What Next For TFA and Teacher Prep (7/15/2011)
“This problem is so pervasive and so ingrained that we’ve stopped seeing it as a problem at all, and instead adjusted our values and beliefs to accommodate it. If we’re ever going to truly make progress, we have to be honest with ourselves and name injustice for what it is.” (Haycock, 2004, p. 36)
Introduction
TFA seems to be acceptable public and corporate policy. Media, corporations, State, and national policy makers present TFA, in its present format, not only as a viable program for teaching poor kids, but one to emulate and use as a model for all teacher training programs (Carver, 2007; Gates, 2011, Gerdes, 2007; Will, 2011; Wolfman, 2003). But unexamined assumptions embedded in mission statements, advertisements, slogans, color schemes and rhetoric are problematic (Affeldt 2010, Veltri, 2010).
TFA’s “mission” in poor urban and rural schools embraces a business model with a brand, image, and culture designed to attract candidates for a finite commitment. Some view TFA’s service agenda as one that lets others: policy makers, school districts, Corporate sponsors, politicians, TFA’s organization, and even university administration, “off the hook, both financially and socially, because of reasoning based on:
- “‘The Tinkerbelle Tenet of Teaching, where teachers and others believe that something will occur solely on the strength of that belief” (Hamilton, 1993, p. 206), and
- the “TINA Thesis: There Is No Alternative” (Saltman & Gabbard, 2003, p. 6). But there are alternatives. They are costly, not popular with those supporting TFA, and no aligned to the narrative and spin that’s out there in the public domain. (Veltri, Education and Urban Society, July 2008).
Programmatic Changes (Colleges of Education)
- Set up a program that supports TFA novices full-time during their 1st year What Next For TFA and Teacher Prep (7/15/2011) | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing:
