Talk:Teach For America

message: Should there be a section added about motivations for college students to join TFA, as well as for a school to sign a contract with them? Not sure if this is necessary, just an idea. It's my first time using Wikipedia as an editor, so I'm sorry if I do something wrong. Thanks!
  Mpaap1010 24:06, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Motivations

message: As this article now contains a Criticism section, this discussion on the neutrality of the article has been archived and can be found in Archive 1. If you wish to add further comments/concerns about the neutrality of this article, you may do so below on the main talk page, but please give specific citations from the article and provide sources if necessary. Thank you! //// Btriple7 (talk) 18:55, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not neutral? 

message: It seems to me that "Debate over educational impact" could be shortened to "Educational impact".  Is it really necessary to frame this in terms of a "debate"?  From what I can tell, the most controversial study about Teach For America is the questionable one in which first year TFA teachers are not shown to perform better than experienced non-TFA teachers (no surprise there).  The other studies seem pretty bland too, on both sides.  So why are we hyping up the "debate" instead of pulling everything we can find on TFA's educational impact.  I'm curious to know what others think about this.Obietom (talk) 19:39, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the sentence "The study's statistical models used a large number of variables (17) and produced moderate R-Squared statistics (0.43 to 0.68)" in the section about the Stanford study. I have no idea what that sentence means. The fact that I'd have to do some research to figure it out indicates that it probably doesn't belong here.Flyte35 (talk) 18:59, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Excellent logic!  Could you please clean up the Fourier transform article?  We need a non-mathematician to remove some stuff there too.  Afterall, WP:NOT supports your excellent editorial work 65.41.148.101 (talk) 19:18, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Headings 

message: It should be noted that TFA charges districts a fee for placing teachers because TFA assumes the expense of screening candidates.   Districts that hire TFA teachers must pay the fee (I don't know if $5,000 is accurate, but it seems like it could be) but, in turn, the districts don't have to pay for advertising an opening or interviewing applicants. 
I just think that should be added to the article.  As it stands now, a reader might get the impression that TFA charges the fee without a reasonable justification.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.234.148.73 (talk) 03:22, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  $5,000 charge for placing a teacher in an impoverished district 

message: In our country that aspires so admirably to be a place of equal opportunity, so where you're born does so very much to determine your educational prospects and in turn your life prospects, we cancel this problem.  
 --founder<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAm9TuTm5hU> 
By this logic, if I become a dentist and get married, wait 5 years and have a family and start setting aside $1500/year for my kids college fund, and I drive a private jet, that my child should have no better educational prospects than a single mother having her 5th child (and of course what if she doesn't take prenatal vitamins or doesn't avoid drugs/alcohol; and if my baby's mama does everything perfect)?  
#People do not decide to be born
#People do not decide where to be born
#People may or may not decide whether their mother consumes alcohol during the pregnancy, its not entirely clear.
It is usually the parents choice.  If the parents make good family planning decisions, then the children will benefit.  If the expectant mother drinks alcohol and lives in poverty, how can one argue that the child should have equal educational prospects if that child is born with fetal alcohol syndrome?  Why shouldn't those babies who fall under category 3 be given the same opportunity as the child who decides to have a father that drives a private jet?  
I think teach for america is great, and considered it myself because my friend joined and told me how great it was going to be.  He said it was overall a good experience, but that his kids weren't motivated and he didn't know how to motivate them well.  He said he would still do it again because he couldn't think of those kids having zero chance at all, at least he was able to give some of them hope.  One of his students got some kind of fancy governor's award and he said that was a very proud moment.
I think some people shouldn't be allowed to have kids, those who dump them off to society to take care of and have their hand out.  But if you punish these innocent kids, you also punish those who may have lost a father in the war and a $10,000 life insurance policy isn't enough to keep the mom from being in poverty.  
Good program, but the overall logic of it is a bit too much hard-selling.  The article is not neutral. 65.41.148.101 (talk) 19:13, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  equal opportunity vs social equality? 

message: is it fair use to grab the videos and re-up them?  All i want to do is enable the comments section because the youtube videos are highly POV and also this article is identical to the youtube videos in content.  15% of people quit after one year.  That means 15,000 alumni is 85% of some other number.  That some other number is the number who started.  3,000 people have quit.  That means for every 5 people who finish it, 1 person quits.  (most people would multiply 15% by 15,000 to derive how many people quit, but you actually have to multiply 15,000 by the inverse of .85, and then subtract 15,000)
This play on numbers is the same way a 12.5 ounce bottle of shampoo can get away with saying 25% more than our old 10 ounce bottle.  Or sunny delight sports drink going from 4% real juice to 5% real juice and saying "now 25% more serving of fruits in every glass".  
TFA came to our career fair, and I kinda feel bad that I almost joined and didn't know all this stuff ahead of time.  If I was told that 15% of people quit after one year, I definitely would have known it wasn't for me.  
That 15% number isn't the number of people who wanted to quit, but was the number who literally had to break their obligation and walk away.  My friend was one of those who wanted to quit, but stuck around since he already invested 50% of the commitment.  It would be my guess that 30% of people wanted to quit after the first year, but half felt guilty about it and stuck around since its wrong to help out a charity and then ditch them when they are counting on you.  Plus those helpless kids are counting on you, so those people who quit are the 15% who not only ditched TFA, but also ditched the same kids which they originally wanted to help.  Also, in 2004 there was a $6,000 per year bonus for joining.  Anyone else offered that too? 65.41.148.101 (talk) 19:58, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The youtube videos don't let you say anything bad about them 

message: Does anyone else reading this entry feel like they're reading the TFA website?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.15.27.71 (talk) 20:42, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Hey.... if you have some negative info to post (with references) to balance the article out, please do so. 70.91.99.186 (talk) 22:40, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Was the fee referenced? Find a source for the fee and put it back in. 24.136.23.152 (talk) 00:02, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Propaganda Piece?

message: Many people are criticizing the effect TFA has on children who see teachers change quickly.  Can we get a criticism section?
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I agree.  The program has come under criticism from some high profile people in education, yet the article makes no mention of this.  I've just added a criticism section.  It is currently based almost exclusively on one article from the USA today, and does not talk about issues such as poor retention rates or the perception that some have that TFA is overstepping its bounds in the political arena.  So I think that this new section could probably be expanded and/or cleaned up some.
JohnnyGrungetta (talk) 17:59, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism?  

message: So, the "Retention" section no longer gives information on the actual retention rate of the program (i.e. what percentage of volunteers actually complete their two years).  It appears that on January 10, 2010, a user edited this section to try to give more "up-to-date" figures on drop out rates.  The editor cited the following article (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/04/education/04teach.html) which covers a study that compared 1538 graduates of the TFA program, 324 dropouts and 634 nonmatriculants.  From these numbers, the editor concluded that "Approximately 17 percent of each Teach For America corps class leaves before completing their two-year commitment," because 324/(1538+324) equals roughly 17.4%.  This statement replaced the older dropout rate information previously included in the article.  However, the cited article only states that 324 dropouts and 1538 graduates were surveyed, not that these are the total numbers of dropouts/graduates for a given period of time, so these numbers can't truly be used to calculate the overall dropout rate.  As such, on February 14, 2010, a user removed (rather than reverting) the edit.  I'm going to add the retention information from before January 10, 2010 back into the article.  If anyone has any newer stats that they could cite, though, that would really help this section.  JohnnyGrungetta (talk) 23:44, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Retention 

message: Are there sources for the budget numbers?  Given the ongoing controversy I want to make sure they're accurate.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrewman327 (talk • contribs) 15:21, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Budget? 

message: http://www.mintpressnews.com/a-closer-look-at-the-joyce-foundation-shows-obamas-ties-to-chicago-school-privatizations/164972/  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.181.138.127 (talk) 02:04, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scabs for America? 

message: http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/09/i-quit-teach-for-america/279724/
Jo3sampl (talk) 03:59, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consider as source material? 

message: I would like to work on expanding the article intro, as it is currently woefully inadequate. I'm thinking of using the following structure:
# Organization name and mission
# History & structure of the organization
# Brief (emphasis on "brief") overview of criticism of the organization.
Any feedback? Assistance with drafting the language for para. 3 would be much appreciated. Btriple7 (talk) 18:44, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article intro 

message: The header "Recipient of philanthropic" seems too lengthy for a content header. I would recommend either the header Notable Donors or simply Donors. I would also argue you do not even need this content. The focus of the page should be about TFA and it's missions, not necessarily its donors. 
Something also worth noting is the way your content is written. It seems as though I am reading a TFA manual or website. I would recommend re-wording your content. It seems like a direct copy of the TFA site Amandapg (talk) 04:18, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recipient of philanthropic funds, overall content  

message: What interested me was that in 2003, TFA was managing on $1,900/member; but by 2014 they needed $6,300/member. Although the number of members increased by only 3.3X, the budget for managing them went up 10.7X! Is anyone else wondering where that extra $220M ended up? Setting aside a couple million to account for increased staffing and overhead, Management Bonuses and Perks perhaps? JimScott (talk) 07:38, 12 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Organizational Growth Observation 

message: Under “criticism” — TFA never threatened to withhold salary, and can’t anyway since corps members are paid by their employer (their placement school) and not TFA. 
Striking is an Americorps prohibited activity and corps members, who become members of americorps along with individuals from orgs like food corps and city year, were at risk of losing their americorps funding if they went on strike. Bobmcflower (talk) 20:17, 8 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Strike info wrong