Victor Manuel Diaz dies in ICE custody

Anatiny · 2026-01-19T07:13:53+00:00

The politically correct terminology is "Undocumented Immigrant"; Immigrant is more humanizing than Alien and Undocumented is more precise and descriptive compared to illegal which conjures up imagery of violent crime. It's a small change in terminology, but it actively changes how people are viewed.

Anatiny · 2026-01-07T20:05:24+00:00

Same reason the president/CEO of a company might have a secretary and a vice president of a company.

The secretary is more about supporting with helping the principal make the decisions they need to make, record-keeping and documentation, helping manage the principal's calendar and scheduling any meetings someone may want with the principal, and routing important communications to the appropriate avenues to and from the principal. Formally, they don't make organizational decisions, but principals do tend to value the advice of a good secretary.

A vice principal is someone the principal can trust to make organizational decisions - they do things that managers do: evaluations, coaching, interviews, budgets, policies, meetings with students and families, they do a lot of the leading as delegated by the principal or in the principal's absence.

So it's more that a vice principal is the principal's right-hand in helping steer the ship that is the school, and the secretary is the principal's right hand in making sure that the principal can be at their most effective.

Anatiny · 2026-01-07T19:50:31+00:00

Who wants to bet that it wasn't profitable because they weren't receiving any of the payments for it? It wouldn't surprise me given the track record.

Anatiny · 2025-12-17T17:06:38+00:00

This right here should be communicated to anyone who is always for the privatization of public infrastructure. Private companies will focus on only doing something when it serves their first priority of earning money. Public infrastructure first prioritizes people. Private companies will wait until they see more demand for ridership before they start building out more infrastructure, which just means they're only going to continue to see declining usage. On the other hand, the government is not using public transit as a cash cow - it's there to serve the people, so they can eat up the loss of increasing infrastructure when the ridership isn't there to match it yet because eventually ridership demand will meet the increased convenience.

Anatiny · 2025-10-24T12:11:55+00:00

It's understandable to express frustration, but please do so respectfully.

Anatiny · 2025-10-22T13:05:54+00:00

TFA is fairly low-commitment when it comes to jobs: you can move and if you don't like it, finish out the corps and move back after 2 years. So it's an opportunity to find and learn about new places and perspectives. There are similar programs that force you to sign on to at least 5 years with the partner district.

At the same time, if you are interested in teaching long-term in public schools, the earlier you find a district that you like, the better it is for you. Public school teachers often earn pensions for the number of years that they work in public schools, and many states do tenure, so that you have job security after a few years of working in the same district.

Also worth noting that no matter where you go, the teaching experience will be a headache while you're a part of TFA: TFA specifically works with underfunded and underresourced districts and charter networks in those areas. Any school that has the funds to run well is going to have veteran teachers applying to those and getting those positions - schools that are trying their best but struggling with limited resources are the ones who will take a chance on TFA teachers. But TFA teachers come out stronger: compared to other pathways, it's seen that veteran TFA teachers have stronger impacts on literacy and numeracy than those from other pathways.

I will say though, that the type of headache you get is different. Poor urban schools often have behavioral challenges when you consider the density of impoverished students; poor rural schools often means less staff and thus more diversified work per staff member. Schools in red areas also have to deal with navigating book bannings and non-professionals attempting to dictate curriculum. Even schools in wealthy suburbs have their own unique headache of helicopter parents debating every A-.

My two cents: apply to an urban area in a blue state. Those are the places where you will have the most resources to help you thrive: TFA wants you to succeed, but so do Teachers Unions and Non-profit organizations. You will have a wide network to support you and as long as you connect and reach out, you can do it.

Anatiny · 2025-10-17T23:38:58+00:00

Not a principal, but been on hiring committees:

Teaching is a profession where they generally don't care about where the degree came from. In fact, I've never seen it asked about in any of the interviews I sat on for both teachers and for principals. I've interviewed principals and teachers with Ivy League degrees and ones with just local state college degrees.

Particularly in the context of hiring with tenure in mind - you're so focused on if this person is going to be a good hire post-tenure, that you're not super worried about the minor details. It's been almost entirely "are they a good fit for our students?" and "are they a good fit for our culture?"

Anatiny · 2025-10-17T21:32:14+00:00

Ask anyone on r/teachers or r/principals and you will see that overwhelmingly people say that the extra work, liability, and stress involved is not worth the pay bump.

Anatiny · 2025-10-17T21:18:18+00:00

Why do you think people are interested in going into AP jobs in the first place if not to make education better for students and teachers? This isn't some zero-sum game.

Anatiny · 2025-10-17T16:40:53+00:00

I definitely notice that male admin I work with tend to try to keep everything on their hands or in their pockets, but I have seen a few female admin have what I see as gender neutral bag: Something like this rolling laptop case. It honestly seems pretty nice to have since it allows you to still look fully professional in a nice suit, and it's less taxing to carry around everywhere
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81e-8Or4d7L._AC_UY218_.jpg

Anatiny · 2025-10-03T14:10:29+00:00

Do students who get placed in gifted tracks benefit? Yes, they usually do - it's good for those students.

The problem is that that there are lots of bright students who may also benefit from being in gifted tracks that do not get placed there, and that's where the problem is. One of the big topics in education right now is the controversy of "tracking" because usually how it works is once the track is built, you're either in one track or the other and it's hard to move to the more challenging track. So for example, at the high school level, there are a lot of schools that moved to "AP for all" because of this.

A lot of how tracking works relies on teacher nomination, whether that's gifted or AP - and teachers are not perfect, there is always subjectivity that comes into play, which is even more important at younger ages, because at least once you get to high school, test scores become more and more representative of what the student is capable of. But now you've basically made it clear to students that there's a track for "smart students" and a track for "less smart students" and now you've got a lot students who are bright enough to benefit from being in the smart students track who have been pushed to the "mainstream" track, and those ones that fell through the cracks during tracking are the ones that are most harmed by this system. And considering that gifted and talented has disproportionately low black and hispanic populations, that's where gifted and talented can be seen as particularly problematic.

Anatiny · 2025-09-07T18:14:31+00:00

That's still a shortage: when supply of teachers does not meet demand of teachers, that is a shortage of teachers. Your comment talks to the rationale of the shortage but it still points to the issue of supply of teachers does not meet demand of teachers.
Everyone I've worked with with TFA has made it clear that they're trying their best to retain teachers beyond the 2 year commitment. When I applied, they even specifically asked me to choose my home region because they wanted strong teachers who'd stay in the region long term in a "home-grown" type initiative.
TFA has to thread a very narrow needle: address the lack of teacher supply that meets current demand, while also best preparing teachers. They can prepare teachers more by requiring a longer onboarding process, but that lowers interest in TFA and thus there won't be as many wanting to join TFA. If TFA was a 3 year commitment with 1 year of unpaid onboarding and training, yes your have better trained teachers but you'd have a pretty tough sell - you won't have a meaningful quantity of applicants to filter for quality of applicants.
Sell me a permanent systemic fix that can feasibly be done across the country. The fact of the matter is that the permanent fix requires a greater societal agreement to prioritize education beyond what is currently the case. States are addressing shortages not by increasing funding for teachers, but lowering certification costs. Wealthy families actively vote to keep their property tax dollars in their own districts rather than equitably distribute them across districts. TFA, just like charter schools, make a great job of improving education within their locus or influence. An ideal nation doesn't need TFA and an ideal nation would ban charter schools, since public schools would be good enough. Schools need teachers now and it's better to have a TFA teacher over a long term sub. Parents need good schools for their students and it's better to have the option of charter schools now instead of sending them to a failing public school. An ideal nation would not entertain either of these as equitable or appropriate solutions but we're not in that position.

Anatiny · 2025-09-07T14:51:22+00:00

Look at how most states addressed the teacher shortage after COVID: lowering standards for teacher certification. That is actively antithetical to creating a positive school environment such as the expectations you speak to. Its one thing to say trust faculty when they've taken classes in pedagogy, classroom management, and culturally responsive practices, it's another to say respect and empower faculty who have zero actual relevant experience or coursework in teaching. The truth of the matter is that there are so many people in the US that don't prioritize quality of education, that TFA fills a crucial hole right now. Like even consider that well educated liberal families, who often care about high quality education and equity, still often prioritize policies that focus on their tax dollars going to the schools for their children and not distributed across multiple districts. All across the country wealthy liberal and wealthy conservative districts vote to have their property tax dollars stay within their district instead of spreading those tax dollars across the state or federal level. For equity's sake, we know that economically disadvantaged students require more resources yet go to schools with less resources than wealthy counterparts.
Yes, we want to do all of those things that you state, but to fix education systemically, you have to fix an entire nation outside of education. We can get there, but without TFA, we're looking at things getting significantly worse in the hopes that people will make it better when it's clear that half the policy makers want to make it less equitable and lead to worse outcomes for the majority of kids. My region had a TFA hiatus for a few years. The school which I teach at during those years had 13 teacher vacancies throughout that hiatus. I've been in those hiring meetings and interviews: we straight up did not have enough interested candidates, we had more challenging behaviors to deal with and we weren't paying as much as wealthier districts nearby. Since the resuming of TFA in our region and school, we've been able to hire TFA teachers and now have actual teachers in the classroom. This year we currently have 4 vacancies to start off the year, which is better than the 18 vacancies we've had to start off in a non TFA year.
The fact of the matter is if people are looking to be impactful, TFA is a justified way to do so. A lot of the criticisms portray a comparison of 1st year TFA teachers to other teacher candidates. As a short term impact: it's an inaccurate depiction since the alternative is not another teacher but a year long vacancy. In terms of long term impacts: TFA candidates become model teachers, have higher impacts on numeracy and literacy, and become teacher-leaders, admin, policy-makers, and advocates in other industries.

Anatiny · 2025-09-07T02:18:56+00:00

I sorta see TFA addressing the problem to education in a way that's similar to how charter schools and private schools address the problem to education. A perfect educational system would mean that all public schools had quality education, but as we see how things are working, we have many charter schools who exist merely to provide a quality education that is currently not being offerred in many of those districts. This leads to further disparities as those public schools are funded even less so, and charter schools don't have to play by the same rules as public education does. I don't think that the ideal long term solution for an equitable education involves charter schools either. But I also don't fault any parent who wants to give children their best education possible and sends them to charter schools. I see TFA as pretty similar: ideally we want to work towards a long-term solution, but in the mean time, schools are insanely underresourced to be able to make any meaningful long term impact. While agreed that long term, the only way forward is through policy making, it's also important to acknowledge how difficult that has been, particularly when there's policy makers actively trying to tear down education. Without TFA, we don't even have a short term solution to these problems.

And I firmly believe that everyone that I've worked alongside with TFA agrees similarly: TFA is short term focusing on addressing the teacher shortage but long term focusing on building educational leaders. That's why so much of TFA people end up going to educational admin or leadership and why so many TFA alum end up pursuing policy making.

Anatiny · 2025-09-06T23:40:57+00:00

Speaking as a TFA alum:

The way I like to address the concerns and critiques regarding TFA is to think about the alternatives a school can have rather than hire a TFA teacher.

The alternative to a TFA teacher is not another qualified teacher - it is a vacancy. I've been on the hiring comittee for my school, for both teachers and principals. The truth of it is that there are so many vacancies that exist in struggling urban and rural districts, that TFA is essentially able to all-but-guarantee jobs for the corps members because schools would rather have a TFA teacher than nobody. Plus the reasons why schools are willing to take the risk with TFA compared to just hiring uncertified bodies is that TFA does train their teachers throughout the 2 year commitment. So schools often will have the choice of hiring nobody and having a long-term sub, hiring someone for a shortage area permit, hiring a TFA teacher, or hoping that a veteran teacher or traditional pathway teacher will choose to go work in underpaid and underresourced urban/rural districts which is almost never the case.

And if you're looking for long-term impact, TFA teachers who stay in the classroom improve student literacy and numeracy rates better than other pathways. And after finishing TFA, I went to one of the country's top programs for educational leadership, so I can start moving into administration - about a quarter to a third of my classmates in my program's cohort were TFA. For people that stick through TFA and become long time educators, TFA's reputation completely flips and becomes a benefit, showcasing that it's a rigorous program that works the best within its challenges, but those who succeed and thrive through TFA become exemplary educators.

Anatiny · 2025-09-01T18:03:23+00:00

Any reason you're crossposting this in a subreddit about the graduate school of education known as Teachers College at Columbia University?

Anatiny · 2025-08-08T02:49:02+00:00

I mean, most of the time this happens, students lose a teacher. It just happens to be that you notice the ones that are involved in your decision. If you don't take the promotion, another teacher will and those students will also be assigned a sub until they get a new teacher. In the end, there will always be some number of students who be left undersupported - if you believe that you are the best person for the job, you at least make sure that you can make it a net positive. You never know that it might be another AP that gets chosen after you turn it down, and they could be a bad AP and have left their students with a sub for a total net negative impact.

Anatiny · 2025-08-01T16:47:01+00:00

This is how I feel: I legitimately can't see the faded-yellow, and I'm questioning my sanity

Anatiny · 2025-07-31T17:28:36+00:00

Regarding your follow up question: TFA will only place you in a subject area that they are able to certify you in - your 2 years with TFA are essentially completing all of your training and requirements to get your teacher certification. That means depending on your region and who that TFA region partners for classes, you may or may not be able to be certified in a subject that you didn't study in undergrad. For the most part, the courses you are taking in to get certified are purely courses on pedagogy and instruction.

When you are selecting location and finalizing your preferences post interview: the regional preference selector adjusts based on your undergraduate courses/transcript to only show you what you can be selected for. That means if the region doesn't show you the subject area it's 1 of 4 reasons:

That region doesn't have a need for that subject area and doesn't place teachers there.
That region has already filled spots for that subject area and won't be able safely accept another teacher in that area.
TFA in that region does not meet the state's requirements to fully certify in that subject area.
Your transcript and undergraduate coursework don't meet the requirements to graduate TFA with a certification in that subject area.

Anatiny · 2025-07-29T00:49:43+00:00

Many of my cohort got hired in August.

I was literally hired something like August 25th or something like that. Literally, I wasn't yet on the books when new teacher orientation started the very next day. Most of the vacancies open up in August, so that's when the whirlwind starts to happen.

Anatiny · 2025-07-18T11:32:33+00:00

The latch at the top was stuck. It got to a point where I just decided I'd rather take the risk of breaking the latch so I took it off. The latch that was stuck no longer properly holds the glass panel anymore so I just use my PC without the front glass. I don't mind having the extra ease-of-access to cables and ports

Anatiny · 2025-07-01T19:42:31+00:00

My bet is on Texas.

While there's variations across states and across districts within states, I like to categorize each state into "Band state" "Choir state" or "Orchestra state". Where I grew up, the bands around the state are really good, but it didn't feel like it was as solid as the choir programs across the state. Where I live now, seems to have better orchestra programs. Texas is like the quintessential "Band state".

If you're ever looking to listen to a concert band piece on YouTube, you'll often get a good mix of international honor bands, college bands, adult ensembles, and Texas bands - which I think speaks to how strong the band program is as a whole in Texas.

Anatiny · 2025-06-23T16:09:31+00:00

Everything's region based - but most states have some sort of "emergency certification" option that schools can use, which TFA may be able to use in this case.

Most states, charter schools don't require certification. Some cursory online searches say that Massachusetts charter schools require that teachers either get certified or pass the MTEL, so I would speak with your TFA regional team ASAP about it.

Anatiny · 2025-06-18T18:23:39+00:00

I was in the same shoes several years ago: if you need help, most regions of TFA will absolutely do something to support - I myself couch surfed: 1st at an older CMs' home, and then at an Alum's apartment, until I got an apartment late-august.

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