If you stop and think about it, Teach for America (TFA) and The New Teacher Project (TNTP) are well-functioning, non-profit, national human resource departments for schools. They recruit, screen, and hire candidates, all functions of a traditional HR department. TFA and TNTP do provide a lot more induction and support for their hires, but at [...]
All Posts Tagged: 'TFA'
Heroes or Just Hard Workers?
Matt Yglesias approvingly cites a recent post from Alex Tabbarok, in which Alex mocks the teacher-as-hero archetype (e.g. Freedom Writers etc.) as unscaleable, and recommends Direct Instruction instead. “The problem,” Matt says, “is that it’s just not realistic to build an entire system composed of teachers like that.” This is a common refrain, particularly among [...]
Let’s Not Do Away with Public Education
It’s hard to know where to start on conservative pundit Jonah Goldberg’s recent column arguing that the U.S. ought to “do away with” public schools. Goldberg comes to this conclusion based on the Washington Post’s recent series focusing on the horrible state of the District of Columbia Public Schools–which is sort of like concluding we [...]
Rookies Redux
Michele over at the AFT’s NCLBlog responds to my post on The Wire and rookie teachers by implying that I’m a hypocrite for making a qualifying remark about Teach for America. However, as Eduwonk also points out, Teach for America has submitted its corps members to a sophisticated evaluation by the respected research firm Mathematica [...]
Lowering Student Loan Default Rates: What One Consortium of Historically Black Institutions Did to Succeed 
College and Career-Ready: Using Outcomes Data to Hold High Schools Accountable for Student Success
03/11/10 | Kevin Carey is quoted on the rising costs of education in The Economist.
03/10/10 | Chad Aldeman's False Fronts paper is quoted on Accuracy in Academia.
03/09/10 | Ben Miller is quoted on Federal Family Education Loan defaults on The Huffington Post.
03/09/10 | Ben Miller is quoted on loan origination on the Firedog Lake blog.
03/07/10 | Kevin Carey calls for a Race to the Top in higher education in a column in The Chronicle of Higher Education.