Wendy and Michelle and Joel and all our other little reformy friends need to take a break and watch Sesame Street, with special guest Justice Sonia Sotomayor:
Justice Sotomayor: "A career is a job that you train for and prepare for and plan on doing for a long time."
Abby Cadabby: "Well, then what kind of career can a girl like me have?"
Justice Sotomayor: "Well, you can go to school and train to be a teacher..."
Abby Cadabby: "Ahh!"
Teach For Americans, please take note of the justice's words: teaching is a career.
It is a job you train for and prepare for: I would assume Sotomayor spent more than five weeks in law school, the amount of time TFAers train for their "careers."
It is a job you plan on doing for a long time. Over 70% of TFA's recruits have left teaching after five years; that's not very long.
TFA says they want to foster respect for teachers. They could start by learning from Abby Cadabby: being a teacher isn't like pretending to be a princess. It's a career - treat it as such.
The career some TFA participants seem to be preparing for is a well-paid job in for-profit education, or in state education policy. In this case, "teaching" is part of the training, so it is not so important if you have credentials for teaching or not.
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