Posted on June 19, 2009 at 9:31 am by Amy Fagan
Cutting back in Los Angeles
An interesting bit of school news in the Los Angeles Times today. Seems that due to tough financial times the LA Unified School District won’t be hiring any new Teach For America teachers next year! TFA of course places talented young college grads into teaching positions in low-income, struggling schools. According to the piece, the district has worked with TFA since the 1990s. But now, belt tightening is forcing painful changes. The story says that on top of not accepting any new TFA teachers next year, the district is also considering laying off some of its current 67 first-year TFA teachers.
Related posts:
- Cleveland teachers union: If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em
- Alt. routes to teaching….
- Shared sacrifices are for losers
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June 19th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Speaking of teacher cuts, here’s a story about 250 teachers in DC being fired for poor performance.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/19/dc-chancellor-fires-teachers-poor-performance/
Let’s wait to see how long it takes to, and who, comes to their defense.
June 19th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
[...] Unified will hire no Teach For America members in the fall. (Via Amy [...]
June 20th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
The article doesn’t go into in it, but am I correct in thinking those 67 2nd year TFA teachers are losing their positions to teachers with more seniority?
June 20th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
Medina,
http://thewashingtonteacher.blogspot.com/2009/06/rhee-fired-dc-teachers-without.html
June 21st, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Can someone tell us what will happen to the TFA candidates? Will they be re- assigned to other school districts? Will they lose their place in the TFA program?
The thing that people miss in this is that candidates for programs like TFA or NYCTF go to considerable personal expense just to apply for these programs. The costs of traveling to interviews and paying for state certification exams are the start of the list of expenses. Then there is the cost of putting down deposits on apartments, putting personal belongings in storage, and the other myriad of expenses that arise when relocating. This does not account for the loss of opportunity to get another job. People do this willingly in order to 1) help to close the achievement gap and 2) secure a job.
I hope TFA will re-assign the LA candidates.
June 22nd, 2009 at 9:26 am
TFT, thanks for the link. Typical. Yet another example of why public education is such a poorly run organization. The next step is either DC backing down due to political pressure or the threat of legal action (which currently is really the same thing as political pressure).
In the end, the children or taxpayers of DC loose either way. They either get their ineffective teachers back, or have to pay thousands of dollars to a lawyer to defend a simple action taken by millions of employers in the country everyday…getting rid of the dead weight.
The inmates are indeed running the asylum. Literally.
June 23rd, 2009 at 6:41 am
An example of 700 teachers in New York being paid for doing nothing.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090622/ap_on_re_us/us_rubber_rooms
So while the argument can rage on about whether unions hurt or help public education, there is no argument that they hurt the local taxpayers.