TFA

Secretary Arne Duncan hit the one-two punch of teacher preparation this week focusing on how poorly our teachers are prepared in general and then how they need a greater emphasis on math and science if we are to succeed as a nation.

“By almost any standard, many if not most of the nation’s 1,450 schools, colleges, and departments of education are doing a mediocre job of preparing teachers for the realities of the 21st century classroom.”

So very true.

A lot of comments going in for the Race to the Top Funds - great combined letter of support from many great reform organizations including ABCTE:

RTTT Comments
-click on PDF

Wow – some harsh words for TFA from the NEA. It is amazing that after close to 20 years, they are still going after them. Right now the NEA is doing what any union is supposed to do – raise the specter of job losses and fight for member jobs. They have targeted TFA and it is getting ugly.

There is support in the RTTBOC (Race to the Bags o’ Cash) otherwise known as Race to the Top for Alternative Teacher Certification. We are formulating our support during the comment period suggesting some tweaks as are many of the other groups focused on improving teachers.

Tonight I head to the New Schools Venture Fund conference in Los Angeles where I will hear about great education entrepreneurs and how they can impact today’s students. I look forward to the networking that will be involved, but get tired of hearing about the same few entrepreneurs at every conference – KIPP, TFA, TNTP and New Leaders for New Schools. Many of these conferences lament the fact that there are not more entrepreneurs in education and yet they can only bring these same people on stage to talk about why.

Spent the last few days in Arizona and got to visit the Basis School in Scottsdale to see how a charter school can be the top ranked High School in the Nation. Taking a tour and meeting the directors, you can see why. They push and they push hard. The middle school students were doing advanced algebra (as a former engineer I really got into solving two variables and didn’t want to leave).

Yay Examiner - gave us a nice interview - always helps when a TFA alum is interviewing you on alternative teacher certification.

http://www.dcexaminer.com/local/3_Minute_Interview-Saba11-26.html

Ed Sector and Andy Rotherham put out a pretty ambitious plan for the Obama Department of Education. In this chapter, he takes on Title II – the $3 billion in spending each year where “tangible results form these efforts are scant and there is little evidence that these funds are driving the sort of changes that are aligned with broader human capital reform efforts in education.”

Interesting discussion in Education Next on Teach for America. I am amazed that after 19 years there is still discussion on whether it is good for schools. Somehow the education establishment, in this case appropriately represented by Art Wise, always wants the change agent to show why the program is good.

Great post over at Joanne Jacob's site on some TFA teachers struggling to survive. As is usually the case, people find their political point in the article and in the comments use that point to push their case instead of looking at the big picture presented.

Here are the key points as I see it: