Monthly Archives: December 2012

Open Letters To Reformers I Know. Part 8: Wendy Kopp

Links to the rest of this series here My ‘open letter’ series culminates with this letter to the founder of Teach For America, Wendy Kopp.  I suppose that I’ve ‘known’ Wendy for twenty-one years as I first spoke to her … Continue reading

Posted in Open Letters Series, tfa rants, top posts | 41 Comments

The Silence Of The (Sacrificial) Lambs

Of the nearly 6,000 new TFA corps members who have just completed half of their first year of teaching, very few have posted on teachforus about how their first years are going.  I think I’ve seen about five or six … Continue reading

Posted in Teach For America | 101 Comments

Open Letters To Reformers I Know. Part 7: Michelle Rhee

Links to the rest of this series here I first met Michelle Rhee, the reformer’s reformer, back in the summer of 1996.  At the time I was working for the TFA summer institute in Houston.  Though I was one year … Continue reading

Posted in Open Letters Series | 19 Comments

Open Letters To Reformers I Know. Part 6: Chris Barbic

Links to the rest of this series here Tennessee is one of the reformer hotspots.  The commissioner of Education there is a TFA alum, and Michelle Rhee’s ex-husband Kevin Huffman.  I know him a bit, too, but my letter will … Continue reading

Posted in Open Letters Series | 38 Comments

Open Letters FROM Reformers I Know. Part 1: Michael Johnston

Links to the rest of this series here Here is a response from Michael Johnston (I told you that I know these people!), the first response I’ve gotten from my open letters.  You can read my letter to him here. … Continue reading

Posted in Open Letters Series | 16 Comments

Open Letters To Reformers I Know. Part 5: Jon Schnur

Links to the rest of this series here Though I’ve complained for a few years that TFA alumni get more respect than they deserve, I’m also very aware that as an alum, myself, I too have benefited from my pedigree. … Continue reading

Posted in Open Letters Series | 6 Comments

Wendy Fails ‘The Giggle Test’

‘The Giggle Test’ is an expression coined in the late 1980’s.  As a lawyer contemplates whether or not to make a legal argument, he should avoid any argument that he won’t be able to make without immediately giggling afterwards.  A … Continue reading

Posted in Teach For America | 15 Comments

Open Letters To Reformers I Know. Part 4: Timothy Daly

Links to the rest of this series here In the summer of 2001 I found, on the TFA website, a summer job description for something called ‘The New York City Teaching Fellows.’  It was a branch of something called ‘The … Continue reading

Posted in Open Letters Series | 9 Comments

Open Letters To Reformers I Know. Part 3: Michael Johnston

Links to the rest of this series here In the early days of TFA, when the size of the corps each year was fewer than 1000, it was a pretty small world.  Unlike now where 6,000 new TFAers attend about … Continue reading

Posted in Open Letters Series | 11 Comments

Why does the ‘worst’ NYC high school have better SATs than the ‘best’ NYC high school

My father, the occasionally high profile defense attorney Ronald Rubinstein, graduated from Samuel J. Tilden High School in Brooklyn in 1956.  Fifty years later, the NYC DOE began the process of phasing out the school and replacing it with three … Continue reading

Posted in Research | 22 Comments