Michelle Rhee for VP?

Having captured district leadership positions in several cities, and having created two charter school networks, Wendy Kopp's Teach For America friends are pursuing an approach to school reform based on the false premise that teachers are the cause of sub-par academic performance in urban schools, They not only discount major factors like the degree of parent commitment, family stability students habits and economic inequality, they underestimate the power of these obstacles for most kids.

D.C. Superintendent Michelle Rhee's school reform recipe includes three ingredients: close schools rather than improve them; fire teachers rather than inspire them; and sprinkle on a lot of media-thrilling hype. Appearing on the cover of Time, she sternly hovered over the camera holding a broom, which she was using to sweep trash, the trash being a metaphor for my urban teacher colleagues. MS RHEE, MY COLLEAGUES WHO WORK IN SOME OF THE TOUGHEST SCHOOLS IN THE UNITED STATES ARE NOT TRASH.

TFA teachers are a welcome addition to our nation's public schools, and TFA and its offspring, the KIPP and YES charter schools, provide valuable services, but no data exists proving they are closing the achievement gap, or that they have a formula to close the gap, for the majority of low-income students. KIPP/YES teachers do great work, but they have students whose families apply to schools with longer school days, Saturday classes, an extra month of school in the Summer, and nightly loads of homework. Only a small minority of working-class families will allow schools to take over their kids' lives that much.

The TFA coalition implies poor schools and bad teachers create the achievement gap. They want the community to give them power because only they can bring“reform” by eliminating job security and diminishing teacher influence over policy. This anti-teacher attitude derives from Ms. Kopp's original vision when she decided, from her Princeton perch and without a day in the classroom, that inexperience was better for teachers than experience. They are launching an Ivy League class war on veteran teachers from our nation's toughest schools.

JesseAlred of TX 4:04PM April 18, 2009