Thoughts on the TFA Summit

1. TFA

Well this was a TFA party through and through and I think it represented what is both the best and the worst of TFA.

The worst: the excessive spending, the self-aggrandizement, and the failure to respond to very real criticisms. It seemed to me that TFA throughout the conference continuously set up the false dichotomy of you’re-either-with-us-or-against-us. Critics and enemies either: a. Care more about adults than children (read teacher’s unions) or b. Do not believe poor children can learn.

The summit could have been an opportunity for a conversation about the future of TFA. I think TFA at some point will have to confront the push back against two-year commitments, inadequate preparation, it’s conflation of race and class, etc. That TFA’s existence is so divisive in many education circles cannot just be chalked up to jealous, bad teachers and it hurts the education movement for TFA to continue to pretend it does.

And the best: being in the company of smart, intelligent, passionate people, and the feeling that we are a movement poised to make transformational change.

Also lots of free alcohol.

2. Charter Schools

Charter schools in TFA-land seem very much to be the generals of the ed-reform revolution. There was very little talk about what can be done to improve traditional public schools (for the most part, great teachers and great principals) and a lot more emphasis on starting great schools.

What’s disheartening for me is that while there seemed to be many charter schools doing amazing work in terms of getting students to college, I think they need to respond as a movement to the valid criticism of skimming off the top students. Which is not to minimize what they do for the students who do ultimately graduate from charter schools, but it seems to me that it’s a conversation they should honestly and transparently engage in because unchecked, it’s impossible to take charters seriously as any sort of answer to educational inequity.

3. Special Ed

Amidst all the excitement of many of the sessions, I felt discouraged because there was no session that addressed the future of special ed. As far as I know, unlike many other fields, there are no great leaders of special ed. There is no movement compiling the things great special ed teachers do. And there is no movement for more equity for students with IEPs; if anything, it seems as if charter schools are united in their failure to truly offer least restrictive environments. I don’t know what it will take to make special education part of the national reform agenda.

What did you think John?