This is for every teacher who refuses to be blamed for the failure of our society to erase poverty and inequality, and refuses to accept assessments, tests and evaluations imposed by those who have contempt for real teaching and learning.
Reading is great, joining is better - please sign in. For BATs, by BATs, we do not sell data!
BAT Store
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We have now gotten a US Made and Union shop to sell us BAT shirts in all designs at a low cost.
Bumper stickers are coming soon and we hope to add more shirt types (tank, polo) if there is interest in the t-shirts!
I don't support, like, agree with, want to help or in any way have sympathy for TFA. Never have.
But-- we have left the profession open to things like TFA and other alternative certification paths by tolerating teacher prep programs that are close to being jokes.
I don't know the answer. But I am certain of two things. Years of accepting student teachers has shown me that many of our local programs would issue a teaching certificate to any configuration of protoplasm as long as there was a pulse and the checks cleared. Second, we are alone among the professions in having no say in how colleagues join us. Nurses, doctors, lawyers, physical therapists-- they all have some oversight of the professional training programs that feed their lines of work. We've got nothing.
When people level the criticism, "What's the big deal with five weeks of training-- it's not like teacher programs provide any real useful training or preparation anyway," they are not entirely wrong. I feel we have left the door open to groups like TFA, and it's a door we need to close. I'm just not sure how to make that happen.