UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL This Education Discretionary Grant Awards Final Audit Report, entitled Teach for America, Inc., Review of the U.S. Department of, presents the results of our audit. June 5, 2008
FINDING – TFA Was Unable to Provide Adequate Support for $774,944 of its Discretionary Grant Expenditures
“TFA could not adequately support about 50 percent of its discretionary grant expenditures that we sampled. We randomly and judgmentally sampled $1,534,290 out of the total $6,000,000 expended for the 3 discretionary grants awarded during our audit period. The sample consisted of 26 expenditures for salary and non-salary expenditures. TFA was not able to provide adequate support for 17 of these expenditures, totaling $774,944. TFA could not provide adequate supporting documentation for its charges to these grants because of significant deficiencies in its fiscal accountability controls.”
49 Applicants Win i3 Grants
The U.S. Department of Education announced Wednesday that49 districts, schools, and nonprofits beat out more than 1,600 other applicants in the competition for $650 million in grants from the Investing in Innovation, or i3, fund.
Four groups—the KIPP Foundation, Ohio State University, the Success for All Foundation, and Teach For America—won what are known as “scale up” awards worth up to $50 million each
How sweet, Wendy Kopp CEO of Teach for America and her husband Richard Barth CEO of KIPP Foundation (charter schools) wins 50 million dollars each of your federal taxdollars
Red Clay School District signs a contract with Teach or America for $300,000.00 for 6 Teach for America teaches on top of paying then scale teacher’s pay and all benefits. Also, get this ! After serving “only” a two-year commitment Teach for America teachers receive $5350.00 for each year totaling $10,700.00 from AmeriCorps a federally funded program.
Teacher for America teachers won’t be around long enough to be rated Ineffective, Effective or Highly Effective under Delaware’s new teacher evaluation program. As far as Teach for America teachers outperforming traditional teachers, the only way to prove that is via the growth model test but even so, there are variables within such as class size and impact of complexity of student subgroups.
Personally, I want teachers who make longterm commitments to serving our children not a two-year wonder who in many cases can’t get a job in their field due to the economy.
Delaware schools: A different path to teaching: Push for nontraditional educators concerns some BY NICHOLE DOBO • THE NEWS JOURNAL • DECEMBER 11, 2010
The state Department of Education says the local decision-making is part of a push to encourage schools to hire teachers who have come to the profession through nontraditional routes. But when Delaware announced plans to hire these new teachers, there was some pushback from union members who said they were concerned about their quality.
The Delaware Department of Education is full of shit ! The deals getting Teach for American were hatched by Jack Markell and ass kissing superintendents and their lets play deer in the headlights assistant superintendents. Red Clay super signs a $300,000.00 deal without going out to bid or sharing with the school board claiming it was a sole source vendor. FYI The New Teacher Project is a competitor of TFA and provides long term committed teachers not two-year wonders. However , TNTP has their internal problems. The point is the contract inspired by politics was a bad financial deal for taxpayers. Red Clay’s response was “it only federal money”. Well who in the fuck pays the it’s only federal money? Monies taken from Title 1 programs could have been better spent on parental involvement programs or teacher training beyond 6 teachers.
Now in its second year in Delaware, the program is expanding in First State schools, but there’s no way for the public to track how the teachers are helping students. Eight more schools agreed to hire the educators this fall, bringing the total to nearly 40 recruits in 13 schools and one early childhood education program
More money wasted !
The state’s teachers union supports programs that will bring more teachers into classrooms but worries about attrition rates and that Teach for America educators aren’t prepared. Every child deserves a quality teacher, and there should be high standards for entering the profession, said Pamela T. Nichols of the Delaware State Education Association.
“For us, when we look at Teach for America as one of Delaware’s alternative routes,” Nichols said, “we ask: Are these teachers prepared to be successful, and will they stay?”
Most don’t stay and in fact the districts are told told not to share information in regards to Teach for America teachers quiting!
Parents should be concern about school districts and charter schools putting under-trained and uncertified teachers teaching their children. Most Teach for America teachers are placed in high poverty and high minority schools. I guess the feeling is poor black parents won’t resist to using social experiments on their children. Righteous community leaders are too f’ing clueless to she that their community children are once again undeserved. Let’s be clear here, some of these young Teach for America teachers do get inspired to stay in education but should poor black students be a test bed for such a social experiment. What about the rights of Title 1 parents under Title 1 Section 1118? Did they approve such programs?
In Delaware, 18 of the original 23 members of the first round returned this fall for a second year.
But will they return for a third and forth? What happen to the students of the 5 that didn’t return? Can those parents sue for malpractice
The state has been waiting to do a comparison because the program is so new, said Wayne Barton, the director of teacher and administrator quality in the state Department of Education. Waiting a few years will help the state gather more information, which will allow a better opportunity to have a quality measure, he said.
The state skews data to cover their ass. Real assuring that DEDOE will handle the study!
In the meantime, the educators are reviewed yearly just like any other teacher using student test score data and classroom monitoring, Cruce said. The state, in partnership with the University of Delaware, also uses surveys to gauge the staffing needs of schools and attrition rates of all teachers, he said. In January, a report is expected that will tackle first-year teachers.
And in comes DOE Dan the charter school buster! Yea DOE Dan, the U of D gave a report waring about DSTP and teaching to the test and DOE and Dave Sokola shit in their face.
The state’s Race to the Top grant outlines a plan that will allow the state to better track how all teacher preparation programs are working. It will be a useful measure, said Paul Herdman, president of the education-oriented Rodel Foundation of Delaware
I am sorry my bad, I didn’t know Rodel put their seal of approval on Teach for America. Race to The Top ?? Is that code word for Vision 2015? Paul when is Rodel going to open their own charter schools and show us how it is really done? Like NEVER !
“We should be able to track this and report back on how well each of our schools of education has done,” Herdman said.
Yea track black children like lab rats! Are you going to tell the parents their children are being used as social rats. Perhaps parents don’t want their children to be part of this social experiment driven by a bunch of with rich businessman. TFA is not a mandated program and is nothing more than a social experiment. Surely Rodel and DEDOE will have parent survey many parents will be clueless about.
To pay for recruitment, selection and professional development of the recruits, districts and charter schools pay $10,000 a year for each of the two years. Another $10,000 is kicked in by the Rodel Foundation, the Longwood Foundation and others from the business community
Hello paul, each school district has an HT department that does the hiring in conjunction with senior and building administrators. Also, school districts and DEDOE have professional development staff. Why are we adding to overhead cost? Are you suggest DEDOE is not equipped in professional development?
While Teach for America isn’t thought to be a “silver bullet,” getting data on how the teachers are performing will help track the investment, Herdman said.
Yea Paul not silver but were paying out the ass for all of this and you think that bullet was made of gold!
Why is Teach for America teachers sound like young people yielding to the call of social responsibility for the sake of the community have to be baited with a $10,500.00 bonus and traditional teachers making the same pay and benefits do so without added monetary rewards? $10,500.00 x the number of TFA in a given school could go a long way in providing more classroom supplies and parental involvement programs. If we’re so willing to invest money in untrained non-education trained teachers why not invest in untrained parents. Parents aren’t a two-year deal but a lifetime deal.
Delaware has many many many amazing traditional public school teachers who are under attack by the business round-table who are bent on destabilizing organized labor. The Delaware Department of Education is a servant to the business round-table and it was the business round-table who delivered DSTP. Jack Markell is an agent of this group and has benefited with major political campaign financial contributions.
Jack Markell will go down in Delaware history as the worst governor on education.
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Awesome post, Kilroy!!
Your link to the wnj story is invalid, btw
A very weak, very weak effort by Nicole….again… she didn’t do much more than cheerlead for Danny boy.
I have been reading through his antics during the Moyer Academy renewal process. Dan Cruce and Lillian Lowery are definately guilty of throwing the kids and the school under the bus. For Shame.
Link fixed thanks
Moyer was a sacrificial RTTT lamb for the sake of Jack Markell.
Yup, I am going back over the hearings and meetings and it is a total sham bum’s rush of lies. The evidence is clear that the State lied. Cruce lied his ass off. Moyer was delivered on a platter to Markell and Duncan with an apple up its nose.
Holy hell this is one effed up shit sandwich. Kilroy: Your dot-connecting is invaluable. My head is spinning.
Unfortunately attrition rate is a problem overall, this is made worst by the fact over 60 percent of our new teachers every year are not hired until August of later.
Hiring of highly qualified teachers is not a priority for the decision makers above the school level. How many administrators are hired in August or later?
ALL CSD admins hve to go back through DPAS II training because none of them have any idea what they’re doing so says Freeman Williams.
This means all CSD evaulations are to be thrown out for this year to date.
Voucher’s are the only chance left for the kids.
The incompetence is mind boggling.
If anyone needs an improvement plan it’s the admin and main office and DOE, not the teachers.
DOE’s Dan slickness is starting run out. I’m told he’s angling for a RCCSD sinecure.
NBH: Are you serious about them having to throw out all DPAS II evals in Christina? That’s amazing.
Why are you on this vouchers kick?
The CSD throwing out the eval’s is gospel truth.
The system is so broken only voucher’s can give kids a chance.
The gov’t run school’ are on par with the USSR in the 60′s.
“The system is so broken only voucher’s can give kids a chance”
But what happens to the kids where parents don’t apply for voucher ?? All kids should have equal chance
You need to explain how vouchers would work in Delaware schools and why vouchers would cause everything to improve so radically.
Me, I don’t see how they would work equitably and if not equitable forget it.
We live in an imperfect world. No system will help everyone but voucher;s would give to more an opportunity to escape the chaos found in government run school’s.
With 3 exceptions charter’s are just like gov’t school’s but with a voucher you get to attend school’s that are well run and have high standards.
The goal and mission of public education is to help everyone and I Am concerned about those students who have no advocate that would help them take advantage of a voucher system. Traditional public Schools will end up all high poverty students and students whose parents don’t give a rat’s ass.
Also, as I said every parent of every child currently in a private school would want the same compensation. Taxes would go up.
Before I would jump on the voucher bandwagon I want to see Delaware charter school laws changed to have open admission wit no test or so-called placement test. Just the same process for traditional public schools.
We the poor themselves rise and demand vouchers rather then the more affluent who don’t want their children attending any public school but want the state to compensate them I might consider changing my views.
New Challenges for Obama’s Education Agenda in the Face of a G.O.P.-Led House
By SAM DILLON
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/us/politics/12education.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
WASHINGTON — For two years, backed by a friendly Congress and flush with federal stimulus money, President Obama’s administration enjoyed a relatively obstacle-free path for its education agenda, the focus of which is the $4 billion Race to the Top grant program.
But with Republican deficit hawks taking control of the House next month, Education Secretary Arne Duncan will no longer have billions of dollars to use at his discretion.
The administration is also having to recalibrate its goals for working with Congress to overhaul the main federal law on public schools. Fortunately for the administration, its ambitions for the law, the Bush-era No Child Left Behind effort, are shared by Representative John Kline, a Minnesota Republican who will be the chairman of the House education committee.
“It doesn’t matter who I’m talking to — everybody has complaints about N.C.L.B.,” said Mr. Kline, who would oversee any revision of the law by the House. “So we’d love to fix it.”
Mr. Kline and Mr. Duncan said in separate interviews that they had a good working relationship, and they appeared to agree on some major changes to the law, like overhauling its school accountability system.
Because it requires every student to be proficient in math and reading by 2014, the system has already labeled thousands of schools as failing, often because disabled students or recent immigrants have been unable to pass state tests.
“Unless we change the law, it’ll label every school in the country a failure, even though there are lots of phenomenal schools out there,” Mr. Duncan said.
Mr. Kline echoed those concerns. “We’ve got a law that’s out there affecting schools in a negative way,” he said. “So absolutely, the law’s accountability system will have to change.”
Mr. Kline said he hoped to foster bipartisan cooperation. “Let me hasten to say that that doesn’t mean we won’t disagree — perhaps on many things,” he said. “But if you don’t work together, you won’t get a product that’s acceptable to the American people.”
Dozens of major education groups representing teachers, principals, superintendents, school boards, businesses and civil rights groups are urging Congress and the Obama administration to rewrite the law.
“Our school systems are under tremendous pressure because of its flaws,” said Eugene Wilhoit, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, which represents the 50 state school superintendents. “Are we at the point of implosion? I don’t know, but we need to rewrite it.”
Still, because of the divided Congress and Washington’s competing priorities, Mr. Wilhoit said that many of his colleagues doubted that Congress would succeed in reworking the law next year. An attempt at a major revision collapsed in 2007.
The No Child Left Behind law is the latest version of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which channels federal money to disadvantaged schools. It has been updated several times in a process known as reauthorization.
But the 2001 rewrite, which President George W. Bush named No Child Left Behind, expanded federal power by requiring annual standardized testing and greatly extending the law’s oversight of state education agencies and local school districts.
During the 2008 campaign, Mr. Obama criticized the quality of the standardized tests that had proliferated under the law. But since his election, his administration’s focus has been Race to the Top, which Mr. Duncan used to further expand federal influence, dangling the $4 billion in grants before the states to persuade them to eliminate caps on charter schools, overhaul teacher evaluation and tenure systems and undertake other measures that fit Mr. Obama’s vision.
Mr. Kline said he wanted to scale back Washington’s role.
“Governors, superintendents, the school boards, the principals — they’re saying the federal government has gotten too deeply entrenched in the schools,” he said.
If the philosophical divide between Republicans and the administration appears deep, Mr. Kline insists that members of his committee’s staff from both parties are already working with administration officials to identify parts of the law that may be relatively easy to change.
“As you’re working, you say, ‘Look at this — Republicans and Democrats already agree — maybe we should just step up and fix it,’ ” he said.
Last year, the administration issued its blueprint for the law, which included maintaining the required annual reading and math tests. Among the sweeping revisions, though, was a proposal to replace the pass-fail school grading system with one based more on whether students were showing academic improvement, not just on how many were proficient.
It also proposed replacing the law’s requirement that all teachers have valid credentials with a requirement that states develop evaluation procedures to identify effective instructors, based partly on student test scores.
Mr. Duncan and a White House official said that despite the Republican takeover of the House, they still hoped the blueprint would guide the legislative overhaul. But Mr. Kline said he told Mr. Duncan that the House would not enact the blueprint.
“The conversation with Arne was — not to be too blunt about it — that we’ve got to work with what we have here, a split Congress and a Democrat in the White House,” Mr. Kline said. “We don’t get to just say, ‘This is what we want,’ and it magically becomes law. Some of these things are going to be hard.”
The fate of Race to the Top remains uncertain. The administration has requested $1.35 billion to continue the program. Last week, the lame-duck Democratic-led House approved $550 million, and the Senate has approved a similar amount. Experts said that level of financing would not inspire as much enthusiasm among states as $4 billion did.
Mr. Kline said he opposed any additional financing and might hold hearings on how Mr. Duncan decided to give chunks of the $4 billion to some states and not to others. “I’d like to have somebody come explain to me how that worked, because there are a lot of questions out there,” Mr. Kline said.
So the money train is ending faster then we thought. Bad news for Jack & crew.
Can ANYONE explain to me the cachet behind a TFA teacher? What do they posess that is so wonderful or powerful?
Outside of being cheap to hire I don’t see what the attraction is.
Kilroy – how do post a guest column on here? Yes it’ll be about vouchers.
Thanks.
For some reason the reformists that supports TFA feel that the two-year wonders are so full of energy and bright they could overcome lack of experience and out perform traditional teachers.
Also think about this. If you have 25% of your teaching staff on a two-year revolving door that 25% of teachers no in the pension pool. Kind of like outsourcing. Also there is a notion that when a teacher gets up there in age they are less motivated and less productive. Productivity in teaching = student achievement. The ant brains in the business round-table want to use a business model that rotates the employee crops. Out with the old in with the new.
I am sure Markell and DOE Dan would love to see 100 TFA very soon so they can manufacture a study between TFA and traditional teachers.
In the business world we don’t train out replacement and we don’t share tricks of the trade. Cold is it may sound as a teacher I wouldn’t do shit to help a TFA teacher beyond requirements. It’s not their fault but neither is the 15 year old fight Americans in the battle field. They saying its for the kids cuts both ways. If we feel TFA is bad for the kids then we must oppose them in anyway including to let them drown in the classroom. Why hold hands to help a organization out to fuck you?
We need teachers to invest themselves in our communities for the long term. But no we don’t need ineffective teachers.
The real goal is to undermine and demoralize the teachers union and break their political backs. The Democrats are actually doing what the Republicans want! Once the Teachers union goes down the other trades will fail and so will prevailing wages.
“Kilroy – how do post a guest column on here? Yes it’ll be about vouchers.”
Put it together and E-mail it to me at kilroywashere@comcast.net or post in in this comment section and I’ll copy and past into a post and put posted by nativebluehen
Duncan was given a 6 billion dollar discretionary out of the recovery act that was meant to save or create jobs. RTTT funds were not part of any RTTT legislation because their is not RTTT legislation.
He used this money to bait states that are so hard up for revenues their governors are willing to crawl to Washington in knee pads like Markell did. But Markell was given an added bonus. He is part of the network of reformists via his relationship with Rodel and Chirs Coons is on that wagon. RTTT has given Rodel’s Vision 2015 $$$ CPR and as you see Markell hired Rodel clones at DEDOE
Money is drying up but do make not Newt Gingrich was part of Duncan RTTT dream team as well as Jeb Bush and sell out Sharpton. 18% of all federal education dollars goes toward administrative cost and how much is 18% of 4.5 billion dolllars? All this money and no formula change in teacher student unit allocation.
We have administrators in place via NCLB and not RTTT on top of that. If they take NCLB and model into a RTTT type program there would be very little funding increase above NCLB numbers. However, there is danger of shifting from formula based funding. No child should be left out because schools and states don’t conform to a grant application that is driven by reformist who want to privatize public education.
The reach of the federal government has gone to far and needs to stop, The money they give us is “ours” not the governments nor is it the business round-tables. Rodel kicks in some $$ for TFA for recruitment and so-called training . But they do not help with paying the TFA.
Arne Duncan bag full of candy is empty
NBH: TFA is not “cheap to hire.”
They cost much more than hiring a fully trained, credentialed, qualified teacher. Every single TFA gets the standard teacher salary and standard teacher benefit package, just like any other teacher. PLUS, the distirct must pay an extra $10,000 fee per TFA corps member per year. So the first six TFA in Red Clay cost the district an additional $60,000. They did not have to pay an additional assessment to hire Ms. Smith who just graduated as a trained teacher from the University of Delaware.
This year, Red Clay is paying $120,000 for the 12 TFA they have, in addition to the local salary portion, benefits and other employment costs (OEC’s).
Why would you think they were cheaper? Oh, because the NJ repeatedly fails to disclose this information? In an article in 2009, they referred to the new TFA as volunteers three times in the same article.
And don’t forget the overhead cost of professional development all teachers receive. It all stinks and it was a political scheme and we know it! Merv needs to end this ass kissing program once it expires and not extent it.
I do have a FOIA request out !
One more thing: any and all of our (RCEA’s and my) disagreements with and criticisms of TFA are aimed at the organization itself. I have made this clear from the very first time I spoke out against TFA at the April, 2009 school board meeting, and again at the June 1009 meeting. It ain’t the corps members–it’s the group that manages and manipulates Teach for America. There are currently two cohorts of TFA corps members in Red Clay schools–a total of twelve people in the past two years. Some of them are members of the RCEA-DSEA-NEA unions. I wish them well, and we fully support them in their efforts to become effective teachers and to pursue teaching as a career.
This part of a comment I made in another post responding to Jack
“The board passed new policy the puts checks and balances in place when it comes to sole source contracts over $50,000.00. However, nothing is stopping the super from signing a one year contract for $40,000.00 that could but 4 TFA as put provisions in for extensions. The super needs to end this TFA game and support community base invested Red Clay teachers. The board needs to take a position on this issue and make it clear to the super. If he does not like it them “goodbye””
TFA can be an alternate road to certification and I not warm on the idea but am OK. HOWEVER, I don’t want revolving door teachers. We need teachers who invest in their community as they’ve done for the last 200 years. Yes some are members and bless those who join our community. But the TFA financial arrangement must end and be no more!
The bullshit coming from admin “its only federal money” is bullshit because we are federal taxpayers and that Title 1 money $300,000.00 could be better served training the most important teacher in a child’s life, PARENTS.
RCEA DSEA & NEA have went along to get along and now the foxes are in the hen-house.
TFA was Bob’s thing and Merv claims he is not Bob! We’ll see ! He needs to end TFA once the contract expires.