AFTie One-L has come a long way since her Harry and Louise days! But now she’s leaving the AFT to join Teach For America and she signs-off with a ‘steal your face’ on the blog! I think its her way of signaling that she’s goin’ where the wind don’t blow so strange…
Actually, One-L (Michele McLaughlin) is quite talented so this is a real catch for TFA and you can look for great things from her there. And it’s a real loss for the AFT blog and the AFT.
More generally, hard to miss the steady trend of education talent heading to reform organizations (without a corresponding trend the other way). One-L to TFA, Ed Week’s Jeff Archer to New Leaders, WaPo’s Karin Chenoweth to the Ed Trust, fallen journo Joe Williams to DFER, former AFTie Joan Snowden to all manner of leading-edge things…to cite a few examples..and if my file of resumes from folks wanting to move is any indication, a lot of people want to get in the fight.
Seems like a signal about the prospects for reform. One top-flight b-school type and foundation leader who could be making millions doing something else once remarked when asked about the prospects for reform that ‘of course the reformers will ultimately succeed because so many talented people are willing to bet their careers on it.’ Could be something to that idea.
So, a couple of writers/reporters/bloggers go to work for ed reform organizations–and that’s a talent move? Can any of these people tell me what is the best way to handle a fourth grader’s uncertainty about two-digit mulitplication? Or is expert teaching something that any old journalist could pick up on the fly?
Well if systemic reform can drive change in classroom practice then a journalist’s or writer’s talents do make a big difference. Right now it seems though that we are doing a lot better job attracting talent to education reform than attracting it to the classroom. But hopefully if the former do their job, the latter will come.
isn’t the other one the stoner?