More delays and financial upheaval

I got further communications from Teach for America. They've basically re-re-re-waitlisted for the time being. They were actually quite open and clear about the situation. School districts really don't know what they'll be able to afford next school year, and thus they have no idea how many teachers they'll have spots for. I'm not mad at them -- it is what it is. They intend to send out updates on status mid-April then again in May and provide FINAL statuses by end of May -- which I take to mean that if they still don't know the situation by the end of May, that they'll be canceling all further placements for this year.

I'm to hear back from NYC Teacing Fellows next week, but I imagine it will be much the same response.

Aside from all this, there's been some major ground-shifting under my feet in the meanwhile. Without going into great detail, let's just say that the financial landscape for me and my wife has undegone a fairly signifiant change recently. Between this and the ungoing uncertainty with both TFA and NYCTF, I really don't see me going into the teaching profession right now.

Perhaps this was not my time.

More Waiting -- Teach for America and NYC Teaching Fellows

As per their schedule, I got an update on my waitlist status from Teach for America on Jan 20. My new status is that I have to continue to wait. I still haven't been tossed curb-side, which I suppose is good, but I'll have to wait until March 10th for any more info.

Grrr.

I'm not sure what's up with NYC Teaching Fellows. They've begun sending out emails to people who interviewed in early December. Admissions are given on a rolling basis so, ostensibly, someone who interviewed on Dec 2nd (as I did) would hear before someone who interviewed on Dec 9th. But something is up. A friend of mine who interviewed on the same day that I did got an email saying she was waitlisted, several other people have posted to a message thread on the LiveJournal NYCTF site with their emails -- some outright rejected, others waitlisted, but none accepted. What's odd is that people who interviewed after me have received emails, but I have not.

My friend suggested that this might be a good sign. But knowing the Teaching Fellows, it could just as well be a bad sign, or a neutral sign, or a sign that my last name comes near the end of the alphabet and they simply haven't gotten to me yet.

Here are copies of the NYCTF waitlist and rejection notification emails, both copied from that LiveJournal thread linked just above. Thanks to both of the people who posted them:

Thank you for your continued interest in the NYC Teaching Fellows Program. At this time, we are reviewing your candidacy for the June 2009 program. Because of uncertainty about the budget, which will impact hiring needs for next school year, we are deferring admissions decisions until we have more information that enables us to better project the need for new Teaching Fellows.

Although we are unable to provide you with a final notification at this time, please be aware that you are part of a select group of applicants, and we will strongly consider your candidacy for our program. We expect to inform you of your final admissions decision by no later than Friday, March 27.

We thank you for your patience as you continue through the application process, and we appreciate your dedication to raising student achievement in the NYC classrooms that need you most. If you have any additional questions about the Fellowship, please do not hesitate to contact us at fellows@schools.nyc.gov or 718.935.4101.

and

Thank you for your interest in the NYC Teaching Fellows program. We appreciate the time and energy you have devoted to the application process and your desire to close the achievement gap. We have completed a final review of your application, and unfortunately, you have not been admitted to the Fellowship.

As you may know, the applicant pool for the Teaching Fellows program is extremely competitive. Each year we receive far more applications from qualified individuals than we have positions available.

We wish you the best in your future endeavors.

What's odd is that the wording in the waitlist notification email seems to be saying that it wasn't just this individual who was waitlisted, but that they are "deferring admissions decisions" for the entire program. If that is the case, I would think I'd have gotten the same email myself.

Not sure if that bodes well. I suppose it's a Good, Bad, or Let's See sort of situation -- as is getting into either program at all. Perhaps my path goes a different route altogether. We shall see.

If I hear anything else, I'll be sure to post it up here.

ADDENDUM
I finally heard back from NYCTF. It looks like they are only giving out rejections and waitlist emails. They aren't giving out any actual admissions right now because they have no idea what the demand will be from the schools. They say that we (meaning anyone who wasn't outright reject ed) should hear some final word from them by March 27th at the latest.

My TFA, My LAST, My Everything

A few updates here.

First, someone commented on a previous post that the "letter" that you see when you log into the TFA applicant portal changed, and now said that we're waitlisted through March, and not until January 20th. As soon as I saw this, I logged in and checked. Indeed, it said March. I was pissed beyond description.

However, I looked today and it says January 20th once again.

Go figure.

I guess I'm still going to find out on Jan 20th. My guess is that it was a technical/computer burp.

There was some other comments on the NYC Teaching Fellows Live Journal site that indicated that the wait time for hearing back from the Teaching Fellows had changed, and it would be 8-10 weeks rather than some other length of time. But really, 8-10 weeks from my initial interview (Dec 2) puts me in the end of January, which is kind of what I was expecting anyway.

And finally, I got my results in from the LAST exam (the intial teacher certification exam that ev ery NY teacher has to take). I won't get into the particulars, but I passed with flying colors.

I'm still feeling a little unsure and fairly anxious about all of this. With the economy doing what it's doing and the NYC education system having to cut back as it is, I wonder if this is the right year for me to be doing this.

Hopefully I'll have some answers in the next week or two.

Thumb Twiddling and To Sir, WIth Love

God, the waiting. THE WAITING.

I think the soonest I'll hear anything is January 20th -- the date I'm suppose to hear back with more info from Teach for America. However, in rereading the email they sent me back in November, I did notice that they did not say they would necessarily tell me if I were in or out on that date, only that they would provide me with an update on my status. So, in reality, come Jan 20th, they could simply tell me that I'm STILL on the waitlist. Maddening.

And I really have no firm date by which I'm suppose to hear back from NYC Teaching Fellows. I've gotten various answers back from different people. I've heard 5 weeks after the interview (which would be tomorrow). I've heard mid-January. I've heard late-January and even early-February. It's like they've got a drunken monkey spinning a wheel-of-luck doo-hickey in their office deciding our fate.

Anyway, now on to "To Sir, With Love" -- a pretty cool movie with Sidney Poitier. He's a clean-cut, well spoken teacher in a bad school in a bad neighborhood in London. His kids are in their final year of schooling and utterly unteachable. He decides to throw out the curriculum and, instead, teach them about life -- he starts with manners, making everyone in the class call eachother as Sir or Ms. and by their proper, last name.

The movie is one of the better of the "teacher makes a difference" genre, though a bit dated. Of course, if "Sir" was teaching in NYC, he'd be unable to do any of this, because of the regents exams. 8)

Anyway, if you haven't seen it, check it out.


ADDENDUM
Really, for no good reason whatsoever, I wandered over to the NYCTF website and looked at what they had up under Application Timeline. They say that applicants should hear by mid-January and that those who interviewed in early December (i.e. ME) should hear within five to seven weeks. So 5-7 weeks puts me at anywhere between tomorrow and January 20th.

We'll see if they actually get back to me in that timeframe.

OK, that's all.

ADDENDUM to the ADDENDUM
This post has been quoted over on GothamSchools.org.

Also, I should add that that, after an email from me asking a few question, I got a nice email from the folks at the NYC Teaching Fellows. They answered my questions and also informed me that I would be hearing some word by, and I quote, "mid-late January."

I'm going to unilaterally decide that "mid-late" means somewhere between Jan 15th and Jan 25th.

I should start up a betting pool on when I'll actually hear from them.

LAST exam, quick review.

I took the LAST exam (one of the first NYC teacher certification requirements) this past weekend. It's a general knowledge and general analytical skills assessment test. There's really no way to study or prepare for it -- maybe other than simply looking at a sample exam up on the state's website. It really could be described as a "making sure you're not a moron" test, which I suppose is not that bad to have.

It consists of 80 multiple-choice questions and a 300-600 word essay, for which you're given 4 hours, which is WAY too much time. I'm completely anal about taing standardized tests and check/re-check my answers a ton, and I was out of there in just over 2hrs. Again, if you're on the road to teaching in New York, you'll need to take this exam, but it's a fruitless endevour to fret or at all concern yourself with this test. If you can pass it, you're fine -- and if you can't, there' really no way of changing that -- other than boning up on ALL OF KNOWLEDGE ... 8)

Of course, I'm really hoping that I wasn't pushing on fate to have taken this certification exam before getting into either the New York Teaching Fellows program or Teach for America. Ugh.

Now, it's just a waiting game -- about a month to go before I should hear from both.

NYC Teaching Fellows interview, quick review...

I know. I know. I've been lazy. I've already had a few people bug me about putting up my thoughts on the NYC Teaching Fellows interview -- especially as it compared with the Teach for America interview. So here goes...

I had my interview this past Tuesday evening. Two things right off the bat: it was a PACKED house, there were easily 75-80 people there; and I like that they had it in the evening (4:30p-10p) rather than in the middle of the day. Their program is obviously geared towards people with jobs, as opposed to TFA, which had their interview mid-day, jobs-be-damned.

Though things were in slightly different orders, the NYCTF interview and the TFA interview, some details aside, were fairly similar (as I expected they would be). So here's a quick run-down of the NYCTF interview and some of the major differences:

1. They both had multiple-choice quizzes, but the NYCTF quiz was much more math-centric and really required some mathematical/analytical skills, while the TFA quiz was more about answering situational questions about teaching and reading information off of charts/reports. The math on the NYCTF quiz was not difficult math in itself (no calculus, trigonometry, etc) but each question was somewhat involved. I could see someone who has trouble with math having trouble with this quiz. I'm sure a good number of people didn't finish it. It was 23 questions and we had 30 minutes. Oh, and during this first bit, while we were all taking this quiz, 2 mice ran across the room. Good stuff. I think they might've been part of the interview process. 8)
2. NYCTF then had a 1 page "sample essay" by a 6th grader. You had 10 minutes to go through and mark up all the mistakes, focusing on spelling, grammar and punctuation.
3. We then split up into smaller groups and did our lesson plans. This part was almost exactly the same as in the TFA interview. While basic humility prevents me from commenting on my own performance, I will say that most of the lessons in my group sucked donkey balls. One or two were decent, the rest ranged from awful to God awful. I spoke with a few other people in other groups and this wasn't the case across the board. Possibly I got stuck in a sucky group.
4. Then, just as in TFA, we had a group discussion based on a short reading that described a situation in a school. The interviewers did not participate in the conversation, but overlooked, jotting down notes, and seeing how people in the group interacted. I believe they were less concerned with the solutions that the group came up with and moreso with how each person interacted with the group: did one person hog all the air? did someone not speak at all? could people agree and disagree civily, etc. This was similar to the group discussion we had with TFA -- though I felt here, it was a little less organized.
5. We then had to write a short (1-page or so) essay, pretending we were writing a letter to our principal about some issues. This wasn't far off of the written essay we had to do for TFA.
6. Then we had our 1-on-1 interviews. Some big differences. TFA 1-on-1s were 45-55 minutes long, these were 20 minutes, in-and-out. The TFA interviews were much more conversational, in-depth, and probing. In this interview, the interviewer was heads-down, rapid-fire Q&A, very impersonal. Very difficult to get and read on how the interivew went.

After being wait-listed with TFA, I'm hesitant to guess at how I did at the NYCTF interview. But I think I did well. I think my lesson plan was solid. I'm unsure how the 1-on-1 went, but, again, I think I did ok.

At this point, all I can do is wait.

I was told that we'd hear back from NYCTF around mid-Jan, so maybe Jan 15th? And I'll be hearing back from TFA on Jan 20th. So I have about 7 weeks of sitting around with my thumb up my bum.

If anyone has any specific questions about either of the interviews, just shoot me a note.

Oooofaa! Teach for America answer.

Well, I suppose it could be worse.

I got an answer back from Teach for America this Monday -- and am on the waitlist. This means that I won't hear back until Jan 20th.

After my interview, which went rediculously well, this irked me a little bit. I put it down to one of three things:

1. I completely screwed the pooch on the written quiz portion of the interview -- but I'm fairly sure this is not the case.
2. I horrendously misread how the interview went and I actually sucked.
3. I put down that I could and would only accept admission if placed in NYC, and I think that they are holding off doing any placements in NYC because of ensuing budget cuts there, I was put on the waitlist.

So, a little bummed, but at least I didn't *NOT* make it -- at least not yet.

And I have my NYC Teaching Fellows interview in 2 weeks.

Meh.

Had my Teach for America interview today....

... but no review.

For a number of reasons, I'm going to skip giving a detailed review of the full-day TFA interview -- at least for now.

I will say that it was very well organized, there weren't too many mouth-breathers there (either interviewees or interviewers), and, overall, by the late-afternoon, I was more impressed with TFA than I was at 9am. (Hopefully the interviewers think the same of me).

I continue to get mixed answers about whether or not I'm "required" to stay/sleep at the Summer Institute (bootcamp). I've gotten a shaky YES, a fairly confidant NO, a very confidant YES, and another shaky YES. So, while the official word on whether I have to start stocking up on Ramon noodles and buy that John Belushi poster where he's wearing that shirt that says "college" on it is still out, I'm still of the mind that they can't F-ing keep me from going home at night.

FIGHT THE MAN!!

OK, anyway. That's all for now. Good luck to everyone else who's interviewing in this first round.

Follow up ... Teach for America bootcamp -- living in the dorms

Just a follow up to the whole issue of having to live in the dorms.
I've gotten some info back from someone from Teach for America, and it seems like special cases can be made for people who live nearby or have certain family situations, etc.

And frankly, I can't imagine how they would enforce such a rule. Even if I "had to" live in the dorms, what's to stop me from simply leaving at night and coming back in the morning? It'd be pretty silly of them to even try and quarantine a person like that (especially a clever bastard like myself).

So, I'm a little less concerned about this now and I can go back to being concerned about the interview on Tuesday and my lesson plan.

Teach for America bootcamp -- living in the dorms??

An interesting piece of information was passed along to me today concerning the Teach for American "summer institute" -- under muttered breath, often spoken of simply as bootcamp.

While I was aware that such a bootcamp existed, I was informed today that this bootcamp takes place on some college campus where all new TFA members must LIVE for 5-6 weeks. Live. In dorm rooms.

While I can see where such room and board accomidations would be a godsend for a youngin' just out of school, I think it would be a non-starter for me. I'm currently looking into the situation to see if, in fact, I would have to live away from home (and hence away from The Wife and my home, etc) or whether I could simply go there in the morning and leave at the end of the day.

I completely understand the need for a few weeks of an extremely intensive workload, going from early in the AM until late at night. But to require that I live with the others is, well, a little cultish and creepy.

More info on this when I get it.

Oh -- and my interview is on Tuesday. I have my lesson plan mostly laid out, and I'm rearing to go.

Blazer ... CHECK!

I bought my big-boy blazer yesterday for my Teach for America interview next Tuesday. Other than the suit I got married in (which is quite nice, but not necessarily appropriate for an interivew) I really didn't have anything else to wear that wasn't casual.

But no longer! I now have my dark-brown Blazer. I'm ready to rock-n-roll.

Oh, and I think I had a super-sweet light-bulb moment over the weekend while working on my sample lesson plan. And man, 5 minutes FLIES. I think most people are going to try to shove too much material and content into their lesson.

Teach for America -- the final interview. WOOT! WOOT!

WOOO HOOO!

I got an invite to the final, in-person interview for the Teach for America program today. I've already signed up for the interview on Tue-Oct-28 at the TFA National HQ in NYC. The sucker's all day. 9am-6pm. Oooooofah!

I also had to put in my preferences for subject area and region. Of course, I put down that I could only do TFA in New York. From what I've gathered already, the fact that I'm married, The Wife's job is not movable at all, and I'm a new homeowner -- should make it pretty easy for me to get NYC.

The TFA application process is starting to get a little too baroque for my tastes. I also had to enter in every single detail for every single class I've ever taken (class name, number, department, credits, grade) ... for my entire transcript. They're going to get official copies of my transcripts eventually. Strikes me as horribly inefficient.

So, I have 22 days to get my 5-minute lesson plan done and to figure out what I'm going to wear. I feel I need a blazer of some sort. In my mind, that's what teachers wear.

The Teach for America phone interview, my review

I had a few readers of my blog (wait, did I say readers of my blog? Holy Crap! I didn't think people would actually be READING this thing...) ask how the phone interview with Teach for America went, and what it entailed. Here's a brief summary and my thoughts:

My call lasted about 45-50 minutes, so quite a bit longer than the estimated 30min -- not sure that's meaningful one way or the other. The woman (and I almost want to say 'girl', as I got the feeling that she was fairly young, but more about that in a bit) seemed fairly competent, and was pleasant -- which is a good start. I've done plenty of interviews where the person was awful and stupid to boot.

First we spent a few minutes on Teach for America itself: why I wanted to join, what I thought the goal or mission of TFA was, and what I thought about it. I still find it a little creepy the extent to which they talk about their mission. It has a very, I dunno, religious tone to it. So, we talked about (said robotically) "CLOSING -- THE -- ACHIEVEMENT -- GAP." Just make sure you've read all of their BS literature on their website, and feel comfortable talking about the material, and you should be fine here.

Next, we spent some time going over my resume. She peppered me with some fairly boilerplate resume/job interview questions. They were the sorts of questions one might have trouble answering right out of school, with no job experience. But, really, anyone with even a few years working should have no problem batting these around. Things like:

• At work, how do you determine success?
• Have you ever come across a challenge at work, and how did you overcome it?
• Have you ever had a conflict with someone at work, and how did you deal with it?
• Did you ever miss a deadline at work, and how did you deal with it?

... you know, pretty easy stuff if you've been working for a while. Who among us hasn't had work conflicts, challenges, missed deadlines, yada yada boom-bada.

The only part of the interview which I thought was interesting was her questions about ORGANIZATION. How do I organize things at work? How do I keep track of what needs to get done and their priorities -- but really specific questions. Do you keep it on paper? In a calender? In Outlook? Pretty interesting.

We spoke about the 3 articles (listed in a previous post) briefly. That was basically a -- Can you comprehend what you read -- sort of question.

And that's about it.

Anyone who's been on job interviews before shouldn't have any problems. It should end up being more of a relaxed conversation. I think it helps when the person interviewing you is (quite likely) a bit YOUNGER than you. 8)

I don't want to jinx myself, but I think I rocked the box on the interview. Though, really, who the hell knows exactly what they're looking for. I very well may have answered something in such a way as to flag me as a bad pick.

Plan B, step 2 .... ACHIEVED!!

Plan B being Teach for America. Step 2 being invited for a phone interview.

I got the email today from Teach for America and have already scheduled my 30min phone interview for 11:20am this Saturday. I also put my two "online recommenders" and my back-up reference person in.

We are suppose to read 3 articles:

1. "Closing the Achievement Gap" by Kati Haycock
2. "Education expert Haycock: With change, achievement is possible" by NYSUT News Wire
3. "Washington Commentary: Redefining 'Inexcusable'" by Anne C. Lewis

And, I suppose, be able to speak about them during the interview -- as well as speak about our past job, scholastic, and leadership experience. I've already scanned the articles and, well, I'll give it to TFA, they're really on message ... all the time. It's all about their MISSION. Closing the achievement gap, etc. It's becoming quite obvious that they're interested in getting people to bark their ideals back to them. I've heard some of the same from some people on various message boards.

So they can't just let you teach, they have to indoctrinate as well.

It's ok though. I can play that game.

Look out Teach for America, I'm 'bout to bust yo door in mutha-F-er!!!

Teaching Fellows versus Teach for America

On the surface, both programs acheive the same end -- a short-cut to the classroom. They both have a quick-n-dirty training session over the summer. They both have some sort of support network. Many similarities.

I found an interesting post on the LiveJournal/TeachForAmerica community board, from which I'll quote:

TFA is sort of like a brainwashing evil cult, in my experience, whereas the fellows has the exact same training and support network without the mindfuck. That said, it's a lot easier to fall through the cracks in the fellows and be a lame teacher flying under the radar, whereas TFA is all over you like white on
rice if you suck. WHich is a good thing, I think.

Very interesting. Just from my experience so far, I kind of had the same feelings. I think I even used the word "cult-ey" a few blog posts ago. Not sure what (if anything) to make of this ... just interesting

Teach For America info Webinar -- live!

As I write this, I'm watching and listening to a Teach For America info Webinar. It's kind of like the NYCTF info session I went to last week, but over the web.

A few things that stick out.

First, Teach for America people are a little bit cult-ey when they talk about themselves. They keep talking about their "mission" and its importance and such. Borders on the creepy.

Second, there is ZERO good information being given here. They've giving a broad, basic outline of the program, and a walk-thru of the online application process. Really, nothing that isn't easily available on their website. I suppose I said much the same thing about the NYCTF info session ... but this is, perhaps, a little worse.

I actually think they SHOULDN'T explain how to fill out the application -- at all. It can be an additional filtering mechanism, pushing aside any dunder-heads who can't quite figure it out.

Timelines, etcetera

Currently, I'm waiting on two different timelines, one for NYCTF and one for TFA.

The NYCTF timeline is ill defined and things seem to happen whenever the program gets around to doing them, but, roughly speaking, I should know whether I make it to the interview stage of the process by mid-October.

The TFA timeline is very well define: here. They're almost Nazi-like about it. They indicate (on their applicant portal) whether you've been invited to to attend an interview on Sept 25th, and you MUST respond within 24 hours, or you lose your spot.

In addition to these two events, I'm also going to 2 informational sessions in September: this Thu, Sept-11, I'm going to an info session for NYCTF and on Sept-23, to one for Hunter College's Masters in Education program.

Oh, and I'm looking into the Hunter College program as a Plan-C of sorts -- if I get into neither NYCTF or TFA.

Fallback plans, Teach For America, Etc..

I've now also applied to the Teach For America program. Here's what happened...

So, I was kind of freaking out yesterday. I realized that one of the two essays I submitted in the NYCTF had a few grammatical errors and typos. I think I copy/pasted an unedited version over by accident. Now I'm worried that I won't get an interview because of a copy/paste mistake.

I mean, I have a solid resume, a 4.0 GPA, etc -- I should at least get an INTERVIEW. But it got me thinking -- what if I don't get in. What would my fallback plan be?

I decided my plan B would be the Teach For America program. It's a similar alternative certification route program. It looks like the main difference is that they don't directly subsidize your Masters degree. However, they do pay a monetary bonus equalling about $9500 over two years of service -- and if I got my Masters from a CUNY school, it would financially end up being about the same. I haven't done as much research into the TFA program -- and the information on their website seems far more vague, with much less specifics.