One thing for sure about Wendy Kopp

There's a good summary by Teacher Ken at Daily Kos here of a new book by Barbara Torre Veltri, called Learning on Other People's Kids: Becoming a Teach For America Teacher. There's a good summary by Teacher Ken at Daily Kos here.

The book adds to the growing body of critical evidence about TFA. This includes the excellent article by Barbara Miner in Rethinking Schools, (registration necessary); and the policy brief, Teach For America: A False Promise, by the Education and the Public Interest Center (EPIC) at the University of Colorado and the Education Policy Research Unit (EPRU) at Arizona State University.

A statistic from Teacher Ken's review of the Veltri book that caught my eye:

Veltri provides a table using data from TFA, showing that in 2006-06 the 4,700 corps members were served with an operating budget of $39,500,000, while for 2009-10 the projected figures were 7,300 corps members with an operating budget of $160,000,000. Let's put those numbers on a per capita basis. In 2005-06 the cost per corps member was $8,400, while in 2009-10 it had ballooned to $21,917, or more than half what most teachers in this country make in their first year. I question whether that is money well spent.

One thing is for sure; Wendy Kopp is incredibly gifted at raising money.