Say NO to $1.5 Million in Public Money to TFA!
With the state of Minnesota still facing budget deficits, following years of educational spending cuts, TFA is at the capitol with its hand out. Bills are moving through the Minnesota state legislature that would give Teach for America $1.5 million in public funding (
HF 1594 and
SF 975). Minnesota School Districts are already required to pay TFA $3,000 to $5,000 dollars for each TFA corp member they hire, in addition to paying their full teacher salary and benefits.
An e-mail was recently sent out by Crystal Brakke, the Director of TFA - Twin Cities. Here is what she was asking her supporters:
Hello Choose the Twin Cities weekend attendees!
I’m asking you to take 5 minutes out of your busy schedules today to
help expand our impact in Minnesota. WE NEED HELP…and since you decided
to come spend the weekend with us in February, I know you are passionate
about Minnesota and education here!
Over the past 8
months, our Twin Cities team has been working with the Minnesota State
Legislature to secure a state investment of $1.5 million over two years.
We are pursuing these funds in response to the demand we are hearing
from school leaders that would like to expand partnerships with Teach
For America –Twin Cities, and which we simply do not have funding to
support. State resources will be used to leverage private dollars to
help recruit, train, select and grow our overall Twin Cities corps and
alumni force in Minnesota. (It’s also important to note that the state
is investing heavily in K-12 education this session, which is
fantastic—we’re asking for a very small appropriation that as part of
that overall investment.)
Unfortunately, a small
but vocal group of individuals opposed to our requested funding are
calling on Senate leadership, and in particular the Majority Leader,
Senator Tom Bakk of the Iron Range, to reject state support for TFA.
We need your voice! A call to Senator Bakk’s office* in support of
TFA’s pending funding could make a real difference in our ability to
help expand educational opportunities for children in Minnesota. We
also encourage you to enlist the support of others to express support
for this smart state investment. I’ve provided contact information and
talking points below, if helpful. (*In case it’s helpful to know, when
calling you will most likely speak with an assistant in his office that
will take note of why you’re calling and share that with Senator Bakk.)
I’d love to know if you’re willing to help and also what you’re hearing in response. Thank you—deeply!
Crystal
PEJAM has also obtained a copy of a letter sent to the Minnesota State Senate leadership, by Mark Bonine, an Associate Superintendent of Minneapolis Public Schools. Assoc. Supt. Bonine oversees the MPS Office of New Schools which sponsors charter schools and works with TFA. Minneapolis Public Schools have clearly embraced the irrational ideas of TFA and the argument that inexperienced and poorly trained teachers can close the achievement gap.
In this letter, Assoc. Supt. Bonine advocates for TFA funding by claiming, "Minnesota can elevate its education system by attracting, developing, and retaining teachers that consistently matches the quality seen in the world's leading systems." It is truly troubling to see an experienced educator and administrator suggest that someone with five weeks of summer training can walk into a classroom for two years and perform at the levels of teachers in the "world's leading systems." I hope teachers in Finland and Singapore don't read this.
Even TFA alum like Matt Barnum who credit the organization with accomplishing some good, would not agree with the claims made by Bonine and other TFA supporters. Barnum notes that "districts, like the one [he] used to teach in, appear to
cycle
through corps members every two years, with high turnover among TFA
teachers who are in turn replaced by a fresh slate of bushy-tailed,
ill-trained corps members."
Barnum explains how poorly prepared TFA corp members are to step into the classroom:
"For many corps members, the required five-week summer training
“institute” is close to useless. Why? Not, as some have argued, because
it’s so short. Rather, it’s because for many of us the training doesn’t
come close to simulating what it’s like to be teaching during the real
school year. As alumni blogger Gary Rubinstein has pointed out, many institutes’ corps members teach for very little time in front of very few students."
He goes on to describe how useless the on-the-job "professional development" and "coaching" are:
"TFA loves to talk about the coaching
of and professional development for its teachers. This sort of talk
sounds good to prospective corps members, to districts, to donors, and
to the media. Again, I can only draw from own experience and those of
others I know, but with few exceptions, TFA’s continued support rarely
made me a better teacher."
Teach for America, an organization that began as a way to serve school districts in areas of the country that could not find qualified licensed teachers, has now been in Minnesota since 2009. After a decade of declining enrollment and teacher layoffs, the Minneapolis Public School
district is responding to a growing student population by sponsoring
charter schools and hiring TFA corp members rather than hiring
experienced, licensed teachers. This is the norm for TFA as Stephanie Simon explains:
"The organization that was launched to serve
public schools so poor or dysfunctional they couldn't attract qualified
teachers now sends fully a third of its recruits to privately run
charter schools, many with stellar academic reputations, flush budgets
and wealthy donors. TFA also sends its rookies, who typically have just
15 to 20 hours of teaching experience, to districts that have recently
laid off scores of more seasoned teachers."
TFA members are overwhelmingly self-proclaimed liberals, but as Andrew Hartman, who teaches history at Illinois State University, points out:
"The history of TFA reveals the ironies of contemporary education reform.
In its mission to deliver justice to underprivileged children, TFA and
the liberal education reform movement have advanced an agenda that
advances conservative attempts to undercut teacher’s unions. More
broadly, TFA has been in the vanguard in forming a neoliberal consensus
about the role of public education—and the role of public school
teachers—in a deeply unequal society."
Bringing in and promoting TFA in Minnesota has not been based on a shortage of licensed teachers. We have a surplus of licensed and experienced teachers. Rather, TFA has cited Minnesota's (specifically Minneapolis') large achievement gap. Ironically, local corporate reformers who are also behind the push for TFA, and public funds to support it, are also the ones who complain the most about the lack of experienced teachers in our schools with the highest need students.
This shift in TFA's argument is not unique to Minnesota. In Chicago, thousands of teachers have been laid off while charter schools and TFA proliferate. The rationale for TFA is now about the quality of teachers. They essentially argue that poorly trained, but young and enthusiastic teachers will better serve our most challenged students.
As Andrew Hartman also explains:
"TFA, suitably representative of the liberal education reform more
generally, underwrites, intentionally or not, the conservative
assumptions of the education reform movement: that teacher’s unions
serve as barriers to quality education; that testing is the best way to
assess quality education; that educating poor children is best done by
institutionalizing them; that meritocracy is an end-in-itself; that
social class is an unimportant variable in education reform; that
education policy is best made by evading politics proper; and that faith
in public school teachers is misplaced."
Tom Aswell describes the current effort to get $5 million in funding from Louisiana:
"While Teach for America is going around asking for money from state
legislators and local school districts, the organization has quietly
been amassing a fortune even as TFA comes under fire from former TFA
teachers and the media.
Like a snake trying to swallow its own tail, TFA has begun to devour
itself, to feed off its own perceived success to the detriment of those
it was formed to help.
Louisiana Superintendent of Education John White, himself a TFA alumnus, calls TFA “an incredibly good investment.”
Of course they are. School districts are laying off veteran teachers
with years of education and classroom experience in favor of TFA corps
members because they are less expensive to hire. Some districts seem to
prefer to cycle through ill-trained TFA teachers every two years.
A former TFA teacher claims that the organization’s five-week
training model is ineffective, that TFA spends $33 million “doing a poor
job teaching corps members to teach.” He describes the TFA training as
“not enough depth, not enough breadth, not enough time.”
This is all on top of the millions of dollars funneled into TFA coffers by the billionaires, hedge fund managers, and foundations looking to dismantle our system of public schools. Aswell also lists the exorbitant salaries earned by those running this "non-profit" organization. Wendy Kopp, in her final year as CEO earned $393,600 and Minneapolis local
Matthew Kramer was paid $328,100 as TFA President. Kramer is now a co-CEO of TFA. His current salary could not be found.
Improving our system of public education requires dedication, commitment, and experience. Minnesota and other states must invest in teachers who are licensed, fully-trained and committed to teaching as a career.
Teach for America corp members are generally well-intentioned, but the organization is little more than a well-funded front for neo-liberals looking to privatize our public schools. Minnesota must reject the rotating door of cheap, poorly trained labor, that is TFA, and the legislature must vote down the funding bills.
Posted by: Rob Panning-Miller
