And who wants to bet they all make a lot more than teachers in the classroom?
It's probably not the best idea to blog after a thirsty Thursday game at theSuns, Jumbo Shrimp.
That being said I think there are some things you should know. The Jacksonville Education Fund was kind of enough to tell me how much money it had give to Teach for America Jacksonville over the last three years. It have given then 5,000,000 in Quality Education for All funds with an additional 1,250, 000 heading to them this coming June. They could not tell me what the money was used for suggesting I contact TFA Jax which I have.
A quick primer about the QEA and TFA. The QEA money comes from local philanthropists who pledged 40 million dollars over three years to help local schools.
Teach for America takes non education majors, puts them through a six week teacher book camp and then into our neediest schools where they are supposed to stay for two years.
I have many issues with TFA that I have well documented, the thing is this post is not about those issues, it's about the use of 6,250,000 QEA dollars.
Now here is the thing. The district pays for TFA salaries, benefits and training and kicked in an additional 600,000 dollars over the last three years.
yet despite that TFA needed an extra $6.250,000.
According to the TFA Jax web-site there are currently 125 corp members working in our schools. To help sever them the local TFA office has 17 staff members.
https://jacksonville.teachforamerica.org/about-us
17 Staff, that is a little over 7.3 to one ratio to help teachers who are immersed in DCPS. These teachers have their salaries paid by DCPS, they have their benefits paid by DCPS who has their training paid for by DCPS, and the same DCPS that has already paid an additional $600,000 over the last three years.
Now I am sure they would say they do lots of different things but for f%$#&s sake, are you kidding me? Is this a good investment for the QEA and our schools? Could this money have been used to hire/recruit professional teachers, people who trained to be teachers and about a million other things that would have been more helpful?
Trying to be generous I guess earnest people can disagree on the merits of TFA but can anybody really say this money was well spent?
Most high school teachers I know have 120 kids on their rosters. Other than center schools what school has a ratio of 7.3 to one staff to students?
I am nauseated and its not because of all the dollar beers I had.
It's probably not the best idea to blog after a thirsty Thursday game at the
That being said I think there are some things you should know. The Jacksonville Education Fund was kind of enough to tell me how much money it had give to Teach for America Jacksonville over the last three years. It have given then 5,000,000 in Quality Education for All funds with an additional 1,250, 000 heading to them this coming June. They could not tell me what the money was used for suggesting I contact TFA Jax which I have.
A quick primer about the QEA and TFA. The QEA money comes from local philanthropists who pledged 40 million dollars over three years to help local schools.
Teach for America takes non education majors, puts them through a six week teacher book camp and then into our neediest schools where they are supposed to stay for two years.
I have many issues with TFA that I have well documented, the thing is this post is not about those issues, it's about the use of 6,250,000 QEA dollars.
Now here is the thing. The district pays for TFA salaries, benefits and training and kicked in an additional 600,000 dollars over the last three years.
yet despite that TFA needed an extra $6.250,000.
According to the TFA Jax web-site there are currently 125 corp members working in our schools. To help sever them the local TFA office has 17 staff members.
https://jacksonville.teachforamerica.org/about-us
17 Staff, that is a little over 7.3 to one ratio to help teachers who are immersed in DCPS. These teachers have their salaries paid by DCPS, they have their benefits paid by DCPS who has their training paid for by DCPS, and the same DCPS that has already paid an additional $600,000 over the last three years.
Now I am sure they would say they do lots of different things but for f%$#&s sake, are you kidding me? Is this a good investment for the QEA and our schools? Could this money have been used to hire/recruit professional teachers, people who trained to be teachers and about a million other things that would have been more helpful?
Trying to be generous I guess earnest people can disagree on the merits of TFA but can anybody really say this money was well spent?
Most high school teachers I know have 120 kids on their rosters. Other than center schools what school has a ratio of 7.3 to one staff to students?
I am nauseated and its not because of all the dollar beers I had.
The money can be better used as bonuses/incentives for experienced teachers to teach in our most neediest schools. TFA teachers have a two year commitment, however many TFA teachers across the USA leave after the first year. No business in the world builds their business with temp employees. I am interested to know the TFA stats in Duval County and I would like to see our School Board take a closer look at their contract with TFA. In the past few years the Durham and Pittsburgh School Districts have declined to renew their contracts with TFA.
ReplyDeletein my experience, these TFA leaders are two and three year teachers. Kinda inexperienced for leadership...
ReplyDeleteThank you for investigating and sharing this. Clearing the QEA money is extremely misguided or there is a political, anti college of ed agenda they're hiding. That's an insane amount of money funneled into TFA.
ReplyDeleteQEA schools are half vet teachers enticed with big bonuses (17 to 20K a year, IF they produce the test scores) and half TFA--by design. The TFA connection is one of the areas the board is looking at for 'strategic abandonment.' The sooner, the better.
ReplyDelete