The Education Wars II: New Orleans

Desperate teachers from all over the country are flocking to the cesspool called New Orleans schools, which have been an experiment in the growing movement towards charter schools.

Note this outrage:

Louisiana is conducting a groundbreaking study of teacher effectiveness. It looks at teachers from different teacher education programs and compares how their students do on standardized tests. Teachers who came through Teach For America and other nonprofits did very well in that study. Teachers from TFA outperformed other teachers who had a couple years of experience under their belts.

But those results have raised concerns among local educators, like Andre Perry of the University of New Orleans. Perry leads a group that helps run six charter schools in the city.

Perry says he is concerned that teachers from TFA and other programs who "descended" on New Orleans from outside the area may not stick around as long as homegrown teachers. Regardless of the test scores, "what's needed is some longevity in the profession," Perry says.


In fact, the same effectiveness study showed that teachers from TFA are much less likely to stay than other teachers. Few lasted in the profession more than three years.

Of course TFAs don't stick around. "Teaching" isn't a "profession," it is just something to do for two years, like VISTA or the Peace Corps.