Category Archives: tfa rants

Bait-and-Switch For America

Posted on November 5, 2014 by garyrubinstein

It’s that time of year again when the first crop of new TFA recruits receive their acceptance letters. Over the past year, TFA has taken quite a deserved beating in social media.  Its been so bad that they have created … Continue reading →

Posted in Teach For America, tfa rants | 7 Comments

TFA tries, yet fails, to honor teachers

Posted on July 20, 2014 by garyrubinstein

Last week TFA held their annual educator’s conference in Las Vegas. TFA claims that 2/3 of the 30,000 alumni are still ‘in education’ so one would expect this event to have quite a turnout. My understanding is that about 1,000 … Continue reading →

Posted in tfa rants, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Advice to the 2014 TFA Corps Members

Posted on June 12, 2014 by garyrubinstein

Please allow me to introduce myself.  I’m Gary Rubinstein, TFA Houston 1991.  Yes, that’s a long time ago.  You likely were born in 1992 so I was doing TFA before you were born.  That doesn’t mean that I’m necessarily smarter … Continue reading →

Posted in Teach For America, tfa rants | 33 Comments

‘What’s Next? at TFA’ webcast. Spoiler alert: More of the same

Posted on March 5, 2014 by garyrubinstein

TFA has been recently taking a beating in social media.  Whether in response to this, or if it is just something that’s been planned for a while, the two co-CEOs Elisa Villanueva-Beard and Matt Kramer were part of a live … Continue reading →

Posted in Teach For America, tfa rants | Tagged | 22 Comments

Open Letters To ‘D-List’ Reformers I Know. Part 1: Justin ‘Juice’ Fong

Posted on February 23, 2014 by garyrubinstein

A little over a year ago, I wrote a series of open letters to ‘reformers’ I’ve known throughout the years.  I was not surprised that the majority of them did not respond.  On average, they each are making over $350K … Continue reading →

Posted in Open Letters Series, tfa rants | 11 Comments

Open Letters To ‘B-List’ Reformers I Know. Part 2: Elisa Villanueva-Beard and Matt Kramer

Posted on December 31, 2013 by garyrubinstein

On February 12, 2013, founder and long time CEO of TFA, Wendy Kopp, stepped down.  Two new co-CEOs were appointed, Elisa Villanueva-Beard and Matt Kramer. Elisa was a 1998 corps member and Matt had never taught.  Both were working as … Continue reading →

Posted in Open Letters Series, tfa rants | Tagged | 13 Comments

My advice to TFA staffers: Quit For America

Posted on November 15, 2013 by garyrubinstein

The organization of TFA is a bit like a pyramid scheme.  There are a bunch of VPs who are making a lot of money for a non-profit, certainly six figures.  Then there are the majority of staffers, people who work … Continue reading →

Posted in Teach For America, tfa rants | 25 Comments

New TFA Miracle Claims

Posted on November 5, 2013 by garyrubinstein

Today TFA released their annual letter.  Looking at the announcement of the letter on their website, I saw this image, which shows all the aspects of TFA’s influence, though, to me, it looks a lot like what you see on … Continue reading →

Posted in Research, tfa rants | 5 Comments

You always know just what to say

Posted on September 26, 2013 by garyrubinstein

Over the last few weeks I’ve noticed a change in strategy in the way many ‘reformers’ have been presenting themselves publicly.  It seems that they have begun to realize, especially with the release of the new Ravitch book, that the … Continue reading →

Posted in Teach For America, tfa rants | 14 Comments

How I teach 2.6 months more of math in a year than the rest of you slackers

Posted on September 20, 2013 by garyrubinstein

A report was recently released which according to some TFA defenders “settles the issue” about the effectiveness of Teach For America teachers.  By comparing the standardized test scores of TFA teachers with varying amounts of experience to non-TFA teachers teaching … Continue reading →

Posted in Research, tfa rants, TFA teacher effectiveness, top posts | 25 Comments