Rewriting @MichelleMalkin’s bodyslam of Teach For America
Not long ago Fox News contributor and columnist Michelle Malkin issued a stinging critique of Teach For America in the New York Post entitled The militant takeover of the ‘Teach for America’ corps. I was surprised that the right was turning on Teach For America. They have been huge supporters of their temporary teacher model over the years. I tweeted the following.
This single tweet caused a 1,000 tweet Twitter storm directed at me by Teach For America supporters. I couldn’t even keep up with all of the tweets flying around so I had to bring Chad Sommer, Annie Tan and other TFA alum dissidents into the Twitter conversation as backup. The predominance of tweets tried to frame my tweet as agreeing with Malkin’s entire thesis (See for example Choosing A Battle in the Fight for Educational Justice). I explained to the Teach For America supporters on Twitter (deluging me with tweets) that I only agreed with the portion about the need to stop public funding. They weren’t satisfied with that point.I don’t think there is any mystery why I have levied critiques against TFA and proffered that they reform for their “reform.” I have blogged extensive counter narrative here at Cloaking Inequity. For all of Cloaking Inequity’s posts on Teach For America click here. So I found the attacks on Twitter disingenuous. But, to make my perspective more clear relative to Malkin’s argument, I have taken some creative liberty and rewritten Ms. Malkin’s column. I use the parts of her argument that I agree with verbatim, and then made modifications where my perspective diverges from her’s.
It’s increasingly difficult to tell the difference between Teach for America — whose leaders are at the forefront of anti-teacher, privatizing forces in New Orleans, Chicago and elsewhere — and right-leaning foundations such at the Walton Family Foundation (TFA’s largest donor) and the Broad Foundation (another large donor). Guess what, taxpayers? You’re paying for it! Wendy Kopp founded Teach forRewriting @MichelleMalkin’s bodyslam of Teach For America | Cloaking Inequity:
