What Does Bill Ayers Have Against Popular 'Teach for America'? Calls It a 'Fraud'

In this photo taken Sept. 1, 2011, Teach for America's Michael Darmas "high fives" a student at Holmes Elementary School in Miami. (Photo: AP)

Bill Ayers, prominent domestic terrorist-turned educator of America's youth, has been back in the news recently after speaking at New York University “Change the Stakes” meeting back in December.  There, among other things, he said the left must utilize its "absolute access" to America's schools to further its "movement."

New video to emerge from the meeting seems to reveal one crucial gap in that "absolute access" -- Teach for America.

A nonprofit founded in 1989, Teach for America sends some of America's top college graduates to teach in underprivileged schools for a year to several years at a time.  They typically consider it a service, making little money and often dealing with less than glamorous working conditions.

You can imagine why Bill Ayers -- or president of the Chicago Teachers Union Karen Lewis -- may dislike them.  According to Ayers, they are little more than "educational tourists" and their organization is a "fraud."

National Review online explains:

TFA has earned the enmity of teachers’ unions across the country in a variety of ways: It provides highly qualified non-union teachers, many of its alumni do not remain in the profession and join teachers’ unions, and some have become leaders of education-reform efforts despised by union groups.

You may remember that, in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, the president of the Chicago Teachers Union, Karen Lewis, charged that TFA’s policies “kill and disenfranchise children across the nation.”

EAG News, which posted the video, continues:

Appearing at a “Change the Stakes” meeting, Ayers implied that TFA has “no vision for the collective voice of teachers” and that TFA instructors are “not serious about the enterprise.”

That depends on what the “enterprise” is. If it’s helping kids learn, TFA instructors are very serious. If it means promoting silly union political efforts, they tend to have little interest. They actually put kids first. What a breathtaking concept for American schools.

It is hard to gauge how serious Lewis is about education, given Chicago Public Schools’ 54 percent graduation rate, or the seriousness of Detroit Federation of Teachers President Keith Johnson, given the fact that only 7 percent of 8^th graders in his district are proficient in reading.

But they’re in it for the long haul, so apparently results don’t matter.

Watch the entire video, via EAG News, below:

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Related:

• Crowd Cheers After Chicago Teachers Union Pres. Jokes About Killing the Rich
• Bill Ayers: The Left Must Utilize its 'Absolute Access' to America's Classrooms
• Bill Ayers to University Students: America's 'Game Is Over' & 'Another World' Is Coming