Education
Related: About this forumMatt Damon and Mother Reject Union's Award
The actor Matt Damon and his mother, a professor of education, on Wednesday turned down an award from the countrys largest teachers union after reading an opinion article that the unions president had co-authored with the founder of Teach for America.
Writing that she was confused by your collaboration with Teach for America, Dr. Nancy Carlsson-Paige said she and her son, Mr. Damon, no longer desired to be nominated for the National Education Associations Friend of Education Award.
In the opinion piece that Dr. Carlsson-Paige referred to, Dennis Van Roekel, president of the N.E.A., and Wendy Kopp, founder of T.F.A., urged the importance of evaluating and improving teacher training programs across the country. Yet in her e-mail to Mr. Van Roekel, Dr. Carlsson-Paige said she finds this message somewhat disingenuous on the part of T.F.A.
I am very familiar with TFA and believe that its short-term, minimal training of teachers undermines teacher quality and harms children who too often get an inadequate education with its teachers, the e-mail states.
more . . . http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2012/01/05/matt-damon-and-mother-reject-unions-award/
Smarmie Doofus
(14,498 posts)>>>I am very familiar with TFA and believe that its short-term, minimal training of teachers undermines teacher quality and harms children who too often get an inadequate education with its teachers, the e-mail states.>>>>
That's gotta hurt.
If it doesn't, there's more wrong w. NEA than we think.
Modern School
(794 posts)Good for Matt Damon's mom! Van Roekel is a wimpy, sellout moron and NEA is NOT a fighting union.
proud2BlibKansan
(96,793 posts)Maybe the people who pay him that salary? We can call them morons.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)It perpetuates a myth that has taken over the bogus education reform movement, which is that there currently exists a means of eradicating academic achievement differences between poor kids and affluent kids. This bogus means consists of measuring individual teacher impacts on standardized tests in math and reading, as if this is all teachers do and students learn, and as if the teacher's influence can be isolated from other variables.
This education reform movement claims, without any factual support, that poverty doesn't matter, home support doesn't matter, that the only thing that matters is teacher quality, and that there is a scientifically valid way of measuring all the things that teachers do.
Sorry, it doesn't exist.
TFA also claims, in a really ridiculous way, that one can drop inexperienced young Ivy grads into urban schools with minimal training and support for only two years, and that these newbies will have a major impact in improving student performance. Sorry, it takes longer than that to become a really good teacher, and good teachers continually improve over their careers. TFA is nothing more than the old Vista program reborn, only with much inflated claims.
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)Can I dare to dream?
Reader Rabbit
(2,621 posts)I can't tell if the union leadership is complicit or just plain stupid.
proud2BlibKansan
(96,793 posts)with Arne, Bill Gates and the PTB. And it's backfiring on them big time.
Reader Rabbit
(2,621 posts)You can't find "peace in our time" when the people you're doing business with want to destroy you.
TruthTeller
(192 posts)I keep attending convention and speaking up. I know Michigan is not on Dennis' bandwagon with TFA.
proud2BlibKansan
(96,793 posts)Just watch.