Talk:Teach For America/Archive 1

copy vio

This page was copied into the article. I deleted it. Jd2718 (talk) 11:22, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for catching this! // Btriple7 (talk) 19:03, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

User:TFAOnline

I'm concerned that User:TFAOnline is someone involved in the staff of Teach for America, and is editing the article. All edits by this user should be checked for accuracy and neutrality. Anthony Hit me up... 14:49, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

>> The edits from TFAOnline appear to be innocuous and fact-based, which is within the bounds of Wikipedia policy. What should be changed to eliminate your perception of COI? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.105.48.187 (talk) 16:27, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

The displayed COI tag reads "A major contributor to this article appears to have a conflict of interest with its subject" (my italics). It seems quite a stretch to regard TFAOnline's contribuions to this article as major. Does FutureNJGov have a personal axe to grind here? MikkiPedia (talk) 18:10, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

• I have no personal axe, and to assume off the bat that I would reeks of defensive posturing. I was merely commenting that I wanted to make sure that the article wasn't a puff piece being pushed by the organization's staff. Neutrality is the lynchpin of this site, and if there was an article on me, I wouldn't touch it for fear of dealing with COI issues. I perused the article and its history, and saw a potential issue. I alerted other users to this issue. I have neither the time nor the inclination to go through every single edit by every user to find a conflict; I merely point out obvious concerns and leave the system to its own devices. Do with it what you will. Anthony Hit me up... 21:03, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I've looked over TFAOnline's edits, they don't seem biased, removing tag. 24.148.2.152 (talk) 18:08, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

• In all the circumstances, a wise decision. MikkiPedia (talk) 17:36, 15 March 2009

• I guess Wikipedia does attract loose cannons! Good that there are some common-sense folks around, too. 32.158.137.174 (talk) 19:26, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Not Neutral?

Teach for America is building the movement to eliminate educational inequity in the United States through short-term and long-term methods. In the short-term, they recruit the best college senior from all majors, training them, and placing them in low income rural and urban school districts across the country for two years. In the long-term, alumni go on to become lifelong leaders to make the systematic changes needed to address educational inequity.

The organization was founded by Wendy Kopp in 1989 during her senior year at Princeton University. Her book One Day, All Children... details the history of the organization.

doesn't seem quite neutral...aaaa

This doesn't seem to offer any criticism/analysis of the program. Selachophile 02:41, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree, and I know several TFA teachers and prospective teachers who vouch for the fact that, while well-intended, the program functions in many ways as unqualified teachers reaching out to students they don't understand how to reach (due to no background in education, race/sociology, etc). According to them, a great number of TFA teachers come across as hoping very much to do good, but neither the teachers nor the program take the time or make the effort to address these problems and the nature of the "rich reaching out to the poor" dynamic of this system, nor the racial and social aspects thereof. Now, this is just my secondhand account of people's experiences, but I'm aware that some criticism exists, and if there is any more academic or reputable accounts of such criticism, I'd love to see it (and of course, if it's not clear, I don't mean to detract from the program or say it's bad in any way, I'm just trying to contribute to the article and to a better understanding of it). The article certainly isn't nonNPOV right now, it seems to be fairly neutral in presentation, but if a certain perspective or analysis of the program is missing, it should be here if we can find it. Cheeser1 07:20, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I served as a TFA Corps Member 2000 in Baltimore for one year of my two year 'commitment'. I left after a year of teaching in Baltimore because I felt that TFA sent me ill prepared into the classroom, and once I was there offered me little support. I left feeling a complete failure and sensing that I'd made little difference to the lives of my students. What I needed to know when entering the classroom was how to effectively discipline, how to communicate with and engage young people, and how to include families in education who were from a very different culture to my own. The TFA 'bootcamp' did little to prepare me for any of these needs: this probably isn't surprising considering it lasted all of 5 weeks.

I still work in the field of education, and I continue to share TFA's visions. However, I feel that TFA is so struck by its own genius that it fails to put the same energy it spends in promoting itself and recruiting more and more students each year into its existing services. I feel TFA would do better to focus on its existing teachers and programs, ensuring they are receiving support, encouragement and assistance to do a job that is incredibly difficult. Instead, each year TFA take on more and more cities and regions in which to develop their work.

The Teach For America response to the Stanford Study has either been moved within or removed from the official TFA website. Does anyone have another reference for it? For now, I'm removing the link. MissLeighding 13:02, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

  Bodhisattvaspath • Talk • Contribs   18:10, 26 May 2009 (UTC): I agree that the article is not written from a neutral point of view. All of the "counter arguments" to the effectiveness of TFA have been removed, save one. Even others are apparently (?) misrepresented. It is heavily biased toward TFA being the most effective teaching program. See this article, this article, this series of articles and the Stanford Study of 2004 that has mysteriously disappeared from the "Educational Impact" section (and the external link at the bottom is broken). You've got a 3-to-1 ratio of praise to criticism on its effectiveness, which certainly indicates a bais.

Since these posts, a Criticism section has been added. The studies and other information included throughout the article are factual. Can we remove the "not neutral" label or identify some places where the neutrality is an actual issue and address it? ---- User, 22 October 2009