Teach for America Supplements Lost Money for Oakland TFAers on Strike
One of the complications of ed reform is that its enlistees might just try to assert themselves, even in the face of being told (subtly or otherwise) that their ed reform org involvement has some fine print to which they were not privy upon signing on.
Such is the case of Teach for America (TFA) in California’s bay area, where Oakland teachers are on strike as of Thursday, February 21, 2019. The fine print in this case is that TFAers signed on for TFA’s two-year teaching stint with the lure of thousands of dollars in support from AmeriCorps, an organization that is set to pull its funds from those TFAers should they decide to participate in the strike.
Now, TFA says it neither endorses nor opposes the rights of its recruits to strike, and it is not TFA taking away funds; it’s AmeriCorps doing so.
Hence the following letter dated February 12, 2019, to TFA from the recruits that could be affected:
See the list of signatories to our public letter to TFA:http://tinyurl.com/TFA-Letter-Full2/12/19TFA Bay Area:Thank you for meeting with our group of concerned alumni yesterday. Our takeaway from the conversation was that because TFA is an AmeriCorps program, corps members can not participate in a strike and that TFA has left it up to corps members to determine individual responses to this context.Whereas TFA invited young people into a profession based on an expectation of a supplemental education award via AmeriCorps membership without explicitly informing them of the limits this affiliation places on their ability to participate in labor actions, we demand that Teach For America cover the lost award amount for any corps member who temporarily unenrolls in AmeriCorps so as to stand on the picket line during the anticipated teacher strike in Oakland. This action taken by Teach For America would show seriously that it recognizes corps member obligation CONTINUE WORKING: Teach for America Supplements Lost Money for Oakland TFAers on Strike | deutsch29
