I know it wasn’t the center of the controversy at last night’s contentious school board meeting, but I find it awfully damn irritating nonetheless:
Along with plenty of fired-up public testimony, even usually mild-mannered board member Harium Martin-Morris raised his voice at one point in the meeting during board debate over whether to approve the hiring of four teacher candidates from Teach for America (TFA).
As with TFA hires in years past, some board members questioned hiring teachers who’ve only been through TFA’s five-week teacher training program and aren’t conventionally trained or certified.
The board approved the TFA hirings by a 5-2 margin. Because apparently, our kids just don’t deserve teachers who are properly trained and certified.
Meanwhile, just a couple of weeks before the school year is scheduled to begin, the district’s real teachers still don’t have a contract. The sticking point? Not salaries or benefits—despite the fact that teachers haven’t had a raise in years. No, the teachers union is mostly holding out against proposals to increase class size. Because teachers unions are so goddamn selfish, or something.