And Pigs are Flying...

Husband handed me an editorial piece from the Wall Street Journal this morning.  He said he was sure it would fire my propensity to rant, but he was also sure it was something in which I'd be interested.  As he's on his way out the door to teach Dear Daughter to start the car and drive it in a parking lot, I'd say it's his weekend for living dangerously.

 I've linked the piece here.

The article is an interview with Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach for America.  Dear Daughter had a TFA teacher for first grade -- this lovely young woman chose to relocate here and still teaches in our parish school.  We had a wonderful experience with her.  I also sing in the choir with a TFA teacher who works in one of our local middle schools.  Top flight.

The article states that this fall, TFA will send 4500 of the "best college graduates" in the country into urban and rural school districts -- 100 of the worst performing of those says the article.  And that is a group culled from 46,000 applicants including 12% of all ivy league graduates.  

Pick your jaw up off the floor and wipe that soda off of your keyboard.  Apparently TFA is quite the feather in a graduate's cap.  

For those who don't know, TFA folks go thru a summer of extensive training and serve a two year stint.  Superintendents hire them like regular teachers once the school district qualifies.  

But does it do any good, you ask?  Apparently so.  A 2008 survey found that high school students in TFA classes 'significantly' outperformed their peers in the classes of more experienced and more conventionally trained (I might add) teachers on state-required-end-of-course exams (don't get me started on those!)

Hmm.  And the teacher's salaries are funded in part by this not for profit organization?  And the TFA teachers receive ongoing support and training (more than one can say for traditional teaching programs)? 

So why does the City of St. Louis have a shortage of teachers at the beginning of each year?  There are 46,000 folks out there who would purportedly like to teach in our urban district or one like it.  

According to the article, one reason is funding, although this has been steadily increasing through the private sector as the program is very successful.  The other?  Wait for it.  I bet I could still find my membership card in my teaching stuff... teacher unions.

I am a 13 year veteran of the classroom and was a member of the union all the way through those years.  I was educated in the traditional fashion -- I have a BS in Secondary Education with an emphasis in English, Speech, and Journalism.  I have all but 3 hours of an MAT in English (my pregnancy with Dear Son was a difficult one.)  I know the insider story.  Even so, I can't imagine not trying every avenue, especially one that's working, to improve our city schools.  To preserve the tenure and jobs of ineffective teachers at this point at the expense of students is unconscionable.   

TFA is not a silver bullet, but it is a beginning.  And it proves, to me at least, that the traditional way of doing things has become so unwieldy that it no longer works.  These fresh faced, enthusiastic, energetic volunteers are what our sagging educational system needs.  Well at least some of what it needs.  God almighty, take 'em up on it fer Pete's sake!

Ahem.

 

Tour de Fleece -- four ounces or thereabouts of Corriedale.  Four bats.  Kim told me I could fit four of the things on a bobbin and she was perfectly correct.  Now, mind you, I don't watch the race -- I listen to Georgette Heyer, but it's all in the honor of, you know.

 
 

A clay pot we purchased last night at the Cahokia Mounds Contemporary Indian Art Show.  It's a Victoria McKinney clay pot called Snake Knots.  The design is based on carvings found on shell fragments found in a mound in Oklahoma.  It's killer.

I need a nap.

Comments

[Rose]

We had two TFA teachers in our building. They started a year before I did, and they had a ROCKY road for a number of reasons. To begin with, the principal was contacted just a couple weeks before school started to let her know that she'd be getting two TFA teachers to fill the positions that had been vacated the year before.

She'd already done extensive interviewing and hand-picked experienced teachers for those positions.

She was told (and this is all third-hand info., but pretty reliable) that she would just have to call those teachers and tell them they were not going to be employed in our building after all. WHAT??? So the district didn't exactly set them up to have a warm welcome...There are a multitude of stories that follow, but that's a fairly good story that sums up the experiences of those TFA teachers. Now, one of them left after her two year term. The other would probably still be teaching but had to leave the profession due to previously existing health conditions.

I found them to be exceptionally appropriate with the kids, energetic, determined to teach, creative, resourceful, and welcoming to me when I started as a new teacher. I am sorry they're gone, both for my sake and that of our students.

How's that for a personal connection?

Rose

[Amanda]

I expected a much better rant than this. Surely you could go off about all kinds of things including everyone being fired over the summer and not knowing if they were re-hired. Or about after the TFA kids spend their 2 years, they move on to the suburbs and use their enthusiasm at other schools including private and charter schools which pay better...