Teach For America, Wendy Kopp's very visible nonprofit which sends some 5,000 new high-ranking college graduates into our nation's public schools annually to teach, has won plenty of plaudits and produced some notable graduates, including Newark public schools superintendent Cami Anderson and Michelle Rhee, former chancellor of the Washington, D.C. schools system. But education professor Nancy Carlsson-Paige of Lesley University doesn't think much of TFA, and so neither does her son, actor Matt Damon.
Damon, who showed up at a teachers' march on Washington last summer and spoke in support of the organizers' agenda, which included opposing education reform efforts and demanding higher pay, was set to receive an award from the National Education Association until NEA President Dennis Van Roekel co-authored an op-ed in USA Today with Kopp about improving teacher quality. Damon's mother, a strident opponent of education reform (see How Corporate Education Reforms Are Harming Children), objected to the collaboration and in a letter to Van Roekel said that "because of your collaboration with TFA, it would not be wise for me or for Matt to be nominated for the Friend of Education Award. I regret this turn of events."
Van Roekel responded: "I believe NEA should talk to those who support public education, even if we don't agree on everything, and work together to serve students."
Van Roekel responded: "I believe NEA should talk to those who support public education, even if we don't agree on everything, and work together to serve students."
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