The Education Wars II

Perhaps Teach for America isn't very good preparation for classroom teaching, but it's pretty good preparation for being a dipshit administrator. Case in point: the horrid Michelle Rhee, head of D.C. schools.

As Berliner notes, "To become expert at teaching requires five to seven years." However, at "five to seven years," teachers receive tenure, or, even more important, retirement benefits after five years with a district (assuming the teacher doesn't have service credit from other statewide agencies, including other school districts). School administrators increasingly are tossing teachers out for petty excuses covering up the fact they want to save on retirement costs. New teachers are being denied tenure, and senior teachers are being cheated out of their full retirement benefits when administrators create false cases against them in order to toss them out.

In short, Teach for America is the present and future of public education in America. Once again, the students are being screwed over.