Teach for America: What do you mean were not exceptional?!

What do You Mean We are Not Exceptional?

June 14, 2013 was a dark day for Teach for America-Twin Cities and its neo-liberal backers.  It marked the second time in three weeks in Minnesota that TFA was rejected after having demanded that it be treated as the exceptional organization it pretends to be.

On Friday, May 24th, Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton signed into law a higher education bill only after he line-item vetoed $1.5 million earmarked for TFA.  Crystal Brakke, the Executive Director of TFA-Twin Cities, claimed they needed the funding to train additional TFA corps members in the next two years.  Those corps members would have attended a five-week training before being put in front of classrooms full of students with the highest needs.  Of course that same $1.5 million dollars could have provided full two-year scholarships for those same college graduates to get a master's degree in education, including their student teaching, at the University of Minnesota.  I guess a two-year master's degree in education does not produce the same exceptional, transformational teachers that a five-week TFA summer training does?

On June14th, three weeks after the Governor's line-item veto of TFA's request for state money, the Minnesota Board of Teaching voted to discontinue a group license variance to TFA.  They had been granted this group variance for the past four years, but now TFA will actually have to play by the same rules as anyone else seeking a teaching license variance in Minnesota.  Corps members will now have to apply for a variance on an individual basis.  TFA and its supporters cannot believe they are being denied special treatment.  Surely their exceptional, transformational corps members deserve exceptional treatment, right?

Having effectively been told twice that they are not special, TFA leaders and supporters have been left completely dumbfounded and outraged. A number of tweets and quotes show how truly dismayed they are.

The somewhat low key Director of Teach for America - Twin Cities, Crystal Brakke at first responded to a Star Tribune reporter that the outcome was "disheartening."  By the end of the day, however, she was quoting an unknown philosopher and tweeted that "people will always shit on the things they're scared of."

The former Director of TFA - Twin Cities and now Director of MinnCAN, Daniel Sellers, did not hold back or hesitate in showing his contempt for those who failed to recognize the exceptional, transformational abilities he believes all TFA corps members possess.  He was quoted in the Star Tribune saying, "it’s unconscionable that many Board of Teaching members allowed politics and their allegiances to the teachers union to keep highly effective teachers from teaching in high-needs communities."

Brian Sweeney, director of external affairs for Charter School Partners (CSP) was quoted in Minnpost saying, “this is a 'Minnesota Nice' version of union thuggery.”  An MPR reporter quoted him saying, "There was little about what the classroom needs today and a lot about union politics. I think we've seen a coup d'etat today by the unions on Minnesota education policy." 

Minneapolis City Council member, mayoral candidate, and infamous opponent of public schools, Don Samuels said in a press release: "This is just the latest in a series of power-plays in the education debate that has no regard for its effect on students, schools, or the learning environment for our kids."

Finally summarizing the frustration and hurt feelings of the corporate reformers is the editorial board of our local corporate newspaper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune.  On June 20th, a week after the decision, a Star Tribune's editorial echoed all the claims of TFA greatness, disparaged most teachers, chided the Board of Teaching for being influenced by the "all-powerful Education Minnesota teachers union," and declared colleges of education worthless.  This, as usual, was done by citing no evidence other than one "study" produced by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ).  A "study" funded by the usual foundations like Broad and Dell, and locally by MinnCAN.

These are not the comments of bold reformers, but the simple arrogance of corporate reformers.  These comments come from people who use the "fierce urgency of now" as a cover for the fierce recklessness of neoliberalism.  These individuals argue for the use of data, but comfortably and brashly ignore the overwhelming data that exposes their hypocrisy and the destruction they bring to public schools.

Like Teach for America, the NCTQ has actually worked to deprofessionalize teaching and create short cuts to the classroom.  They don't blink at their own hypocrisy.  NCTQ created the "first national alternative to traditional teacher certification" called the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence.  Any state that accepted this would grant a teaching license to any applicant that has a "bachelor's degree, complete[s] a background check...pay[s] a $500 fee" and passes a computerized exam.  Wayne Au, a professor of education at the University of Washington - Bothell, describes the history NCTQ's "alternative certification" program and its board in the summer 2013 edition of Rethinking Schools.   The organization is a collection of "voucher proponents and advocates for privatizing schools."

The Star Tribune discredits colleges of education, claiming their students are not adequately prepared to face the challenges of the classroom.  They do this using a study that was paid for with money from foundations aimed at privatizing public schools and that recognize a strong teacher voice is their last major hurdle.  It is also a study done by an organization that argues teachers will be ready for the challenges of teaching with just a B.A. degree, passing scores on a standardized test, and $500.00.  This is even worse than TFA.

Daniel Sellers is typical of the neoliberal reformers as he declares completely inexperienced college graduates with five weeks of summer training "highly effective teachers."  Sellers, Sweeney, and Samuels argue our classrooms (students) will suffer because they may not have access to poorly trained and inexperienced TFA corps members.  Charter schools and the public school administrative sellouts may actually have to hire teachers who are actually licensed...maybe even with experience!

The local collection of corporate education deformers will continue to shed their crocodile tears for Minnesota students, while continuing their efforts to weaken teaching programs and dismantle our public schools.  TFA is not only not needed in Minnesota, it has become toxic for our students and students throughout the nation.

This past month has not been a victory for the status quo as the neoliberals would have us believe.  It has been quite the opposite.  There is no "all-powerful" teachers union, but there are true grassroots efforts that include union members working to liberate public schools from the corporate stranglehold.  We must continue to expose the hypocrisies and the true agenda of the neoliberal "reformers," and create truly democratic and socially just public schools.  Let's hope these small victories for public education are the beginning of the end of the corporate dominance of public education.

Posted by: Rob Panning-Miller

Colleges of Education Fail When They Join with TFA

University of Minnesota, Do NOT Partner with Teach for America

On the surface, Teach for America is one of the greatest ironies of the neo-liberal education reform movement.  These so-called reformers yell and scream about the poor state of teaching in our public schools, and their greatest solution is to put the most inadequately trained, and inexperienced 22 year-olds in front of the students with the greatest needs.

The truth of course is TFA and their billionaire financiers are not here to save public schools, they're here to privatize them.  While it is somewhat understandable that idealistic young college students might believe joining Teach for America is a way to help, it is inexcusable that the administrators in charge of our Colleges of Education would share this naivete.

Teach for America's dysfunctional existence is enabled every time a politician hands them money, and even more so, when colleges of education accept some of that money in exchange for offering false credibility to TFA.

Here in Minnesota, Hamline University, a private liberal arts college, was the first to sellout to the neo-liberal reforms and work with TFA recruits.  Now the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities is looking to get in on the money. 

We are fortunate here in Minnesota to have a governor who does not subscribe to the neo-liberal agenda and who believes in public education.  He recently took the bold step of line-item vetoing a section of a bill that would have given state funding to TFA.  However, TFA is flush with cash from the federal government and wealthy foundations and they are asking the University of Minnesota to "partner" with them.

Jean Quam, the Dean of the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota appears ready to accept this "partnership" and all the funding that comes with it.  Recently, the college held a couple of meetings to discuss working with TFA.  Reports from PEJAM members who attended the meetings suggest that Dean Quam has made up her mind, and wants the College to accept the partnership with TFA.

Just as PEJAM helped in the grassroots effort to call on Governor Dayton to veto the TFA funding, we must now build the grassroots effort to call on the University of Minnesota to reject any support or relationship with TFA.

Here is our petition statement:
We call on the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities to NOT partner with Teach for America (TFA).  With greater focus on the teaching profession and greater calls for thoroughly trained teachers in every classroom, it is unconscionable to have one of Minnesota's premiere universities facilitating a short cut to the classroom.  TFA was originally said to be a stop-gap for schools and districts with chronic teacher shortages.  There is no teacher shortage in Minnesota, and TFA will never be a means to improve public education.  Minnesota deserves fully-trained and licensed teachers in every classroom, not band-aids. 

TFA recruits are inexperienced and most lack a commitment to classroom teaching as a career. Not only are these young TFA members unprepared to be effective teachers, 70% to 80% leave the classroom within the first three years, creating a revolving door of inexperienced teachers for children who need the best teachers.  TFA also infringes on students’ civil rights, and does not increase academic achievement. TFA places the most inexperienced recruits in front of students who have historically been the most underserved in schools - minority, poor, and special education students.  They mislead the public by conflating learning and academic success with a test score. While test scores may or may not be indicative of the achievement of any individual student at a given point in time; education is much more than a test score and test prep.

A University of Minnesota Partnership would only help Teach for America displace career educators. TFA destroys school and community cohesion by replacing experienced, career educators with inexperienced, ineffective recruits. TFA requires partnering districts to contractually guarantee teaching spots for its recruits, thus forcing cash strapped districts to layoff experienced, career educators.

The University's ultimate responsibility in training Pre-K - 12 educators is to the students those teachers will face each day.  To that end, we call on the University of Minnesota to reject any partnership with Teach for America and maintain its commitment to develop in-depth knowledge and teaching skills through its graduate-level program.


Please click on this link and sign our petition.  Teachers here in Minneapolis are telling Dean Quam they will not accept student teacher from the U of MN if that agree to work with TFA.  Please add any additional reasons the University of Minnesota should reject this relationship.


Posted by: Robert Panning-Miller