Dallas ISD's Board of Trustees Set to Receive Glowing Update on Teach for America in Dallas

• Ninth Circuit says TFA teachers aren't certified. Districts who employ them at risk for losing Federal Title Funds: http://www.thompson.com/public/newsbrief.jsp?cat=EDUCATION&id=3181

• Todd Williams is on a TFA campaign around Dallas political circles. The Dallas Morning News is going broke, but all of a sudden, Goldman Sachs is a major advertiser. Todd is a Goldman former partner and on the board of Belo. Now the school district needs to bloat up with TFA people straight from the Bush Institute while williams fluffs the pillows over at the DMN with Goldman's bounty. They are all in bed with each other along with Mayor Leppert's fake attempts to reform West Dallas. Who loses? The taxpayers, students, teachers, while money is shuffled over to the millionaire Wendy Koop. Hinojosa wants to be part of the circus since he missed playing Elvis in Las Vegas. The folks there were way too smart and saw him for the fraud he is. What does that say about the Dallas school board?

• @Competition is Good/ aka I work for TFA: No one is saying individual TFA teachers aren't good. Financially, though, TFA is NOT good. The bloated, useless DISD bureaucracy is mowing through a billion dollars a year while kids are suffering through no AC, too much AC, not enough toilet paper, overcrowded schools that run out of food, teachers without supplies, etc. But we have $1500 a head to pay TFA? We already have an HR department. Wake up! Next year, our budget shortfall is expectected to exceed $150 million dollars. The trustees pay TFA so TFA will help them politically in the future. Who wins in that deal? The kids? NO! Vouchers are good. TFA, not so much.

• Competition is good! To have other teachers from another training and recruitment system to be competing with the normal DISD recruitment system, and to be closely monitoring the results, is good for our students. This is a step in the right direction. The one TFA teacher I am familiar with is an exceptionally talented and dedicated teacher, all of which is well acknowledged by the rest of us teachers in the school. The winners are our students, just the way it should be. This does not mean that we should not challenge TFA, or ask why we cannot recruit and train the same talented teachers through our �normal� recruitment systems and/or at lower cost. Questions are good, and TFA being in Dallas is good. We have much to be thankful for.

• HP isn't hiring them for the same reason Greenhill and other top schools don't hire them. Greenhill's teachers have an average of 16 years experience. Hinojosa's plan is to RIF the highest paid teachers in the next budget fiasco and replace them with TFA. More money left for his staff who won't miss a beat.

• DISD taxpayers pay at least $1500 per TFA teacher to TFA. TFA makes money off us. If TFA teachers are so superior and worth it, why isn't Highland Park hiring TFA teachers?

• So Uplift's other uncertified, mediocre teachers did as well as the uncertified TFa nonteachers? With a 70% turnover rate, how could they tell one from the other? Trust Dallas ISD to present the truth on anything? Get real. This is part of a nationwide campaign to get rid of experienced teachers and replace them with low cost day labor. Meanwhile, administrator salaries for those who contribute nothing continue to climb and Hinojosa asks for more raises. Dallas Can't jumps on the TFA boat while their schools should have been closed for high dropout rates and don't even both to look at their TAKs scores. Check out the old loser Dallas and Wilmer administrators there and take a look at their salaries. Just like CEO pay and worker pay continue to drift in different directions leaving most Americans poorer every year, TFA's mission is to create the same disparity in public education. Check out the CEO pay at some of Dallas charters and compare it to teacher pay. Start with the Liberal Art and Science charter in Oak Cliff. Explain that.Then look at the biggest buffoon in the state who should have stayed in Las Vegas and explain why he is so highly paid. TFa wants to drive teacher pay to 40K and keep it there in two year rotations while charter CEOs are secretly taking taxpayers to the cleaners because their salaries are hidden.

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