What Virginians should know about Teach For America
Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (Brendan Smialowski – GETTY IMAGES)
It was only a matter of time before the Republican governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell, would welcome Teach For America program into his state — and now he has made it an education priority.
The push to bring in TFA is one in a series of initiatives McDonnell just announced that come in part from the playbook of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a national leader in corporate-based education reform. They include a so-called “accountability system” that envisions giving each school an letter grade — A through F – each year based entirely or largely on standardized test scores. (The system was pioneered In Florida, where, incidentally, state education officials miscalculated the grades for hundreds of schools last year, one in a series of scandals involving the state’s standardized