Kansas City's schools superintendent has sparked an uprising against him by the teachers' union over his plan to use select college grads trained by the organization Teach for America to improve the quality of teaching in the city's underperforming schools.
Although TFA, the national organization that recruits top college grads and trains them for a two-year stint as teachers, has worked with the Kansas City schools before, the superintendent, John Covington, recently signed an agreement that calls for between 150 and 170 TFA teachers to enter the schools next year. This follows on an aggressive push by Covington to deny tenure to Kansas City teachers that the system believes are not performing well. This year, 87 of the district's 210 non-tenured teachers have been told they will not be hired back. Instead, the district turned to TFA because in surveys Kansas City schools principals say teachers from the group improve the quality of education.
None of this sits well with the Kansas City Federation of Teachers, whose members showed up at a school board meeting wearing pink slips taped to themselves.
Although TFA, the national organization that recruits top college grads and trains them for a two-year stint as teachers, has worked with the Kansas City schools before, the superintendent, John Covington, recently signed an agreement that calls for between 150 and 170 TFA teachers to enter the schools next year. This follows on an aggressive push by Covington to deny tenure to Kansas City teachers that the system believes are not performing well. This year, 87 of the district's 210 non-tenured teachers have been told they will not be hired back. Instead, the district turned to TFA because in surveys Kansas City schools principals say teachers from the group improve the quality of education.
None of this sits well with the Kansas City Federation of Teachers, whose members showed up at a school board meeting wearing pink slips taped to themselves.
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