Plan to host Teach for America at Univ. of Washington highlights double-speak of ed deform

[Hannah Bell]

The doublespeak of ed reformers who repeatedly declare that the key to a successful education is to put an “excellent” teacher in every classroom, and then turn around and promote young, Teach for America recruits — with only five weeks’ training, no in-class experience...has come into sharp focus at the University of Washington in Seattle these past two weeks.

On May 11, the University of Washington’s College of Education announced it would sponsor Teach for America at its teaching college, providing the missing component to the deal that TFA, Inc. struck with the Seattle School District last fall...

The University of Washington already has a well-regarded M.A. teacher ed program (ranked ninth in nation by U.S. News & World Report in 2011). It takes two years and requires a year of student teaching in an actual classroom.

Then the announcement finally came two weeks ago...In this new arrangement, the students in the TFA special program will be housed alongside the full program students, but would only be required to take a five-week course, after which they would be deemed immediately eligible to apply for a full-time, full-salaried teaching position, while still learning on the job. The full-term U.W. students, meanwhile, won’t be certified and able to enter the workforce until they have completed the first year of their program. Not surprisingly, this announcement was not well received by Dean Stritkus’ current M.A. teaching students. Outrage, dismay and confusion soon followed. One student referred to the UW-TFA deal as a “slap in the face....”

http://parentsacrossamerica.org/2011/05/plan-to-host-teach-for-america-at-univ-of-washington-highlights-hypocrisy-of-ed-reform/


I'd say that Dean Stritkus' profs should watch their backs, too.

Given the choice between a 2-year program with an internship & a 5-week quickie course that leads to a guaranteed job -- which costs little to nothing given that "special funding" is being arranged for TFAers -- what will most people choose in these times?

I predict declines in enrollment in regular teaching programs, which means layoffs for Ed professors.

And layoffs at universities is also on the ed deformers' agenda.

Fuck Bill Gates with a MS instruction manual. (Those bricks, btw, should tell you how much Gates knows about teaching anything to anyone, in case you had doubts)

Dean Stritkus, BTW, is a TFA alumni. Guess how he got his current job.

Connections, baby. The Gates family *owns* the UW (one of my alma maters).

[pnwmom]

1. I agree, this makes no sense. I thought Teach for America

was supposed to train teachers for hard-to-place positions -- not send them to districts where we already have a surfeit of good teachers.

[Hannah Bell]

2. no, the goal is to undermine *all* public schooling. they start with the easy targets (poor

urban & rural schools) & move up the food chain.

you still don't get it?

it's the "first they came for the...." axiom in action.

as schools and districts are picked off & as more people get a vested interest in "alternatives" to public ed (as users, employees, administrators, suppliers, 'shareholders' etc) -- in TFA, in charter schools, in voucher systems, in distance ed - traditional public ed will be progressively defunded at the federal & state level and those funds will be moved into these "choices". But less of that money will actually enter classrooms or pay salaries/benefits for ordinary employees.

Instead, a significant slice will be creamed off for what is essentially profit (even though filtered through various 'fronts'.)

But outright profit is coming sooner or later.

What people don't seem to get is that ed deform is not just a US initiative -- it's a *global corporate* initiative. That's why we're seeing teachers protesting the robbery of their salaries & benefits in phony austerity drives or structural shakeups on every continent. Ed deform & privatization has been underway in africa for over a decade, for example. It's in full swing in England. Has been ongoing in "socialist" Sweden for years.

For-profit education management corporations with a global scope already exist. They are running schools in africa, in europe, in latin america -- and even in the US.

Do you really think they're going to stop short at NY Harbor? The writing's on the wall.

So no, your (royal 'your') nice suburban district isn't safe. "Local" schools, where you can run for a seat on the board & go down & chat with a principal who grew up in the same neighborhood are going to become a thing of the past. The only people who will have that 'luxury' will be those with the money to pay for it.

The rest of us will have the "choice" between globocorp A & globocorp B. Their distance ed option, or their large computer lab option, the prison/ghetto option for the 1%-ers, the "juku" option, the "christian" option, the "muslim" option, the "catholic" option, trade option, "gifted" option, disabled warehousing option -- a nice little menu of consumer "choices" segmented by target population/income level. All provided by the same globocorps.

And if you want any input into curriculum or classroom practice or anything else -- you will have to pay for it. Teachers will be teaching from a script which they'll be fired if they diverge from, talking to them will gain you nothing. No individualized attention for your little Nancy or Jimmy. Principals will be like corporate managers, moving from one insitution to another with little attachment to place, subservient to the corporate chain of command, their main interest being to climb higher in that chain.

You'll have about as much real "choice" as you do between telecom companies, and about as much pull.

And the implications for our democracy, such as it is, are profoundly disturbing. Whatever the flaws of public ed, and there are many, it has been, at its best, a democratizing force and an equalizing force. And that power, even if lost sometimes in practice, nevertheless remained in structural potential.

What is going to replace it has *no* potential for anything similar, no matter how the deformers talk up "choice". The "choice" they are talking about is the choice of the capitalist marketplace, where the more money you have, the more "choice" you have. period.

If you're actually interested, here's something starry messenger & i wrote about ed deform in britain:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9314623

Privateers Ahoy! The International Charter School Movement (Part I)


The British Teachers' Union & its supporters have blown the cover of the wolf who pretends to be grandma -- the school privatization/charter school movement.

Contra the warm-hearted mom-&-pop image the charter school movement tries to cultivate in the US, a backgrounder by the "Anti-Academies" group in Britain exposes the British movement’s relationship to global capital and the world of high finance -- as well as its global ambitions and links to the US charter school movement.

In the Anti-Academies report we learn that the British school "reform" movement is being steered by the same kind of hedge funds, management corporations, & investment firms steering the US version — & in some cases, the very *same* firms.

These organisations seek a "radically expanded role" in the English education system and openly declare their goal to be privatization, deeming education in the UK a "£100 billion market."

****

Global elites are currently engaged in restructuring the global marketplace. Of course they can't say so; they have to pretend the changes they're making have some noble, unselfish goal that is for everyone's benefit.

But they are fucking liars.

[RandomThoughts]

3. First they tried to revoke Due Process of a cripple.

That may or may not have been guilty of something. Or may just have been of a different group, he was part Hispanic, and possibly gay, and even with some other heritage, and also knowing of some better teachings. Although he never seemed to be the type to betray for self gain.

He may have had issues, but how would society know that without due process.

He also by all legal systems had paid any debts, and in my observations the times I had seen him, he had always been good natured and kind, and was speaking of regrets at that time near the end of his life, when I was attacked for not being mean to him. So I think he was actually innocent.

Then when standing up for him, by saying I did not have to be mean to him, they went after me. I recognized that enemy and have been fighting without harm or hurt ever since.

And I will be sent the beer and travel money that is due, and the world will be more just and compassionate.




Brothers in Arms - Dire Straits
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1414069/brothers_in_arms_dire_straits/

Bonnie Raitt - I Can't Make You Love Me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW9Cu6GYqxo

Bonnie Raitt - Nick of Time
http://www.123video.nl/playvideos.asp?MovieID=407128

Nickelback - If Everyone Cared
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IUSZyjiYuY

[pnwmom]

4. I understand that there are people who want to privatize everything,

including and maybe especially education.

But what exactly does this have to do with Teach for America, whose teachers go into public schools?

[Hannah Bell]

5. tfa is part of the same program, funded by the same people. you're not that naive, are you?

witness mr. gates' sticky fingers all over this deal.