Cloaking Inequity

#TFA Help Promoting Itself on Capitol Hill

1–2 minutes

July 28, 2015

In 2013, I first blogged about TFA’s DC lobbying/assistance/hegemony in the post Do you think TFA is a special interest?: “Get up, Stand Up” Check out the TFA salaries in this new post on Mercedes Schneider’s EduBlog.

deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

Teach for America (TFA) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1991 by Princeton graduate and noneducator, Wendy Kopp. TFA was granted nonprofit status in June 1993. According to its 2013 990, TFA’s end-of-year total assets were $494 million, with $73.5 million of its 2013 revenue designated as “government grants” and $31.6 million of its 2013 revenue earmarked as “service fees revenue.”

Interestingly, TFA’s 2013 990 also includes $4.7 million tagged as “bad debt expense” as part of its total functional expenses.

For eight hours of work per week, TFA chair Wendy Kopp drew a 2013 salary of $176,657. Co-CEOs Matt Kramer and Elisa Villanueva Beard drew salaries of $381,946 for 42 hrs/wk (Kramer) and $342,134 for 40 hrs/wk (Beard).

TFA began as a Peace Corps-like temp agency that sends college graduates outside of the field of teaching into classrooms for usually two years. However, by 2001, TFA had established…

View original post 1,785 more words

Originally posted on deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog: Teach for America (TFA) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1991 by Princeton graduate and noneducator, Wendy Kopp. TFA was granted nonprofit status in June 1993. According to its 2013 990, TFA’s end-of-year total assets were $494 million, with $73.5 million of its 2013 revenue designated as “government grants”…

One response to “#TFA Help Promoting Itself on Capitol Hill”

Monty J. Thornburg, PhD

July 28, 2015 at 2:26 pm

Thanks for re-posting this Dr. Vasquez-Heilig. I follow your blog too and was very active with it till recently due to other publication work, etc. … I posted the following as this TFA operation is of deep concern from my perspective as you’ll read below.

Thanks Mercedes for staying up with this. I’m old-er … Still teaching in public schools and have found your research so enlightening. I too am from New Orleans. I lived there from 1969 to 2001 and then I returned to CA my home state to teach in the public schools. My son and family and many friends still live in New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina, 2005, for me, as with you, was a wake-up call about systemic racism in America and in education. Also, I too began to see the systemic dismantling of ESEA and the devastation NCLB has had on education since 2002 the year I returned to public schools here in CA.
My 30 plus years in N.O. and working in and with public schools; where I started in a TFA like program called the National Teacher Corps – peace corps like- it has been interesting to see how TFA has grown. We in the National Teacher Corps, a “War on Poverty” Peace Corps like program, were part of consortium that included Xavier University of N.O. and ironically, Prairie View A&M., from where the Sandra Bland story is emerging. The part of Alabama where I worked was similar to Waller County in TX., – in racial attitude – still is!
Now, thanks to your magnificent research and writing, that exposes these privatized operations such as TFA, we are learning how the former Bush Administration, the Obama Administration with A. Duncan, and I fear the future Jeb Bush Administration has destroyed and is destroying our nation’s democratic legacy with public education. They are doing so in the name of profit and the dominant cultural norms of business thinking not educator thinking.
It’s ironic and troubling to see how public education has been diminished by the very same ESEA funding mechanisms I started my career with in the Black Belt Region of Alabama, near Selma in the 60s. Now, having moved in one lifetime career, full circle, from Alabama to Louisiana and back to California I see your research and writing as critical. Keep up your wonderful work, Mercedes, I read ALL your posts. Thanks, Monty J. Thornburg, Ph.D., Educational Leadership, UNO.

LikeLike

Reply