This is how big money is buying into the teaching profession. The teacher mill sourcing business is tied into major grants agreed to by districts strapped for cash. If they want the grant money, in this case from the Gates Foundation, districts have to take the outsourced privately “trained” teachers. And by the way, good-bye to the displaced highly qualified real teachers getting their pink slips.
I think at this point, it’s a train that cannot be stopped. Thank you Bill Gates and all of his “talent partners” churning out next generation of “teachers.”
Edweek: When Memphis City Schools accepted millions of dollars from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to improve teacher effectiveness, it agreed to tap new pipelines for attracting teachers.
But after at least 190 teachers with no experience were hired over 100 teachers with lots of it, school board members wanted to know Monday if jobs were earmarked for some of the new teachers—and what they are supposed to tell angry constituents.
"Out of North Memphis, I'm getting this phone call: 'How can you let the teacher of the year last year go when you're hiring people who don't have experience?'" board member Sara Lewis said after the meeting.
While Supt. Kriner Cash did not say whether some positions were intentionally left open for Teach for America and other talent partners, he said the process for filling positions was "open and transparent" … When the district applied for $90 million from the Gates Foundation in 2009, its proposal said that 30-35 percent of new hires would come from talent pipelines that produce high-quality teacher applicants.
Who would make an agreement to be required to hire from a designated teacher mill? Seriously. That's real free market?
The issue boiled over after weekend media reports that the board would be voting on a $1.4 million contract Monday to hire more teachers from an outside group, Memphis Teacher Residency.
This year, district signed a contract to place 100 Teach for America corpsmen, paying their salary plus $4,000 per person to cover training and recruiting costs.
Memphis Education Association president Keith Williams told board members that displaced teachers had been upstaged by "outsourced labor," reminding them that new teachers have no record of their success in the classroom. Williams went further, saying they also have no relationships in the city.
I thought the threat of private, for profit (supposed “nonprofit” too) schools was enough to raise a red flag for parents. Now we have an industry designed to churn out “teachers,” who are guaranteed placement by private grantors to public school districts. Can you can read the writing on the wall yet?
Thanks for helping carry this messages. This is wholly related to luther olsen's co-opting of a state ed agency, CESA 6.
ReplyDeleteI can tell the whole story, but perhaps you are aware of how this was done (and GAB's inappropriate finding that luther olsen has the right to introduce, promote, and vote on bills that enrich his wife, while laughing and mocking the law).
Unfortunately, the way the economic interests behind scott walker's economic terrorism are also behind efforts to destroy public education and sentence the majority of children to a life of poverty (working for low wages for the economic interests behind the economic terrorism.
CESAs, in Wisconsin actually answer to no meaningful authority at all at this time!
Since you express interest in these issues, I hope we can find a way to tell how luther olsen illegally uses a quasi-private agency whos stated mission is to support public education, to destroy public education.