Pros
1 Students, of course, are awesome. 2. Teachers have a decent amount of autonomy in the class, but there's an asterisk (see below) 3. Center level management (Center Director, Assistant Director, etc) are awesome. They are always available and they make the teachers feel valued. They have the teachers backs, and while they aren't always able to, they try and make changes based on what's best for teachers. 4. Compensation is adequate. It's at or slightly above the average rate for teachers in Boston. That being said, it's still too low. High turnover in the ESL biz means there's never any pressure to up the compensation for teachers.
Cons
1. Senior Management. The managers above the center level are laughable. Too few of them have backgrounds in education. They almost never promote in-house. Two new centers have recently opened (or are opening soon), and they're being run by outside hires who have never worked in the ESL field. That's a winning formula if I've ever head it. In all the time I've worked at FLS, I've never been given a management feedback survey. There is literally no communication between the powers that be and the people who deliver the product (teachers). Incredible talent goes walking out the revolving door all the time. I stay because, as I said before, my compensation isn't likely to improve by switching schools in Boston. Another problem with the management is that they frequently override the Assistant Directors and Center Directors. Rather then delegate simple day-to-day decisions to these people, the ADs frequently find their decisions (which were made to make life better for students and teachers) reversed or ignored in favor of policies that don't make any pedagogical or academic sense. 2. Curriculum changes. As a curriculum, it's actually a very solid foundation. The fundamental curriculum is, in my opinion, better than other schools I've taught at. However, they have begun demanding much more out of the same amount of time. They keep adding new academic and administrative components to a program which was already full. It is not physically possible to include all the components in the time allotted. And since there is no structure for teachers to provide feedback, the Academic Director et. al. go on blissfully unaware that they've created a 12-15 curriculum, and we're expected to administer it in 8 weeks. Oh yeah, and give assessments every week too. It's no wonder there's a major discrepancy between students who've "leveled up" into your class from the previous level and the new students who took the placement test and placed in your level. The students who've leveled up are generally much lower because the previous teacher didn't have anywhere near enough time to cover the material.
