In Kansas, Teach for America Underdelivers and Still Gets Paid $270K
On November 16, 2018, KMUW.com (NPR in Wichita, Kansas) published an article entitled, “Kansas to Pay Teach for America $270,000 for Recruiting Three Teachers.”
$270,000. Three teachers. (But if you count last year, which was pre-TFA-contract, and allow those teachers to become part of the TFA commitment, the number rises to five recruits….)
Still, $270K for five TFAers. A waste of public money, for sure.
Add to that story the reality that those three teachers aren’t permanent hires. TFA doesn’t promote classroom teaching as a career, just a temporary stop onto a more lucrative potential career: Ed Reform Ladder Climber.
Of course, one rung of said ladder is to spend two or three TFA years in the classroom, only to turn around and be compensated handsomely as a TFA recruiter. (For examples, see here and here and here and here.) It is even possibleto become a TFA recruiter having been a substitute teacher for under two years, though, to be fair, one might possibly break the four-year mark in the classroom before landing on the incomey softness of TFA recruitment.
And as a TFA recruiter– regardless of the number of recruits, apparently– the payoff is sweet.
From the KMUW.com article:
…The Kansas City, Kansas school district says it only hired three Teach For America instructors this year. Two other recruits started teaching in the district last year before Kansas hired the organization. …The state education department says Teach For America told the Continue reading: In Kansas, Teach for America Underdelivers and Still Gets Paid $270K | deutsch29
