If You Are Going to KIPP's Free Happy Hour Recruiting Sessions, Read This First

Excerpt of interview with former KIPP teacher:

INT:  Let me ask you this question:  if I were a friend of yours interested in teaching at a KIPP school and I asked you what was it like there, what would you tell me?

R:  I would say honestly, I’ve had that question before.  I would never ever – I told them I wouldn’t wish that experience on my worst enemy.  That’s exactly what I say every time--I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.  And I have no enemies but I wouldn’t wish it if I had an enemy.  I wouldn’t put anyone through that.  Anyone.   It was probably – you give up your life and not only do you give up your life you’re giving it up for nothing.  It’s not like you’re seeing results.  It’s not like you’re being rewarded appropriately.  I mean there’s no reward for that type of work.  It’s just like you’re being used up and thrown out.  It’s like they’re going to use you up as much as you can take until you realize okay, I’m being used, and then you get out.  My friends quit asking now in [city name deleted], everybody knows what KIPP is like now so I don’t get that question much anymore.  I have a lot of people who would say they would never go to KIPP, never.  I have a lot of friends that went to KIPP and left.

Teach Campaign Star RIFed Last Year Just Before Tenure

Alexandria Hollet is one of the young, female white teachers chosen by Microsoft-TFA to provide 40 second testimonials on teaching for Arne Duncan's new campaign to attract the vulnerable and uninformed into what was once a profession.  

With corporate ed policies in place to demean, abuse, blame, punish, and fire teachers for another generation of failed testing accountability practices, there is a huge push on by CoreEd to recruit another generation of young delusional innocents who can be turned into reliable prison guards for children of the urban poor.

Alexandria's 38-second commercial does not mention how she lost her last job as an award-winning teacher in Chicago earlier this year, when over 2,000 teachers and support staff were slashed by the President's pal, Rahm Emanuel:

Alexandria Hollett was less than two months away from becoming a tenured teacher atPatrick Henry Elementary School in Albany Park. 

Friday morning, Hollett received a phone call she had been laid off. 

Hollett, who was DNAinfo.com Chicago's Teacher of the Week earlier this month for her award-winning tolerance lessons, picked up a call from principal Januario Gutierrez about 11 a.m., and he read her "some sort of prearranged letter," she said. 

"It told me my position had been eliminated," she said.News that Chicago Public Schools would lay off 1,036 teachers and 1,077 support staff members that came late Thursday put Hollett on edge, but she didn't think her school would be greatly affected. . . .