Friday, August 3, 2012

GoLocalProv | News | Aaron Regunberg: A Rhode Island Teaching Fellow Speaks Out

GoLocalProv | News | Aaron Regunberg: A Rhode Island Teaching Fellow Speaks Out:


Aaron Regunberg: A Rhode Island Teaching Fellow Speaks Out

   
Friday, August 03, 2012
This week Rhode Island got a bit of attention when education historian Diane Ravitch posted an email on her blog that she’d received from Theresa Laperche, a former participant in the Rhode Island Teaching Fellows program. This program, a partnership between RIDE and Michelle Rhee’s New Teacher Project (TNTP), is a Teach For America-like alternative teacher certification program that recruits individuals with no education experience, gives them five weeks of training, and places them in a high-need urban school. This is a model that I’ve long questioned, but I had no idea just how problematic the program was until I read Theresa’s account of her time as a Teaching Fellow.
I decided to call her up myself to learn more about her perspective on the program. Theresa began by telling