Bill Gates' Teach for America puts profits in private pockets and quickly made to order teachers into the classroom

Why should you care? Do you live in America?

The doublespeak of ed reformers who repeatedly declare that the key to a successful education is to put an “excellent” teacher in every classroom, and then turn around and promote young, Teach for America recruits — with only five weeks’ training, no in-class experience, and only a two-year commitment to the profession — as the answer, has come into sharp focus at the University of Washington in Seattle these past two weeks.

On May 11, the University of Washington’s College of Education announced it would sponsor Teach for America at its teaching college, providing the missing component to the deal that TFA, Inc. struck with the Seattle School District last fall.

Last November, Seattle’s school board approved a (troubling and one-sided) contract to allow TFA, a short-term alternative teacher credentialing program, into Seattle’s hiring pool for the first time. TFA, Inc. also demands a financial and university sponsor in order to brings its program to a new location, and charges school districts an extra $4,000 or more per year for each trainee it hires, in “recruitment, placement and training” fees. (Evidently the millions of dollars from private investors and the $50 million recently granted to TFA, Inc. by the federal government isn’t enough to cover expenses.) Those in the parent ed advocacy community guessed that corporate ed reform sugardaddy Bill Gates would pony up at some point. And he did — his new Washington STEM organization will pay the $4,000 annual fee for the science and math TFAers, which would otherwise be billed to our cash-strapped district. But who would be the university sponsor? We waited for an announcement.

Do you live in the Valley?

The hallways and teachers’ lounges at IDEA Public Schools have been buzzing with talk of the leaking of dozens of emails from the district account of CEO and founder Tom Torkelson last weekend.

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But several exposed — often quite bluntly — the potential, or lack thereof, for teachers to advance into leadership roles, criticism of an administrator from Pharr-San Juan-Alamo schools, IDEA’s preference for Teach for America recruits and hiring formulas and future expansion into San Antonio or Austin

Greedy corporate a**h*les are figuring out how to make every essential public service a for profit endeavor. Soon Enron types will be running everything. Do you think that these greedy a**h*les will promote the general welfare or promoting their own extensive fortunes?