Our reader Dennis Ian gives his analysis of the role of Teach for America. TFA is an April Fool’s joke on American education. It claims that its inexperienced and idealistic recruits can transform lives and provide an excellent education in only two years of teaching. It claims that its five weeks of training in summer camp prepare its recruits to “perform” even better than experienced teachers. It perpetuates the myth that test scores are the most important outcome of schooling. It sneers at mentions of poverty, since those who are concerned about poverty are allegedly making “excuses.” It is a huge corporate entity with annual revenues in excess of $300 million, whose executives are paid six figure salaries, as befits executives of a major corporation. It gives the political and corporate leaders of our society the illusory belief that amateurs are better than veterans if the former went to an…