Ed writers Jay Mathews and Valerie Strauss are having a spirited debate about Teach for America and KIPP on the Washington Post Class Struggle blog. Here’s a snippet:
Mathews: One third of KIPP's teachers are TFA corps members or alumni. We both know many great teachers who came up through TFA. Don't you think our education system would be worse off without them? Strauss: My short answer to your question is not so much. Teach for America and KIPP are the darlings of the philanthropic world, as well as the U.S. Department of Education, which just awarded each of them $50 million. But they both represent small-scale thinking. ... No high performing nation in the world depends on a revolving pool of inexperienced teachers to fix its education system. Why should we? Mathews: Because we haven't come up with anything better yet...