Hi FFXU. I wanted to share with you my reasons for coming here and telling you guys my story (and hopefully get some advice)

As the title states, I am serving for a year in an Americorps program called City Year. I work in a school in SE Washington DC. I joined because I did like the idea of the program; I wanted to see about teaching but didn't want as long a commitment as TFA, so City Year seemed like TFA lite. I was struggling with some personal feelings about poor and underprivileged schools and the people in them, but I thought that this year would help me to open up and appreciate all people of all colors, incomes, and backgrounds. How wrong I was. But that was my first mistake, hoping that this could help expand my mind. The second one was the choice in program: Americorps and specifically City Year is the creepiest, most indoctrinating, left-wing bullshit organization that makes my stomach turn.

Before we go much farther, I will admit I went into this year as a pretty strong social and fiscal liberal, but my experiences have drastically changed my mind on MANY fronts. I still believe in some liberal things, but I would say I've turned around maybe 160 degrees. Please don't focus on that too much (I'll answer questions if you want, but I just wanted to share my story with you) because the shit I learned about CY/Americorps is ridiculous.

First my students and their parents: I have never been more shocked at what goes on in poor schools. I really wanted to believe that poor black people were underprivileged because of the "system," things like working with/against inherent white privilege, poor access to health care, few jobs, no social support, etc. Everything you can think of is true, 21 year old mothers with 4 kids (none of whom know their fathers) openly bragging which stores will take their food stamps for booze and cigarettes. Having kids just for a bigger welfare check. Most of my kids are on an IEP or should be, and most are either fetal alcohol or crack babies.

My class has 22 kids and each kid had to fill out a form with parental/guardian info, so there were about 40 parents/guardians listed. Of those 40, there were FIVE with actual jobs. One worked at McDonalds, others as secretaries, janitors, etc. All of the kids receive free lunch and have foodstamp cards that their parents give them to buy cheetos and candy after school. There are kids in my class who don't wash their clothes for weeks because their parents have had their water turned off, but come in with new shoes and iphones. The number of brand new leased cadillacs, lexuses, escalades, jags, is staggering. The kids whine that they can't afford pencils, so I have to buy them, and their parents drop them off in jaguars. I wish I were making this up.

The teachers aren't any better. They are the laziest, least motivated, least educated group of lowlifes. I honestly don't know how any of them passed college. One thing is for sure, they all LOVE Obama. It seems like every single teacher has a picture of Obama, books about Obama, uses Obama/MLK/Jesse Jackson/Malcom X as examples in every single lesson. During black history month I walked in on my teacher telling the kids that ALL white people hated blacks in the 60s. One of them asked "Even _________(me)?" she responded "I don't know!" Hm, isn't that, I dunno, RACIST? During the election the kids would all talk about how much they hated Romney and white people by extension. After the election my teacher had an open discussion about how great Obama was and what terrible things would have happened if Romney won. Oh no! Mom would actually have to stop drinking all day and get a job! We'd have to stop leasing our Lexus! The horror.

But those are all observational problems that I can't really account for or do anything about (unless I want to be chased out of the school with pitchforks). The real reason I came here was to tell you about Americorps.

So City Year is school based except for a couple special teams that focus on community service and stuff. The FIRST week of training we had an hour long session on how to get on food stamps. I'd say 80% of CY is on food stamps. They told us the best times to go to the office, gave us specially typed out forms, even told us how to "spin" our paycheck and savings in case the caseworker took a closer look at all the rich middle class college educated white kids suddenly applying for food stamps. I'm not on them because I genuinely think its amoral, but I could have moved some funds around and gotten my $200 a month too!

Next, the CY culture. They have us wear a strict uniform, literally nothing you wear cannot be CY issued except for shoes and undershirts (which have to be white or black). We have to wear a CY "red" most of the time. Those are the obnoxious red jackets you might see around if you're in a city with CY. They teach us military style callbacks and have us engage in PT, all with strict guidelines and motions. It's SO creepy and cultish. They host "unity rallies" around the city and forbid us from driving so we're more visible so people will ask us who we are and what we do. We have to start and end each day with a circle meeting, because they treat us like dumb children. They are 80% focused on image and advertising and maybe 20% on actual work in schools and education. I heard a guy at another school was caught with drugs and alcohol on school property, during the school day, and because he was a good connection to a local high school, wasn't fired or even punished. The principal doesn't even know, because they don't want CY to look bad. Never mind that there is a guy on drugs around school kids, it's all about "diversity" right?

Around election time the head of CY gave a speech at one of our trainings basically saying that there is this one candidate who wants to cut americorps, can you guess who this is? Yes that's why you should vote accordingly...! It was very close to treading the non-political line. Not that it really matters, we had a guy come in who gave a 2 hour talk on sex and sex ed, culminating with free condoms for everyone. They had a contest where you put on condoms the fastest, you'd win a whole box! Today at a service event, we were literally passing out safe sex kits (with 4 condoms, personal lube, and info sheets on how to use both) to MIDDLE SCHOOLERS. 7th and 8th graders, all the way up to high school, with free condoms courtesy of CY!

That's all I can think of now. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask away. My question for you all is, what can I do about CY? I emailed the superintendent about City Year because apparently they are apprehensive about renewing our contract with the schools. I received a canned answer thanking me for my interest. CY is having a big fundraising gala on May 8th at the Mellon Auditorium downtown. I wish there was some way I could convince the donors we don't do anything, without losing my job! I have to stick it out until May or else I don't get my scholarship. Any thoughts?

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So how did this turn out for you in the end? Perhaps you felt differently after graduating?

Shill conversative. No underprivlidged kid wrote this crep.

If you Google: Americorps ACORN you will find all kinds of interesting things.
This is one of my favorite:

http://spectator.org/blog/19064/americorps-and-acorn-go-way-back