History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
Are teachers dumb?
- 11-09-2011
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Blog by Nancy Flanagan/Education Week
If you want to start a lively discussion, put "Teach for America" in the title of your blog. You're sure to get a little heat, if not outright hostility. That's OK--the purpose of blogging is hosting public dialogue. The best way to herd cats is to put out bowls of tasty food-- toss some debatable issues out there, then stand back. So it was, a couple of blogs ago. A teacher who calls herself Julia629--saying she wasn't a Teach for America corps member but wishes she'd gone that route--showed up to defend the TFA program. Her arguments centered around Andy Rotherham's phoned-in piece in Time, in which he sets up five straw men (or, perhaps, straw corps members) then knocks them down. Julia629 also asserted that teachers are--not to put too fine a point on it--intellectually feeble, what AEI researchers described as weak in the cognitive complexity department. With such inferior colleagues, she says, is it any wonder that top performers choose another line of work? (more...)
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