Pros
Thorough professional development across all levels of teachers, from first year teachers to experienced veterans. There is a coaching system in place for all teachers, and regardless of how long you have been teaching, Achievement First believes in a constant state of self-improvement. Many of these practices revolving around time management and other practices can be extended outside of the classroom environment.
Cons
At Achievement First, it is nearly impossible to establish any sort of meaningful work-life balance. Teachers are expected to work longer than normal hours, with constant meetings and professional development which negatively impacts any teacher's ability to efficiently and adequately complete a lesson plan. Not only is your classroom micromanaged, but every aspect of your life because planned. "What time are you having dinner?"; "What time are you going to spend time with your family this weekend?"; "How many hours do you think you can spend with them?" are all questions that were asked, and planned out on a weekly basis. I almost feared the thought of what would happen if I ever needed to call in sick. How would I be able to catch up? How many times would I have to update the outline of my quarterly lesson plan summary? I will now touch upon the quality of the lessons themselves. Lessons are often pre-scripted depending on which department you work in, and there is little to no room for creativity. They will work on changing the manner in which you speak, your personality itself, and your general demeanor in order for you to fit their mold of what Achievement First thinks it means to be an excellent teacher. In addition, lessons were supposed to be structured in a certain way, letting a scholar "grapple" with a skill before they actually learn how to use it. Although I could understand doing this from time to time, being forced to do this each and every class was detrimental to scholars' learning. The methods were time consuming, and yet I was told that I was not being "quick enough." This, here, is where I felt like there was nowhere to turn. I could fly through a lesson and have none of my scholars understand it, or I would go "too slowly" and be repeatedly told to "speed it up." The students themselves are being set up for failure, with IA's and Unit Exams being scaled to the point where the act of actually taking the exam itself is almost meaningless. Grades less than a certain percentage are automatically scaled to avoid "grade killers." When a scholar fails to complete a homework assignment, it is still scaled to a minimum percentage opposed to the scholar receiving 0%, which is sending the message to scholars that they can get away without submitting an assignment and still receive some form of credit. How is this preparing scholars for the rigorous academic content at the university level? Achievement First takes pride in preparing their scholars to encounter life in higher education, and yet many courses do not even use text books. Although I can understand certain courses using text books, this creates both a strain for instructors and students. How can one expect a teacher to teach with limited resources? How can one expect a scholar to exceed when they've never seen a mathematics textbook before going on to college? I believe in this case the title above truly describes it all. Truth be told, I do not think I have ever worked in as discouraging and disheartening institution.