Obama pal Bill Ayers calls Teach for America 'a fraud'

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Fox News:

Weather Underground terrorist-turned-academic and Obama confidant William Ayers is taking up a cause near and dear to teachers unions: bashing a program that sends young, idealistic college grads into the inner city to teach poor kids.

The nonprofit Teach for America is a "fraud" whose participants are nothing but “educational tourists,” said Ayers, a onetime associate of President Obama who was a professor in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago before retiring. The 68-year-old firebrand, now a self-styled educational theorist, said the program's young grads are merely passing through the gritty neighborhoods where they serve to pad their resumes at the expense of longer-term educators represented by unions.

“It’s a fraud on every level because it’s not going to change teaching, it’s going to undermine teaching,” Ayers said at a recent educational summit. He added that the young teachers "are the nicest kids in the world," but said the program itself is misguided.

Teachers unions have long criticized Teach for America, which they believe provides cash-strapped districts with a crop of short-timers who earn entry-level pay and don't rack up the health and retirement costs of regular teachers. Ayers, who as an idealistic anti-Vietnam War protester, helped carry out bombings of the Pentagon and New York Police Department headquarters in the early 1970s, said the education program's young participants are doing more harm than good.

The nonprofit Teach For America annually recruits thousands of top college graduates to teach for two years at public schools in low-income areas across the country. Its stated mission is to "eliminate educational inequity by enlisting high-achieving recent college graduates and professionals" to teach in low-income neighborhoods. Participants' benefits and salaries, which range from $25,500 to $51,000, depending on where they serve, are paid by the local districts and match the compensation of regular hires.

Ayers, whose comments were echoed by Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis, said the young teachers themselves aren't to blame, but indicated they are never truly vested in the schools in which they serve. Lewis went even further, saying TFA’s policies “kill and disenfranchise children from schools across this nation.”

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You know it's a good idea when "Bomber Bill" Ayers is against it.

[Valin]

 

 

 

I'm sorry and this may be shallow of me but I have a real hard time taking seriously a person who has their hair done like Karen Lewis.

[Valin]

The nonprofit Teach for America is a "fraud" whose participants are nothing but “educational tourists,” said Ayers,

 

 

Says the guy who has pretty much spent the last 30-40 years of his life on college campuses.