Former TFA Member: I'm No Superman

[Blue State Blues]

Published on Friday, November 5, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
I'm No Superman
by Sabrina Strand

Read the full article at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/11/05-2

An article by a former Teach For America teacher, who now teaches at a private school. While the author praises Rhee and other education "reformers" and their goals, her personal experience as a classroom teacher says a lot about the reform movement and the corporate vision of education. (Bold for emphasis mine.)

No one ever talks about what it takes for schools to achieve the kind of success that’s plastered all over the media. I’ll tell you; it takes the blood, sweat, and tears of every teacher on staff. It takes waking up at 5 and traveling on a bus to a school that smells like urine; having to shell out money for basic necessities like drinking water; working 12-hour days, Saturdays, summers. It takes being a teacher, counselor, warden, nutritionist, coach, friend, and parent wrapped into one very exhausted package. It takes a school run by naïve 20-somethings with no dependents and no obligations outside their work lives.

A friend of mine recently moved to the Bay Area from New York, where she taught for six years in a renowned charter school. Over the course of her last year, her principal took leave for a mental breakdown, and the dean was hospitalized twice for kidney problems stemming from exhaustion. Is this what we now expect from our educators?

Though I literally worked nonstop for the entire school year, the founder and CEO of my former school, Deborah Kenny, refused to write me a letter of recommendation upon my resignation. To add insult to injury, I only received a few hundred dollars of a prospective bonus because the students’ test scores fell short of perfection. Students, keep in mind, who had entered the school reading three to four grade levels behind, 90% of whom had improved to at least a fourth grade reading level by the end of my year with them. Students who consisted of those who wanted to learn, those who didn’t want to learn, and those who threw chairs at me. My colleagues, who had also sacrificed their lives at the altar of charter school education, were dealt the same blows. Yet Kenny, made famous through the efforts of her teachers, didn’t cut into her own paycheck; the New York Daily News reported she paid herself $400,000 in 2009, making her the highest-paid charter school executive in New York City.

Through Teach for America and the charter world, we have placed the burden of failing schools on the backs of privileged 22-year-olds. Not only do we expect them to be miracle workers, we make them feel extremely guilty when their efforts fall short of the miraculous. Why do we expect nothing from our community? Our parents? The students themselves? Why is no one held accountable but teachers?

Hmm. A program that makes smart young people compete for the honor of working long hours without decent conditions, pay, or even recognition, while executives take the credit for their achievements (and pocket the money), knowing that they can discard and these smart young people with a fresh crop ... the corporate vision of education sounds pretty much like the corporate vision of everything else.

[Blue State Blues]

1. If only ...

Gee, if only there were someone who would speak for these young professionals, someone to help them get better working conditions maybe even some kind of guarantee of due process that would give them some measure of job security, so that people entrusted with a job as important as educating a generation would treated almost like professionals ... some kind a, what's it called again, a union? Oh no, silly me. The teacher's unions are why schools are failing, right?

(the above is sarcasm, in case anyone missed it)

[Starry Messenger]

2. k&r

[dkf]

3. Yet this is the type of effort that is needed to help these kids...

and which unions will never agree to.

This work schedule sounds like how many Americans live their lives today. I know I'm supposed to feel great sympathy, but except for the urine smell, it seems like a typical schedule to me.

[Blue State Blues]

4. the point of the article

is that kind of effort is unsustainable, and that even when the disposable, underpaid TFA-ers put forth that kind of effort, it doesn't change the system. It merely allows a new executive-level of management to pay teachers less and pocket the difference.

If the premise is that the teacher is solely responsible for student success (measured by test scores), even super-human effort by the teacher is not enough.

[dkf]

5. I've been living that way for 20 years.

Many people do.

[immoderate]

6. No it's not.

Teachers in civilized countries don't have to put up with sweat shop conditions, and they achieve better results.

I remember that poor woman who was interviewed by GW Bush. She held three jobs to keep things together. Bush said something like, "Isn't that wonderful? Only in America!"

Considering your approval of the exploitation of working people, are you sure you're posting in the right place?

--imm

[uncommon]

10. "That is uniquely American."

That's what he said.

I don't think anyone is saying they approve, just that it IS the reality for most of us and not just teachers.

So are we saying that there should be a different standard for teachers or do we try to raise ALL the boats by actually having a worker's movement in this country?

[immoderate]

11. I used the phrase...

"exploitation of working people."

That should answer it.

--imm

[nyc 4 Biden]

7. That's bullshit.

Union teachers work just as hard or harder than these charter school teachers. Plus they don't have the luxury of turning away students.

I agree that most American's working lives suck, but lets not make that the bar we aim for.

[uncommon]

9. Pretty much -

I work about 50 hours a week for not enough money and not that great benefits.

I don't think that means that everyone else should too, but that is the reality for most Americans.

[Blue State Blues]

8. Disclaimer: I'm not a public school teacher

I've never been a public school teacher. And that makes me just as qualified as most of the people leading the corporate vision of education reform.