My own experience with the Fellows has been more or less okay, I suppose. But I have a lot of reservations about recommending the Fellows to people I know who are interested in getting into teaching. This isn't the first nightmare story I've heard.
I think prospective Fellows ought to know one or two very important things; namely 1.) that the Fellowship was at least partially instituted to save the city money, not make it spend more; and 2.) You are ON YOUR OWN in that program no matter how much lip service they pay to "support." Especially once your summer or midyear training period is over. You get an e-mail address and a "good luck" and that's all you'll hear from them ever again. They don't even send out the weekly newsletters anymore.
This sounds more than a little bit like one of the recommendations that came out of the Fund the Child report that Fordham put out last year, and I think that Marguerite Roza's research at the U of Washington also can be seen here.
The theory of putting the best teachers with the best kids is indeed a wonderful theory, but trapping someone in a school that they don't want to be in any longer because of budget shenanigans is wrong.
Plus, in my experience as a new teacher at a new school, without enough vets around, no one knows what the administrators are allowed to do or not do, and we all end up getting screwed over. Most new teachers won't stand up to the principal or AP even if they have proof in the contract that we don't "have to," and new teachers are more likely to fall prey to my school's special brand of motivation: "If you really CARED about the students you'd [work more for free/ do all this crap for us / take on an unpaid extra class / put self-contained special ed. kids in your class and not whine]."
Not that I had a bad week dealing with this stuff just recently. Definitely not.
The News article (not editorial) had the audacity to call vets "disgruntled". Now that's objective reporting. Yet not once did Randi state that there are many vets walking around as super subs.
ATRs were sanctioned by her and many were stupid enough to vote for this stupidity. Yes I too would like to see poor tenured teachers get the boot, but admins say the paperwork is too hard. Well if they cared so much, they would do it.
Parents obviously want vets too. Granted I graduated from Hunter and had excellent elementary training, but the truth is that a vet used to sit with me in the teachers' room and show me how she wrote her lessons and plan book. She told me she managed to control her class. My first principal told me to be tough and not smile too much in the beginning. At first I thought how awful that advice was until I saw it was necessary. It took 3 months to get my roughest classes under control. But I was lucky because it ancient times we were allowed to take away gym and trips before some psychologists made it impossible to discipline. Children who did not do their homework, did it during gym period. Gym was also taking away is they misbehaved and I gave up many a prep period to sit with them until they realized I was not giving up. I won!
By December I would have one of the best-behaved classes in the school and homework was completed or at least attempted.
Now discipline is a dirty word. Principals are not always supportive unless the student is off the wall.
Consequences have to be revisited and forget this touchy/feely stuff about the child's self-worth. When they see a teacher cares enough to follow through, they will respond positively.
I am the original person who sent the e-mail to NYCEducator. I returned home this evening to receive this e-mail from Vicki Bernstein:
I am writing to inform you that you are no longer eligible to remain a NYC Teaching Fellow as a result of your failure to meet the requirements of the Fellowship. The Fellow Commitment Form you signed upon enrollment states that, in order to remain a Teaching Fellow, you must maintain good standing “as a participant in pre-service training through successful completion as determined by the NYC Teaching Fellows program.”
You have received an unsatisfactory final evaluation of your performance in at least one component of pre-service training. Because you have failed to meet the requirements of the Fellowship, you are being removed effective immediately and are not eligible to reapply.
I was quite offended by the tone of this e-mail. Like I said, I spent so much time talking with people at the program and asking them how I can improve, and then they write this letter and make it sound as if I am a slacker who didn't do anything and therefore screwed myself over in the program.
What about inexperienced principals? By far the biggest damage to education in NYC is from the scores of utterly incompetent principals who may never even have had actual classroom teaching experience in the grade levels they are leading, like my middle school principal who was a staff developer, literacy coach, and kindergarten teacher (for a short time a long time ago). For the first two months she refused to give suspensions and strongly discouraged detention, until student safety in the classrooms could not longer be guaranteed (worst point: eight boys jump another boy in the middle of English class, sending him to the hospital).
Emily,
Basically it's like hiring a new police officer without any training. You just give him a gun and send him out to patrol a rough neighborhood.
How any program can run without on-going training is beyond comprehension. The Fellows program must be costly, so why not invest in its participants after they've been assigned? All new teachers, not just Fellows, need professional development if they are to succeed and stay the course.
Does anyone know if TFA gives on-going training?
Long-time reader, first time commenter, but I just couldn't stay silent on this one. I, like Emily, was a Teaching Fellow who got severely dicked over.
First, though, Schoolgal--the "on-going training and support" offered to Fellows is the graduate classes, which are, ahem, hit-or-miss in their utility as actual training. (Fellows are automatically placed in one of the CUNY schools to pursue a Master's in Ed in their field.)
Now, my tale of woe, briefly. Hired as a Math Fellow Spring '05. Did summer training, no problem there. Had some trouble finding a job, but wound up in a really good school for a first-year teacher. Rough kids, but a good supportive principal and that rarest of gems, many experienced vets on the staff to give me good guidance.
I was excessed at the end of my first semester. Despite my efforts to find another job in my Region, as guaranteed by the Fellows, the only thing I could find was in a different Region. My new school was a hell-hole. I was assaulted, threatened, robbed, you name it. Very little admin support. Almost no vets in our new and small school.
I was *never* observed until *May*. I received a "U" and (after some formalities like kangaroo court 2nd and 3rd obs) was fired. All my informal obs up to that point had been positive. In that way, my situation is a bit like Emily's, in that I was assured I was doing fine in a difficult situation and then kicked out the door.
Emily, you have my sympathies. (I think you had it worse, really, since I at least got a full-year's salary.) Find a good lawyer and sue their asses.
I'm still fighting things through the UFT, but when that doesn't work, I do intend to pursue things through the courts, as this was a blatant denial of due process.
NYCEducator, you rock!
MTZ
Thanks for your kind words, MTZ. I'm very sorry to hear how you were treated. Please keep us posted on your progress and feel free to comment on anything written here.
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