Teach for America

[pax]

Is anyone familiar with this program? I'm trying to figure out what I want to do after graduation next year, and after reading Teach for America's website (www.teachforamerica.org), I think I've finally hit on something. I have years of experience working with children (babysitting, tutoring, teaching) and three years of experience specifically with disadvantaged urban kids. I'll graduate with a dual degree in English and philosophy and I'm not sure I want to do graduate work in either one.

I love teaching and I would love to move to an inner city (honestly!) and do some real work there. So can anyone give me more info. on Teach for America--have you ever done the program or know anyone who has, or know anything about it beyond what its website says?

Thanks!

 

[martha]

I've never heard of it before three minutes ago. I looked at a few things on the website, mostly the information about the LA area districts. I also looked at the certification processes for other districts. All the districts I looked at require entry in a certification program while you're teaching. I can only assume that eventually they all will, since the Feds are now requiring all teachers to be "highly qualified" by year X. While I'm sure that this program has been around for a while, and that it's completely on the up and up, why not look into traditional certification programs? I'm automatically suspect of "fast track" teaching programs. They seem to be an attempt to go around state requirements. They also place non-teachers in situations for which they are very poorly prepared. What is the attrition rate for this program? I'd hate to see your new excitement for teaching evaporate if you are placed in a challenging situation with little pedagogical preparation.


I may also be talking out of my ass here. This thing may be the greatest thing since sliced bread. Just because I haven't heard of it before, doesn't mean that it's bogus.

 

[martha]

Ah. Maybe I'm full of shit. Maybe it's fine.

I'm a little tired and overworked tonight.

 

[Dreadsox]

Ah. Maybe I'm full of shit. Maybe it's fine.

I'm a little tired and overworked tonight.

End of Year stuff! I can relate.

As to the program I know nothing of it, however I agree with the points that Martha is making. If they are placing people in places where they are least prepared it is going to accelerate the speed at which careers end. At least that is what I think. The Federal Regulations are now becoming so cumbersome, that our new one year old superintendant has resigned because of all of the paperwork involved in NCLB.

Peace

 

[melon]

It's the real deal. I've known people who have done it, but realize that it isn't going to be easy or necessarily "rewarding" in the self-gratification sense. It's hard work, and I find it sad that we have a government that, over the years, has refused to do anything meaningful about these terrible public schools.

If I can run for President in 2016 (the earliest I can run), that's one of the first things I want to fix.

Melon

 

[martha]

I'll be waiting for your call.

 

[deep]

Well we all know the *real* problem with teaching is the pay.


Yes it is true Teachers may be overpaid

They get over $30.00 an hour. wow

Teachers earn more per hour than architects, civil engineers, mechanical engineers, statisticians, biological and life scientists, registered nurses, university-level foreign-language teachers, and editors and reporters.

The Hoover Institution (think tank) that provides data for the Administration has reports available.




here ,<---------------------

 

[martha]

Rather than wade through the bullshit, I'll ask these questions here.

1. Does that study take into account the fact that I have been at school today for seven hours grading and recording and prepping report cards? Off the clock? What about the hours I spend at home doing the same thing? Or is it just looking at contract hours, you know; the 8:15 to 3:10 I'm contrated to work, when I really get here at 7:30 and leave at 6 most evenings?

2. Is it a national average? I do get paid well, but only compared to other teachers. With my education and experience I could make more not teaching.

3. Did they remember that I only get paid for the days I'm contracted to work? I don't get paid holidays and I don't get paid for summer.

It's not only salary issues that keep the best from teaching. It's the lack or repsect we get from policymakers and parents. Don't get me started on parents this year.

 

[anitram]

martha, do teachers in the USA not get paid anything in the summer? My mom used to teach in Canada, and they would collect unemployment during July and August - something like 60% of their usual salary.

Eventually she had enough of being overqualified and underpaid (she has a MEd) and now writes ConEd curriculum instead. Says she'd never go back.

 

[Dreadsox]

martha, do teachers in the USA not get paid anything in the summer? My mom used to teach in Canada, and they would collect unemployment during July and August - something like 60% of their usual salary.

Eventually she had enough of being overqualified and underpaid (she has a MEd) and now writes ConEd curriculum instead. Says she'd never go back.

No we do NOT get paid for the summer. WE are afforded a choice to defer money to last us through the summer, or take it through the year. Our contracts pay us for approximately 185 days if I am not mistaken.

 

[anitram]

Dreadsox,

That's just insane.

 

[Dreadsox]

Rather than wade through the bullshit, I'll ask these questions here.

1. Does that study take into account the fact that I have been at school today for seven hours grading and recording and prepping report cards? Off the clock? What about the hours I spend at home doing the same thing? Or is it just looking at contract hours, you know; the 8:15 to 3:10 I'm contrated to work, when I really get here at 7:30 and leave at 6 most evenings?

I spent my entire morning from 7:00 AM-1:00PM closing out grades today.

My wife started hers at 3:30 This afternoon, and is working on hers most likely until 10:00PM tonight.

I would love to see the extra hours spent, averaged in.

 

[melon]

America used to have plenty of money, but you can see where our nation's priorities are: military spending and tax cuts. As a nation, we are not over-taxed; we are underpaid. However, ask any conservative think-tank and they will make every excuse under the book *except* that people are underpaid.

Federal education assistance was axed in the 1980s, if I remember right. Thus, the burden went to states, which didn't want to do anything about it, and, thus, it has gone down to local communities, which often doesn't have the resources. So, in the end, it goes down to it not being done at all. I find it abhorrent that we have "rich" and "poor" public school districts, and what's the GOP's response to it all? "School vouchers" for private schools. It's pathetic, and these morons keep on getting reelected.

Melon

 

[Dreadsox]

From Deep's Article:

Teachers, moreover, enjoy longer vacations and work far fewer days per year than most professional workers. Consider data from the National Compensation Survey of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which computes hourly earnings per worker. The average hourly wage for all workers in the category ?professional specialty? was $27.49 in 2000. Meanwhile, elementary-school teachers earned $28.79 per hour; secondary-school teachers earned $29.14 per hour; and special-education teachers earned $29.97 per hour. The average earnings for all three categories of teachers exceeded the average for all professional workers. Indeed, the average hourly wage for teachers even topped that of the highest-paid major category of workers, those whose jobs are described as ?executive, administrative, and managerial.? Teachers earned more per hour than architects, civil engineers, mechanical engineers, statisticians, biological and life scientists, atmospheric and space scientists, registered nurses, physical therapists, university-level foreign-language teachers, librarians, technical writers, musicians, artists, and editors and reporters. Note that a majority of these occupations requires as much or even more educational training as does K?12 teaching.

 

[pax]

But teachers these days have to do so much more than be teachers in many instances. They have to be substitute parents, therapists, coaches, advisors to student organizations and the like. Many teachers that I remember having in high school came to school around 7:30 a.m. (classes didn't start until 8:45) and stayed on until 5:30 or 6:00--or later if need be. How many architects, for example, work those kind of hours and consistently have to go above and beyond their job descriptions?

 

[deep]

For the record; I don?t believe any of that crap.

I heard about this Education Next project of the Hoover Institution yesterday.

I thought I would drop it in here, instead of starting a new thread. (I get billed $1.50 US for every thread I start.)

I believe the Administration would like to obliterate public education. They always begin with policy papers.

 

[Dreadsox]

Melon,

Without giving too much away, ed-reform in Massachusetts has led to the following state test, MCAS.

In the first year of MCAS, the school I teach in was in the top 10.
We were redistricted with a much more transient population in the next year from a school that placed just within the top 500 schools. We did not score as well the year we redistricted or the year after, but we finished in the top 180 elementary schools. They, with redistricting moved to the top 300. At the end of three years, a report card is issued. My school was labeled a FAILING to PERFORM SCHOOL. The other school was labeled a HIGH PERFORMANCE SCHOOL.

Please keep in mind that we still have a higher ranking than them. The principal and some teachers were eligible for bonuses because of their improved rankings.

We inherited their population, still performed better than them and this year now five years into redistricting are now in the top 100 again with the population that the other school did not want and lobbied to have moved. Nothing like having district meetings in which so-called professionals laugh because you inherited children they felt could learn. It took us five years but we can and are doing it.

This said, I am rambling, in 2006 under NCLB, I believe students in my state can switch schools if their school is labeled "FAILING TO PERFORM". This is a dangerous precedent to set, because as you can see, it takes time to make schools work. This should bring more students to my school however, if we continue to be successful.

 

[Dreadsox]

PS: I am so proud to have these kids in a place where they are accepted and welcomed with open arms. We LOBBIED to keep them when redistricting came up again last year.

 

[martha]

From Deep's Article:

Teachers, moreover, enjoy longer vacations and work far fewer days per year than most professional workers.

Vacations????

What
the
FUCK???????

I work 185 days and I get paid for 185 days. Who ARE these people?

 

[kobayashi]

America used to have plenty of money, but you can see where our nation's priorities are: military spending and tax cuts. As a nation, we are not over-taxed; we are underpaid. However, ask any conservative think-tank and they will make every excuse under the book *except* that people are underpaid.

Melon

by this logic canada should be sitting pretty. taxes have only marginally been cut and military spending is almost non existent, relative to similar sized and role nations. yet teachers in canada often make many of the complaints martha and dreadsox are making. either it's ill logic, or the canadian system is quite bungled.

 

[~*Buffalo*~]

If you want to teach, good for you. You are brave!

I started my teaching degree in February and dropped out of it in April. I did fine at the theory and all, but I had to do prac after just four weeks of education at uni and it was awful I have already done 2 years of history and geography at uni (in a dual degree) and they expect that we'll be able to go into a classroom with four weeks of educational theory? Wrong! And this was in a preschool!

So I am going to finish off my Arts degree which means I don't know what I will do in terms of a career. Everyone I ask says, "Why don't you teach?" Too much of a long story to explain why I don't want to!

But I do know some great teachers who love their jobs, I just think you need to be a particular type of person to do well. If you are that kind of person, go for it!

 

[martha]

Only four weeks of school and they sent you to the little kids! That's not enought for any age group! No wonder you bailed!

 

[V Nura]

Let's just keep one simple fact in mind when considering teachers salries



without teachers...you dont' have doctors lawyers, architects, city planners, dentists, etc etc etc etc etc

 

[martha]

Arun:

 

[V Nura]

hehe thanks martha....ppl alwasy consider medicine a "noble profession" but in my eyes it's teaching

 

[pax]

I keep checking TFA's website to see if the applications are up yet...

 

[martha]

PAX!!!!

Just this afternoon I talked to someone who works in the Long Beach school district who works with TFA teachers. She says that the district gives their TFA teachers a coach and all kinds of support. She couldn't say how much TFA support is given, but she did say that Long Beach is really happy with the program, they keep all lot of the TFA teachers, and that many of the TFA teachers they get are outstanding. She had good things to say about the program. She's also someone I've known for 20+ years, and I know she's very reliable.

So there you go.

 

[pax]

Wow! Thanks for the info, Martha!

I'm even more psyched now.