"...what matters is that they are ready to provide students with excellent teaching."

What also matters is "what" they'll be "teaching" our kids.

"These are young people with a sense of social justice..."

And there it is.

Mr Stritikus is an alum of TfA; a fact that he neglected to mention in this bit of "lipstick on a pig."

Let's not kid ourselves here, TfA is an employment agency which will charge SPS $4000 for each "recruit" that is hired. The fee for math and science types will be paid by the Gates foundation. How many math and science TfA'ers will be hired? No way to know but TfA expects to place 20-25 in SPS for 2011-12 school year. SPS could be on the hook for quite a few of the newbies.

Recruits are hired before they complete a teacher certification program. The five week TfA bootcamp is all the preparation required of these 23 yr olds. They are then unleashed into classrooms to perform magic,and by the way each recruit is likely replacing a riffed teacher.

These wunderkind will not only teach in some of the most problematic schools in SPS but will simultaneously be going to graduate school to become truly a certificated teacher. Graduates from his own department,who have completed the certification process, are not afforded the same treatment. No,they left twisting in the wind to find a teaching job, which he knows are scarce in spite of his stating, "Given the number of teachers needed throughout the nation..."

If TfA, "recruits outstanding graduates of some of the nation’s best universities into the profession of teaching." Why isn't the UW School of Education doing the same.

This is a really shameless piece written to give cover to a shameful decision.

Mr. Stritikus tries to blame the legislature by saying that they had to do this to comply with the law, but no other college of education in the area partnered with Teach for America.

I like the way that Mr. Stritikus tries to transcend the question of how teachers are certified and shift the focus onto how well-prepared they are to teach effectively. It's cute, but ineffective. He is in the BUSINESS of preparing teachers. If he thinks his Master's degree program can be adequately replaced by a five-week crash training, then he isn't expressing much value in his college.

Finally, Mr. Stritikus dodges the real issue around Teach for America in Seattle. We don't need them here. Teach for America (and other emergency credentialed teachers) makes sense in the areas "throughout the nation" where there are not enough certificated teachers. But here in Seattle there are over a hundred applicants - qualified applicants - for every teaching job. We don't need them here. It's like sending a CARE package to Bel-Air. Not only don't the folks in Bel-Air need it, but it diverts the resources away from where they are needed.

Whether you think that Teach for America is the greatest and noblest thing ever or whether you think it is the debil, no one thinks that they are needed in Seattle.

Oh, and Mr. Stritikus' failure to disclose that he is a former Teach for America corps member stinks, stinks, stinks. Crosscut editors should edit his bio to reflect that fact.

Haven't we had enough conflicts of interest in local education contracting?

The PESB decision is pending. So did UW get its act together and resubmit a professional proposal before the June 2nd deadline? Because I have seen the first application they sent, along with the PESB comments rejecting it. Oh boy, oh boy was that the most poorly written piece of work. I am sure someone will share a link to a copy soon.

TfA is not an organization to build a nation of quality teachers, it is an organization to build a nation of leaders. They do not even claim to be about teacher-building. So why invest time and money into an alternative certification program that is narrowly designed for folks who are only planning a two year commitment to the classroom?

These document shows the email communications between UW’s Stritikus (ex-TFA) and TFA (and also PESB, the state), as Stritikus works feverishly to please TFA by giving them the UW teaching program:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/57103225/UW-TFA-PESB-U-ACT-Emails-Batch-1
http://www.scribd.com/doc/57105364/UW-TFA-PESB-U-ACT-Emails-Batch-2
This document shows all the problems the state had with UW’s TFA proposal:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/57105366/PESB-Comments-UW-Seattle-Form-2A
This document is the UW’s application (revised…once or twice…) to the state for its TFA (“U-ACT”) program. Note the blather and vague promises, the edu-speak, the lack of data to back it up…
http://www.scribd.com/doc/57105412/UW-Alternative-Route-Application-5-20-11
Alas, PESB has many concerns about the UW’s (Stritikus’s) application for TFA in it’s “U-Act” application to the state:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/57105366/PESB-Comments-UW-Seattle-Form-2A
So the UW (Stritikus, the TFA alum) tries again, desperate as a puppy to please his TFA master, Wendy Kopp (who, what a coincidence, sits on the board of the Broad Foundation, arch-“Reform” group, along with Seattle’s ex-superintendent, Maria Goodloe-Johnson…
http://www.scribd.com/doc/57105412/UW-Alternative-Route-Application-5-20-11

Yeah, how 'bout it, Crosscut? Revise his Bio. Tom Stritikus is a TFA alum, and emails show him sucking up to TFA's Wendy Kopp long, long ago, eager to give the UW's teaching program to her.

Can't you report on that? Oh, wait, TFA's Wendy Kopp is on the board of the Broad Foundation (along with our ex-supt. Goodloe-Johnson.) Broad and Gates. TOGETHER, are THE main powerhouses behind the so-called "reform" movement. Gates just gave Crosscut $400,000...I guess we won't be seeing Crosscut demand that its contributor, Tom Stritikus, disclose his close affiliation with TFA...

Broad/Gates money in action, paying for the news....
How sad.

As an '81 graduate of the M.Ed. program at the UW, in my 30th year as a public school teacher, I'm appalled and disgusted by what's going on here.

Microsoft is looking for software engineers and can't find enough so they import them from India. Maybe we need a Software for American where we take the brightest college grads and train them for 5 weeks and then put them at Microsoft writing code, etc. Why bother importing from India?

Great idea, Rhonwyn, but don't count on it.

It saddens me that Americans in general do not appreciate that teachers are professionals. It pisses me off to see TFA and other efforts to place ill-prepared individuals--whether fresh-faced young college grads or business executives--in classrooms and in public school administration. And finally, it depresses me to learn that the dean of the UW College of Education is a shill for the privatization of public education.

Stritikus, what a whiner. SPU, PLU, Saint Martin's, Eastern Washington U., and City U have all developed quality alternative certification programs with rigorous admission standards and criteria that meets the requirements of the RCW and WAC. They must be laughing their *ssess off at the bumblers at UW COE who've tried to pass off their Form 2A pap as a teacher preparation program.

Students, get organized and demand quality for that diploma. Don't let shills like Stritikus devalue your hard work and preparation. Inform the PESB that they should not give the UW a pass simply because they're the big dog. This Alt-Cert program is clearly discriminatory because it is only open to TFA out-of-state "corp members".

Two years! Two years in a classroom and he's a dean of education?! Yikes!

"Stritikus was an elementary school teacher in Baltimore for two years, an English instructor in Mexico for a year, and taught in middle school in the San Francisco area for a summer. He is the first Teach for America alum to become a dean at a U.S. university."

http://www.washington.edu/alumni/partnerships/education/news/201009/dean.html

Like most TFAers, Stritikus could only Teach For Awhile. Figures.

Yeah, you should see his vast amount of research. I think one, maybe two papers. WTH is he even doing in academia. An emblem of the Peter Principle in action; of someone rising to his level of incompetence."

Dean Stritikus' conflict of interest stinks and the stink is clinging to Crosscut.

Add his status as a Teach for America alum to his bio at the end of the column so it reads:

"Tom Stritikus is dean of the University of Washington College of Education and a former Teach for America corps member."

That doesn't change a word that the dean wrote because that sentence is from Crosscut. It is Crosscut's duty to disclose the conflict.

If you would like to comment on the UW's proposed discriminatory Alternative Certification program, send the PESB Board a message:

http://www.pesb.wa.gov/contactboard

Hey, commenters, here's what the Gates organ, League of Education Voters (in the voice of it's leader Chris Korsmo), has to say about you (Korsmo should put down her Gates paycheck and re-enter reality):

"Circuit Breaker: This guest op-ed by Tom Stritikus, Dean of Education at UW, in Crosscut reads innocuously enough. UW is working to provide alternative certification pathways to teaching, in particular, looking to provide the university backing for the Teach for America (TFA) corps coming to the Puget Sound next fall. A welcome effort in bringing this nationally regarded teaching corps to our ‘hood. But if you read the comments, you’d realize that Stritikus hates puppies, laughed inappropriately during “Steel Magnolias” and eats small chicks for breakfast. He is probably a Cincinnati Bengals fan. When historians record the fall of our current civilization, they’ll track back to the painfully personal way that comment threads kept a lot of people with intellectual prowess out of the public realm. (Aren’t you lucky, you didn’t have to wait for the collapse of civilization to get at its underpinnings.)"

Oh, here's the address of the LEV piece by Korsmo. Feel free to comment there (if they'll let you: They block people for life on that blog)

http://www.educationvoters.org/2011/06/11/korsmo%e2%80%99s-education-news-roundup-for-june-11th/

Possibly the Gates contribution to Crosscut bought some ad--uh, article space.

Wow! I just heard the news about the incredibly deceptive application the University of Washington's College of Education made to the PESB. It pretended that there is a teacher shortage in Seattle.

That's just dishonest.

If you are an educational consultant, a principle, or a dean... you better have ten years in the classroom under your belt. Larry Bird, Magic, The Beatles, even Bill Gates put in the required 20,000 hours to attain their expertise.

"top-flight research university" What's the flight part refer to, flying or attrition? Just kidding, I know, top-hole, top-drawer, cheerio.