Teach for Failure

Now I have to find the article in the Buffalo News. And they hid it quite well. I'll probably find it easier on their web-site by searching for “Teach for America.” It'll pop up almost as fast as the profits that private charter schools make.

It's a “filler” article that the News used to fill a small corner of a page, so it's unlikely to catch your attention.

And it is about Teach for America – the private corporation that claims it can prepare a willing candidate to be a qualified school teacher in six to eight weeks. This is compared to the one year (actually two college semesters) of instruction and practice (aka the “placement:” eight weeks at one school and six weeks at another) that school teachers normally receive.

The article reported that Teach for America would be at Lafayette High School for another two years and that the candidates would be serving in the English Department. There was a small spiel about race and what have you in order to make the program sound better that it really is.

The big deal: Lafayette High School was targeted for closure and “realignment” in one of Superintendent Kriner Cash's “Turnaround Schools.” Lafayette is designated as the “International School” with programs to serve English Language Learners and others.

The bigger deal: Lafayette was targeted because of poor English Language test scores.

Aside from the fact that the school serves students that immigrated from other countries and that they do not speak English very well, if at all, do you think that they are not learning English because they don't have a teacher that knows how to teach English to them?

Remember: In Teach for America, you receive the training and are sent out to work in a school for two years and then you are done and gone. That's it. Any professional teacher will tell you that it takes three to five years to hit your stride as a teacher. These teachers will be out in two and replaced. What type of learning are students supposed to do under these circumstances?

So Lafayette High School has seen new a new English teacher every two years. And the students aren't learning English well enough to score decently on the mandated standardized tests. Do you think that the Buffalo News would make a big deal that they do not have a stable English program because of itinerant Teach for America members? (I refuse to call them teachers because they do not have a NYS Teaching Certificate or a degree from an accredited program in teaching for their core area.)

No because it does not fit the Buffalo News' agenda of union ad teacher bashing and pro-privatization.

I find it interesting that they let that article slip into the paper where anyone who read it and was aware of the Buffalo City schools' problems would be able to play “Connect the Dots.”