Teach for America

(Newser) - Like all Teach for America teachers, Olivia Blanchard made a two-year commitment to the program—but she quit after just one, and in the Atlantic she explains why. TFA's five-week training program simply can't compare to the years of training and student teaching non-TFA teachers go through—and...

(Newser) - Teach for America is opening its books on 20 years of trial and error in figuring out what makes some teachers great and others complete busts. As it screens college applicants, it now pays special attention to two characteristics: perseverance and life satisfaction. By perseverance, it means "not just...

(Newser) - Students from the nation’s elite colleges are in hot pursuit of low-paying, high-stress jobs, the Washington Post reports. Inspired by Barack Obama’s message of hope and disillusioned by a battered Wall Street, prospective graduates have boosted applications to Teach for America alone by 50%. “I don’t...

(Newser) - Barack Obama has been backing off post-partisan rhetoric on education, looking more like a stick-in-the-mud Democratic regular on schools and less like the reformer who supported test-based accountability and performance pay for teachers. The Chicagoan had bucked teachers' unions and other stodgy liberals, supporting charter schools in Illinois and mentorship...