I apologize for the Monday post. I just returned from DC.
This past weekend, 11,000 educators, community activists, policy-makers and business leaders converged on Washington DC to celebrate Teach for America's 20th anniversary in stunning fashion. From discussion panels that included Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, Adrian Fenty, Andres Alonso and others, to workshops that helped alumni learn of ways to be most effective in advocating for reform, to a KIPP school jazz band playing with John Legend in front of thousands, I walked away both inspired and deeply moved, motivated and determined to continue the struggle towards producing meaningful change towards educational equity in our country.
There was, however, one thing that stood out more than anything else. That one thing was the transformation that Teach for America has undergone since its inception 20 years ago - from simply being a teaching corps of recent college graduates who committed two years of their lives to helping the neediest youth in inner-city schools, to something much more meaningful and influential.
Yes, the few thousand corps members currently serving in the classrooms as part of their commitments are making significant differences in their students' lives. But oftentimes critics of Teach for America use this as ammunition to fuel their arguments, asking why they only commit two years and why they are allowed to take jobs away from certified teachers. What this summit helped answer for me were precisely those questions.
It started when Secretary of Education Arne Duncan spoke during the closing ceremony, telling a story that he assured us we hadn't already heard. He told the tale of the day when he took office and wanted to make meaningful change in the way financial aid was distributed to low-income, college-bound students. He said that for years, secretaries of education had tried repeatedly to help condense the paperwork into something shorter and less confusing so that high school seniors could fill it out correctly and afford college. He went to the IRS where the financial aid forms were created and asked the head of the IRS why his predecessors hadn't been able to make any change. Duncan was told that the process of amending those documents was difficult and time-consuming but that this time, things were different. Duncan, working with the head of the IRS, was able to adjust the financial aid forms last year to make them less ambiguous and much shorter for the first time in years. Just this past year alone, 750,000 more students received financial aid as a result. After raucous applause, Duncan mentioned that the head of the IRS that he had worked with to produce those changes was a Teach for America Alum.
Following this, a young senator from Colorado took the stage and claimed that he was an alum as well and that while teaching in the South, he rented a bus to take his students to see the school where the Little Rock 9 first integrated Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas. He told the story of how his students were reduced to tears when they saw the bench where Elizabeth Eckford was berated by pejorative slurs and taunts by white racists. They walked up the steps of Central High to see the front door where Governor Faubus stood, demanding that the students go home and that if they were allowed to enter the school, the laws of Arkansas would be tarnished. Senator Johnston went on to say that one of his students looked up to him and asked, "who makes these laws" at which point, the Senator couldn't open his mouth to answer her question. He then fast-forwarded to the day when he sat in the Colorado Senate gallery waiting for a vote on the the floor that would allow his bill to become law. The bill would have made 50% of teacher evaluations be based on student performance, link teacher pay to both seniority and student achievement, take tenure away from teachers after two years of consistent poor evaluation and give good teachers leadership opportunities within the district and school. He claimed that one member of his own party filibustering the bill asked, "How can one expect to change anything within a bad school? How can you make good bread with dough filled with maggots?" After the bill passed with careful vote-counting on Senator Johnston's part before the filibuster to gain the necessary votes required for passage, the Senator picked up his phone to call his former student to answer the question she had only a few years ago. "We make the laws" he proudly said.
Whether the alums of this organization continue as educators, principals, IRS heads, or legislators, what I learned from this past weekend is that TFA has become a force that transcends the classroom. At times in the past, it was difficult to defend the two-year commitment that TFA requires. I'm convinced now that the greater good of that two-year commitment for our education system puts all arguments against it to rest.
This past weekend, 11,000 educators, community activists, policy-makers and business leaders converged on Washington DC to celebrate Teach for America's 20th anniversary in stunning fashion. From discussion panels that included Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, Adrian Fenty, Andres Alonso and others, to workshops that helped alumni learn of ways to be most effective in advocating for reform, to a KIPP school jazz band playing with John Legend in front of thousands, I walked away both inspired and deeply moved, motivated and determined to continue the struggle towards producing meaningful change towards educational equity in our country.
There was, however, one thing that stood out more than anything else. That one thing was the transformation that Teach for America has undergone since its inception 20 years ago - from simply being a teaching corps of recent college graduates who committed two years of their lives to helping the neediest youth in inner-city schools, to something much more meaningful and influential.
Yes, the few thousand corps members currently serving in the classrooms as part of their commitments are making significant differences in their students' lives. But oftentimes critics of Teach for America use this as ammunition to fuel their arguments, asking why they only commit two years and why they are allowed to take jobs away from certified teachers. What this summit helped answer for me were precisely those questions.
It started when Secretary of Education Arne Duncan spoke during the closing ceremony, telling a story that he assured us we hadn't already heard. He told the tale of the day when he took office and wanted to make meaningful change in the way financial aid was distributed to low-income, college-bound students. He said that for years, secretaries of education had tried repeatedly to help condense the paperwork into something shorter and less confusing so that high school seniors could fill it out correctly and afford college. He went to the IRS where the financial aid forms were created and asked the head of the IRS why his predecessors hadn't been able to make any change. Duncan was told that the process of amending those documents was difficult and time-consuming but that this time, things were different. Duncan, working with the head of the IRS, was able to adjust the financial aid forms last year to make them less ambiguous and much shorter for the first time in years. Just this past year alone, 750,000 more students received financial aid as a result. After raucous applause, Duncan mentioned that the head of the IRS that he had worked with to produce those changes was a Teach for America Alum.
Following this, a young senator from Colorado took the stage and claimed that he was an alum as well and that while teaching in the South, he rented a bus to take his students to see the school where the Little Rock 9 first integrated Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas. He told the story of how his students were reduced to tears when they saw the bench where Elizabeth Eckford was berated by pejorative slurs and taunts by white racists. They walked up the steps of Central High to see the front door where Governor Faubus stood, demanding that the students go home and that if they were allowed to enter the school, the laws of Arkansas would be tarnished. Senator Johnston went on to say that one of his students looked up to him and asked, "who makes these laws" at which point, the Senator couldn't open his mouth to answer her question. He then fast-forwarded to the day when he sat in the Colorado Senate gallery waiting for a vote on the the floor that would allow his bill to become law. The bill would have made 50% of teacher evaluations be based on student performance, link teacher pay to both seniority and student achievement, take tenure away from teachers after two years of consistent poor evaluation and give good teachers leadership opportunities within the district and school. He claimed that one member of his own party filibustering the bill asked, "How can one expect to change anything within a bad school? How can you make good bread with dough filled with maggots?" After the bill passed with careful vote-counting on Senator Johnston's part before the filibuster to gain the necessary votes required for passage, the Senator picked up his phone to call his former student to answer the question she had only a few years ago. "We make the laws" he proudly said.
Whether the alums of this organization continue as educators, principals, IRS heads, or legislators, what I learned from this past weekend is that TFA has become a force that transcends the classroom. At times in the past, it was difficult to defend the two-year commitment that TFA requires. I'm convinced now that the greater good of that two-year commitment for our education system puts all arguments against it to rest.
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