A bill signed today by Governor John Kasich will allow Teach for America to finally come to the Buckeye State.
If you’ve ever wondered why the bright, talented, young folks who join Teach for America don’t end up in Ohio, it’s been because they couldn’t — “certification barriers” existed that prevented the program from working with low-income areas in the state, according to the AP. Ohio has just as many backward, underfunded, badly managed schools as there are in… say… rural Appalachia, it’s just that Ohio also had obstacles blocking Teach for America from helping.
That changes now.
The measure will allow the State Board of Education to issue resident educator licenses to program participants assigned to Ohio. It also will require Teach For America to enter into agreements with colleges to allow participants to complete an optional master’s degree.
Rebecca Neale says the program can now start talking to communities about a possible arrival in Ohio during the 2012-13 school year.
This article appears in Apr 27 – May 3, 2011.
Given that Ohio is looking at laying off perhaps thousands of experienced, high-quality teachers, allowing these undertrained, transient amateur teachers to fill nonexistent openings and take away jobs from Ohioans is appalling and one more way Kasich is costing Ohio jobs. Only a tiny percentage of these TFA recruits stay beyond the required two years, causing churn and instability for kids who need stability the most. And they have proven no more effective – and more expensive — than beginning teachers who have committed themselves to teaching as a career. All around a very bad deal and yet another way Kasich is working to wreck education in Ohio.
Ok, let me see if I got this straight. Our fearless leader just added items to his current budget stating that all teachers in schools performing in the bottom 10% in Ohio, inner city schools primarily, will be required to retake their praxis exams at their own expense every year until their school does not perform in the bottom 10%. Now he enables TFA teachers to teach in Ohio. They will be teaching in these same schools that are performing poorly. I wonder if they will be exempt from having to retake their certification exams?