No respect

Apology (in the classical sense) in the Washington Post today by Sarah Fine, a TFA teacher leaving the profession. She starts out tugging our heartstrings a bit ("Somebody else will cover the holes in the classroom's walls with posters.") before getting down to business. Her reasons for leaving are pretty much the usual suspects: overwork, lack of appreciation, stupid administrators, the low esteem in which teachers are held.

The kicker to me is this: "[High achieving young people like me] are not used to feeling consistently defeated and systemically undervalued." That pretty much sums up what's wrong with most urban schools systems. Until that is fixed, eager young people like Ms. Fine are going to keep walking through the revolving door.

EdNotesOnline and SchoolsMatter offer their perspectives, but I would take it in a different way.

What's interesting to me about this article is how it lobs a very soft warning shot over Obama's ed reform bow. It's like Fine is saying: "Look at me, young, talented, committed, bright, just the kind of person you want going into teaching, working at a charter school, just the kind of school you are promoting, under a chancellor who you think is doing a great job, and the system beat me."

What she didn't say, but should have, is that nothing in Obama's ed reform package offers her any hope. I suspect if it did, she would have stuck around. But the Obama's Race to the Trough package merely intensifies the treatment of teachers as 2nd class workers.

So the OpEd didn't go quite far enough, but it is still interesting that the Post published it.