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Education Desk
The Education Desk is our education blog focusing on key areas of news coverage important to the state and its improvement. Evidence of public policy performance and impact will be reported and analyzed. We encourage you to engage in commenting and discussing the coverage of education from pre-natal to Higher Ed.Dusty Rhodes curates this blog that will provide follow-up to full-length stories, links to other reports of interest, statistics, and conversations with you about the issues and stories.About - Additional Education Coverage00000179-2419-d250-a579-e41d385d0000

Teach For America Alums Speak Out

T. Jameson Brewer midshot
T. Jameson Brewer

The highly-touted 25-year-old program that boasts it's more selective than Harvard comes under criticism from its own alums in a new book edited by T. Jameson Brewer.

Patterned after the Peace Corps, Teach for America typically takes graduates from the country's most prestigious universities, puts them through a five-week Summer Institute, and sends them to teach in inner-city schools. Brewer entered the program after graduating with a degree in education and a teaching certificate, making him an atypical "corps member."

He was successful in the program, and was put on the Teach for America staff after one year of teaching, but he was troubled by the program's ideals. At the encouragement of one of his college professors, he voiced his views in an Education Week guest blog post. The response from other Teach for America alums inspired him to compile this book.

Click here to listen to our interview with Brewer.

After a long career in newspapers (Dallas Observer, The Dallas Morning News, Anchorage Daily News, Illinois Times), Dusty returned to school to get a master's degree in multimedia journalism. She began work as Education Desk reporter at NPR Illinois in September 2014.
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