The new NC biennial budget contains $5M in annual funding for Teach for America while at the same time, it phases out the successful NC Teaching Fellows program.
Teach for America is a twenty-four year old program that offers five weeks of training before its corps members enter the classroom. Recruits must make a two-year commitment to teaching, and are often assigned to challenging school districts. As this article in the Atlantic Wire notes,
” One study found that roughly 57 percent of corps members planned to teach for two years or less when they applied, while only 11 percent intended to make teaching a lifelong career. (TFA has claimed, however, that 36 percent remain in the classroom as teachers. But their recently announced partnership with Goldman Sachs, which provides TFA recruits with jobs at the banking firm after two years of service, doesn’t entirely help their cause.)”
It makes one question the wisdom of a decision to defund one successful NC-based program in favor of another that is a favorite child of the education “reform” movement.
Read the entire Atlantic Wire article.
