ethnic-Studies Major

I found an interesting link to a discussion of TFA at Brown University and posted 7 reasons Bil Johnson doesn't like TFA at Norms Notes.

There was also a link to the usual funny stuff in The Onion, which hits just the right note.
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30911

WARNING: THIS IS SATIRE

NEW YORK—Teach For America, a national program that recruits recent college graduates to teach in low-income rural and urban communities, has devoured another ethnic-studies major, 24-year-old Andy Cuellen reported Tuesday.

Cuellen stands in front of the elementary school where he used to teach.

"Look, the world is a miserable place," said Cuellen, a Dartmouth graduate who quit the TFA program Monday morning. "All people—even children—are just nasty animals trying to secure their share of the food supply. I don't care how poor or how rich you are, that's just a fact. I'm sorry, but I have better things to do than zoo-keep for peanuts."

Just one of the 12,000 young people TFA has burned through since 1990, Cuellen was given five weeks of training the summer before he took over a classroom at P.S. 83 in the South Bronx last September.

"I walked into that school actually thinking I could make a difference," said Cuellen, who taught an overflowing class of disadvantaged 8-year-olds. "It was trial by fire. But after five months spent in a stuffy, dark room where the chalkboard fell off the wall every two days, corralling screaming kids into broken desks, I'm burnt to a crisp."

Cuellen said his TFA experience "taught him a lot about hopelessness."

"The cities are fucked. The suburbs are fucked. The whole country is fucked," Cuellen said. "And there's not a goddamned thing you or anyone can do about it. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something. Or trying to get you to teach kids math."

According to Dartmouth literature, as a member of the ethnic-studies department, Cuellen learned "to empower students of color to move beyond being objects of study toward being subjects of their own social realities, with voices of their own."

Teach For America executive director Theo Anderson called ethnic-studies departments "a prime source of fodder."

"Oh, I'd say we burn through a hundred or so ethnic-studies majors each year," said Anderson, pointing to a series of charts showing the college-major breakdown of TFA corps members. "They tend to last a little longer than women's studies majors and art-therapy students, but Cuellen got mashed to a pulp pretty quickly. It usually takes ethnic-studies majors another year to realize that they're wasting their precious youth on a Sisyphean endeavor."

Continued Anderson: "Of course, we don't worry about it too much. Every year, there's a fresh crop to throw in the grinder. As we speak, scores of apple-cheeked students are hearing about TFA for the first time."

According to Anderson, a small portion of these students will lose interest after hearing horror stories from program alumni.

"But the majority of them will march on like cattle to the slaughter, thinking that pure determination and hope can change young lives," Anderson said. "I can hear their footsteps now, marching toward our offices like lemmings to a cliff. And believe me, we're ready for 'em."

Cuellen said he applied to TFA in search of a "character-building experience."

"I knew that teaching in a severely under-funded inner-city school would be challenging, but I wanted to get out into the real world," Cuellen said. "Well, breaking up fistfights between 8-year-olds all day long, I got a real ugly view of reality. Do you want to know reality? Look at a dog lying dead in the gutter. That's reality."

Although Cuellen quit the program early, his mother said he was with TFA long enough for it "to crack open his bones and suck out the marrow inside."

"Andy is a ghost," Beverly Cuellen said. "Those [TFA] people beat the idealism out of him, then they stomped on him while he lay there gasping for air."

TFA regional coordinator Sandra Richman said it is common to blame the TFA employees for the organization's high plow-through rate.

"Should I have said something to wake those kids up sooner?" Richman said, crushing out her seventh cigarette. "Probably. But listen, no one can tell you that you can't make a difference. It's something you have to figure out for yourself."

"You can only do so much," Richman added. "After a couple years of trying to teach our applicants about how difficult and depressing their lives will inevitably be—no matter what they choose to do for money—I just got burnt out. In the end, you've gotta resign yourself to failure and move on with your life."