Sacramento city schools will skip Teach for America
Sacramento will not be the next stop for Teach for America, a program that sends highly motivated college graduates into troubled schools.
Superintendent Jonathan Raymond of the Sacramento City Unified School District said he has backed off pursuing Teach for America in favor of establishing a stronger relationship with local credentialing programs at UC Davis, Sacramento State and Fortune School of Education.
Raymond had faced strong opposition from the Sacramento City Teachers Association, which questioned the timing of his decision to pursue Teach for America. The district is in the midst of massive layoffs and is asking the teachers union to accept furloughs and health benefit concessions in order to save jobs.
"While I still believe that the Teach for America program has great merit, I intend to exhaust all local options for meeting staffing needs before looking at alternative programs," Raymond wrote in a memo to his staff Wednesday evening.
Teach for America spokeswoman Kerci Marcello Stroud said Thursday that the organization plans to keep Sacramento on its list of potential future expansion sites. Marcello Stroud said several factors, including a lack of funding and Sacramento City Unified backing out, contributed to its
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