The leader of a local college has dressed down the D.C. Public Schools for its woeful treatment of young professionals who left promising careers to teach District students. Patricia McGuire, president of Trinity University, posted a scathing rebuke Monday on her school-sponsored blog, tearing into DCPS for its “demeaning” treatment of D.C. Teaching Fellows. Dozens of fellows, who contractually agreed to teach for two years in the D.C. public schools in return for an all-expenses-paid master’s degree, are taking classes at the Northeast D.C. school.
One of those teachers wrote an extensive piece for Sunday’s Washington Post Magazine, describing an appalling lack of support from the school system.
In October, The Examiner detailed the plight of fellows who hadn’t been reimbursed for their master’s classes.
“There’s no excuse imaginable for the utterly devastating experience of these students who are walking away from teaching in D.C. to pursue less stressful placements, probably in the suburbs,” McGuire wrote.
Despite the university’s desire to improve existing conditions at DCPS, McGuire wrote, the current environment is hard to fathom.
On a Trinity course survey, she said, one fellow conveyed, “I hate everything about my job.”
And in a survey of 22 fellows in a Trinity class this year, McGuire said, only six said they would return to teach in DCPS, citing a “lack of support, lack of resources, absent or incompetent principals, lack of books and grim conditions in the schools.”
“I wish she had talked to the six fellows who did decide to stay,” said Patricia Alford Williams, DCPS spokeswoman.
In a wide ranging interview last fall with The Examiner, 25 fellows spoke of what they perceived as ineptitude on the part of DCPS leadership. The administration failed them, they said, and most will not return to the classroom once their contract expires.
Even in the midst of a political battle over who will control the schools, McGuire said, the powers that be must refocus on the children and “understand what really needs to be done.”
In a Feb. 10 blog entry, McGuire said the District “needs a master plan for education — and that plan must include a plan for families and neighborhoods, not just a plan for governance.”
Trinity University
» Educates more DCPS graduates than any other private university in the country.
» Enrolls 3,000 teachers annually in professional development workshops.
» 65 percent of DCPS students enrolled since 2001 have graduated or are still in school.
