Media: 7 Things I Learned From The LA Times' TFA Article

Here are the seven most interesting things I learned from the recent LA Times article about TFA written by Howard Blume:

7 - The Walton Foundation's giant contributions to TFA make up less than 5 percent of its annual budget.

6 - Government funding (presumably state, local, federal) made up another 30 percent.

5 - A whopping 94 percent of TFA recruits in LA have been hired by charter schools.

4 - TFA alumna Michelle Rhee's views about teachers unions were showcased in a TFA 20th Anniversary Summit panel in which she participated in 2011.

3 - Some alums, including LAUSD school board member Steve Zimmer, feel that they or TFA parted ways somewhere during the past 20 years.

2 - In Huntsville, Alabama, 30 of 200 job openings went to TFA recruits rather than other (traditionally trained) candidates.

1 - The best way to illustrate a story about TFA is to feature a picture of two young white guys, one of whom appears to be wearing a varsity sports jacket of some kind.

What did you learn?  

Image via the LA Times. Here's the article: Teach for America criticized for apparent stance on education policy

Comments

[Mark]

I think the statistic about LA has a lot to do with LAUSD's hiring policies, not necessarily TFA's preference for charters. LAUSD stopped hiring from TFA in 2009. TFA began placing the vast majority of its LA corps members into the already very large California charter sector as a result.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jun/19/local/me-tfa19