Disrespect for Educators a Feature of Education Reform

 

Teach for America 

One of the hallmark features of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was that every student, most specifically those in high needs schools, should have a “highly qualified teacher”.  Education reformers set the basic definition of highly qualified to included certification in the subject being taught and successful years of experience teaching.  While this presented challenges for many school districts’ hiring processes, teachers and unions supported the concept as useful to improving the teacher corps.  To be certificated by their home states, “would be teachers” had to complete multiple classes in education, as well as the content they would teach.  Several years of study were required.  Then something very disrespectful occurred.  Enter Teach for America.

 

High profile education reformers, most with little or no education training or experience, began recruiting “would be teachers” with no formal work in education practices from prestigious universities.  These “would be teachers” would be given a five week crash course in education practices and sent into high needs schools.  Problem was NCLB required that those teachers be highly qualified and they didn’t qualify on either part of the definition.  So education reformers hit upon a resolution to their problem; they arranged for Congress to declare that these inexperienced and under trained "would be teachers" were “highly qualified”, by legislative fiat.  Never mind the fact that Teach for America recruits had neither the training nor the experience to qualify.  Or that this was in complete contradiction to the spirit and letter of NCLB.  This was incredibly disrespectful of current educators.