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Tuesday, September 24, 2013

A former Teach for America teacher on how TFA and APS fail... | Get Schooled | www.ajc.com

A former Teach for America teacher on how TFA and APS fail... | Get Schooled | www.ajc.com:

A former Teach for America teacher on how TFA and APS fail their ideals 

New teachers
New teachers
Make time to read writer Olivia Blanchard's excellent essay in the Atlantic about why she quit Teach for Americaafter teaching one year in Atlanta. 
While she cites Atlanta's pressure-cooker environment, Blanchard also targets the quality and quantity of training she received from TFA and questions whether the organization really can live up to its hype and prepare bright college grads to manage a complex classroom in a single summer.
It is a thoughtful piece that's worth your attention. While Blanchard focuses on her TFA preparation, I suspect novice teachers from traditional teacher prep programs will find themselves nodding in agreement with many of her observations on first-year teaching.
I know that nothing Blanchard says will surprise classroom veterans or researchers on teacher turnover.  It's that fact -- many of us understand and recognize the daily walk on hot coals that Blanchard describes -- that makes me ask again why we can't overhaul the induction of new teachers so fewer of them run screaming into the night.
 Here is an excerpt, but please read the full piece before commenting:
By Olivia Blanchard
During my training, I taught a group of nine well-behaved third-graders who had failed the state reading test and hoped to make it to fourth grade. Working with three other