Bouncing Around The Room, Part II

"Critics are so intent on exposing the racism and obtuseness of the teacher that it is difficult to understand her view of the world. Like welfare workers and police, teachers in the urban colonies of the poor are part of a social system that shapes their behavior, too. It is more important to expose and correct the injustice of the social system than to scold its agents. Indeed, one of the chief reasons for the failures of educational reforms of the past has been precisely that they called for a change of philosophy or tactics on the part of the individual school employee rather than systemic change-and concurrent transformations in the distribution of power and wealth in the society as a whole."

-David B. Tyack, The One Best System, 1974

Spot on, 35 years later (charges of whole-scale racism, I think, notwithstanding). Blaming teachers simultaneously absolves the non-teaching public of all responsibility for educating poor people and also strokes its ego. Yes, schools can be fixed, if only we could fire the bad teachers! No further public obligation required! And yes, while I may occasionally face problems in my own life, at least I'm not a stupid teacher!

I believe that we're better off doing everything we can to improve the teachers we've got and at the very least, offering them incentive to stay where they are. Teaching poor students is, I will maintain, the hardest job in America, but also one of the most widely misunderstood. Given the hours required outside of the classroom for student feedback, parent contact, careful planning and assessment, why don't we lighten teaching loads to two periods a day for teachers in Title I schools? Why don't we change school funding rules so that NYC principals aren't forced to hire an uncertified rookie instead of a veteran in order to cut costs?

And when will we see that the biggest obstacle to poor children's success in school isn't incompetent teachers, the student-laptop ratio, lack of school choice, or governance issues, but rather deeply ingrained hopelessness quite rationally wrought by economic realities?