Teach for America’s Professional Agitators

[Geee]

Free Beacon:

It’s increasingly difficult to tell the difference between Teach for America — whose leaders are at the forefront of inflammatory anti-police protests in Baltimore, Ferguson, and now McKinney, Texas — and left-wing activist groups such as Organizing for Action (President Obama’s partisan community organizing army).

 

Guess what, taxpayers? You’re paying for it!

 

Wendy Kopp founded Teach for America in 1989 after writing her Princeton University thesis on the need for a “national teaching corps” of elite college grads who would serve students on short-term stints in low-income neighborhoods. The do-gooder group has exploded into a massive, nonprofit business.

 

 

“Between 2000 and 2013, ” researchers at the National Educational Policy Center reported, “TFA’s yearly operating expenditures increased 1,930 percent — from $10 million to $193.5 million. Of those expenditures, TFA annual reports show that about a third of operating costs are borne by the public.” Individual TFA chapters have raked in millions in federal AmeriCorps grants, supported by leaders in both political parties. Large corporations (including $100 million donor Wal-Mart), philanthropic foundations, and individuals have pitched in nearly a half-billion dollars in tax-deductible charitable private donations.

 

Teach for America spends copious amounts on advertising, lobbying and public relations to hype its academic benefits, but its record on producing benefits for students is mixed. Government teachers’ unions don’t like the organization’s fast-track “boot camp” training or its support of public charter schools. But those concerns pale in comparison to the divisive, grievance-mongering activities of the group’s increasingly radicalized officials and alumni.