Pros
As many have said, short hours with no expectation to take work home or to lesson plan; if you are a teacher that got into the profession for the kids, but found teaching stressful/difficult, this actually could be a good place to land. The pay is good, especially given the light workload, and the expectations are minimal. Also, for some students (5-10%?) the learn4life independent study model is a good fit. Those things are real, hence the two stars.
Cons
You will split your time approximately 50% teaching , 50% paperwork (Sounds impossible, but true). This stems from management's obsession with not getting sued. Staff 'development' is often geared around avoiding legal problems for the organization or new paperwork procedures, and this happens EVERY Friday, ALL day (again, sounds impossible but true). There seems to be an ethos at L4L to keep your head down, don't rock the boat, and rubber stamp sub-par work so that the organization can claim "ADA" (i.e. get their money from the state). The is the big push of the organization, getting paid, NOT academics. This is reflected in the abysmal test scores and graduation rates. All of this becomes soul-sucking pretty quickly, and if you signed up to teach young minds and improve lives, you will sigh a lot. The reason why I've come to see L4L as a "Cancer on public schools" is because they are very adept at attracting students, and every student they attract costs the local public schools money. Kids talk tell their peers that L4L is a WAY easier path than their home school. Public schools with integrity and rigorous academics lose funds when these kids jump ship to "study" at L4L. Don't get me wrong, there is a place for independent study; at its best its is a great way to augment traditional public schools, but savvy business people at L4L have found a way to exploit the loopholes and turn this into a money making machine. :(
