Not that simple

Not as simple as more charter schools, but not as simple as leave teachers alone and solve poverty first. What is the purpose of schools? Could a nation agree? Maybe a small one. Maybe a state could, or a city, a district. Certainly a community could?

But never entirely. People will hate your school. People will love it too.

The Problem With Opposition

So we have two camps. On the one hand is the anti-union, pro-charter, pro-testing group called reformers by the MSM (chidingly, "the deformers", by its opposition) and embodied by Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, and others. The other side is pro-union, anti-charter, anti-testing, without a meaningful name (chidingly, "the status quo", by its opposition) embodied by Diane Ravitch, Deborah Meier, and others.

The reformers gain a lot of ground by consistently trying to come up with evidence for "what works". Whatever effort they endorse, be it merit-pay, charter schools, vouchers, et al, the true test is always, "did the scores go up?". Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don't. But the reformers' job is to try something new and see if the scores go up.

Ravitch et al have a mightier task. The problem with opposing the reformers is that you must constantly prove that nothing works. Schools are not the answer; out of school factors mean much more to student success than anything in school. Test scores are either reflective of a narrowing of curriculum, creamed students, or outright cheating. These are troublesome because (1) you are consistently labeled contrarian and working against the children (2) ultimately your suggestions are political and have more to do with tax policy or our social safety net than schools themselves and (3) you have to spend much time writing "take downs" of what the Rhees of this world are doing, rather than focusing on your own agenda.

Can those that oppose "the reformers" come up with a coherent agenda that will help students and win broad public support?

Can we end the dichotomy?

Heather Harding writes with a unique and untold perspective. If you're TFA are you a tool of corporate deformers? Do you seek radical deconstruction of the public school system?

In many cases, no. Unfortunately the dichotomous nature of our debate leaves no room for perspectives that are "in between" established ideologies.

OK World, What Do I Do?

I want to do something. I want to be involved in improving education in the United States. I want to, specifically, improve education in impoverished urban areas. Why? Because my ability to think is what I cherish the most. I want everyone to have this. Without people that can think for themselves, we're fucking donezo. Climate change, economic meltdowns, you name it, we need need thinkers. To get us to the 22nd century in one piece.

I'll work a twelve hour day and all I want to do is go home and read education blogs.

So call me names. I'm white. OK. I went to college. Yes. It was Ivy League. My parents went to college too. I grew up in the suburbs. Call me what you want. Overpriviliged asshole. Fine. Maybe I don't belong here. What are the options?

1. "Just teach" Work in a traditional public school. Develop an ulcer. Be a grain of sand in a whirling storm. Stand tall with the union. Fight for seniority rights. Know, in my heart of hearts, that I'm "doing right by the kids" and that I have a pension and I've sided with labor, the good guys. Always feel powerless. Never feel respected. Never make enough money. Sit in union meetings and hate myself because all anyone wants to talk about is minutes in the day, not failing students. Feel successful every now and again. Maybe become a principal. Spend my time forcing out senior teachers to fix my budget. Make more money. Fudging numbers. Causing teachers to hate me.

2. "Go 100% charter" I've done it for a few years. Whole-heartedly renounce collective bargaining. Stay in the charter world. Feel respected, feel powerful. Make more money. Be a media darling. Feel successful every day. Feel like shit because I'm on the wrong team, I'm privatizing what should be a public entity. Feel like shit because lots of kids don't make it through our schools. Feel like shit because despite all of our extra money, numbers-fudging, and autonomy, public schools are still compared to us in the media and demonized, unfairly. Maybe become a principal. Create a school some kids and the media will love, but in my heart of hearts, I know is a sham.

3. "Fucking leave" Do something else! I don't belong here and I never did. I have the wrong mentality. The wrong background. The wrong everything. If you can't stand wholeheartedly in one of these camps, there's no place for you. Get out!

4. "Policy wonk" Go to ed school. Get a PhD. Spend the rest of my life writing about what's wrong with charter schools, what's wrong with district schools, and die happy knowing my conscience is clear. At least I didn't fuck anything up. I didn't do anything real. I didn't walk the walk.

Not expecting an answer. I just don't feel optimistic about any of them.

TFA20 - Opening Plenary

Finally found the time to collect my thoughts from the TFA 20th Anniversary Summit, and I must say, if nothing else it was inspiring. It feels good to be reminded that it's OK to "still be a teacher" and to know that, as annoying as TFA may seem at times, its alumni are frequently dedicated, caring people who think about the issues that matter. Well, maybe not every issue that matters.

It was also interesting to get a sense of the current TFA philosophy and I must report that an organization that once (six years ago) felt pro-teacher and that at least tried to stay out of political issues is now pro-"leadership" and has a distinct ideological (pro-charter) slant.

Saturday began with an opening plenary that felt like a high school pep rally in an airplane hangar, complete with rock music and a raucous crowd.

Kaya Henderson, a TFA alumna who has taken over the reins of DCPS, introduced the summit (following a performance by the Ballou High School marching band). She also hinted at the tenor of the day, stating in no uncertain terms, "This is the revolution that we all dreamed about." From there the alarmist histrionics would only increase in urgency.

Wendy Kopp was next. In describing the nature of the alumni force, she dropped an interesting fact bomb: "1500 of you alumni are teachers". Well let's think about that. The total number of alumni was repeatedly stated to be 20,000. 1,500/20,000 = 7.5%. So 7.5% are still teaching. Not the number that gets tossed around in the media.

In her opening address, Wendy established what would be the refrain of the day: (1) we have solved the achievement gap, the recipe has been found, and (2) there is a moral imperative for drastic action, rather than slow, careful change. "We have created 'transformational schools' that make this work sustainable. We know what these schools are doing, and it is not elusive," she said. Later she added, "Incremental change is not enough, we need transformational change."

Immediately questions popped into my head: What is the evidence that any school works? Unsaid all weekend: the evidence is always proficiency rates on state-written assessments. Bunk. It's too easy to test-prep, it's not college readiness, it's not critical thinking. Also, so much evidence shows that real school change is gradual. It has to be gradual. I felt like throwing a copy of The Teaching Gap at the stage. But Kopp would not be the last to demand sudden, explosive change.

Walter Isaacson of the Aspen Institute (what?) then introduced a celebrity "yes!"-panel of edustars that quickly started sounding like Gucci-wearing versions of Karl Marx. First up, Joel Klein had the audacity to channel the Cairo protestors, asking, "Is this our Egypt moment?" He made the pertinent claim, "Each one of you out there, insist that every school is one you would send your own kids to." Fair enough. But couldn't end without echoing Kopp: "We need radical change."

Klein was followed by Dave Levin. The original KIPPster intoned, "We know it's possible. Revolutionary schools exist." He would close: "What will you do to serve the revolution?"

No edreform panel in 2011 would be complete without Michelle Rhee. She began with a proclamation, "We know what works," referencing quickly KIPP and the Harlem Children's Zone, before warning, "Not everyone is going to like us. We need to be aggressive." Oh shit!

HCZ's own Geoffery Canada would be next, stating breathlessly, "I never thought this moment would come." I have a ton of respect for Mr. Canada, and his presence on this panel, for me, legitimized a lot of the summit. I started to think if Geoff's here and Geoff's behind this, then I am too.

Probably least well-known was the last to speak, John Deasy, new leader of LAUSD. Apparently his resume includes work for Prince George's County and the Gates Foundation. "This is a courage issue," he said. "We will not allow rules or regulations to put great teaching in peril."

I kept waiting for one of them to bang his or her shoe on the table.

A lot of the rhetoric I agreed with: "We must professionalize teaching," (Klein); "This is the hardest work on the planet. It's also the most important," (Levin).

But I am ready to deepen the conversation. In addition to the unspoken assumption above (increased test scores = increased everything good), another big assumption is always that "transformational schools" teach kids that are "the same" as their counterparts in the same districts. Are they? Is a poor kid is a poor kid is a poor kid? When Klein says, "Give those same kids a great education, and the outcome is different," what does he really mean? In what sense are the kids "the same"? What "outcome" is he referring to?

When John Deasy says, "Look, we happen to be people of privilege, so what? Our students are not. We are violating our students' rights," what rights is he referring to? What is the purpose of schooling? What rights are guaranteed to in our public school system? Could we ever agree? This is still the question that matters.

"What learning can the state properly demand of its students?"

-Horace's Compromise, p. 85, written in 1984

Today I don't think this question gets the time and thought it deserves. Again, the central term of this question, "learning", is left largely undiscussed. Learning is what the teachers are in charge of; the debate on the other hand, discussed by all of those important people that don't teach, revolves around the machinations of merit pay, school governance models, and union politics. Yes, you want charters schools. Yes, you want vouchers. Yes, you want to recruit better teachers. Yes, you want more accountability. But to what end? What will happen in these schools? Does this deserve your time and attention?

Ted Sizer lists three areas that should be required learning for everyone: (1) literacy, "the ability to...read easily and sensitively enough to comprehend at least the basic arguments presented by contemporary political and social life," (2) numeracy, "the ability to use numbers, arithmetically and algebraically, and to understand the concepts, relationships, and logic embedded in mathematical thought," (3) civic understanding, "a grasp of the basis for consensual democratic government, a respect for its processes, and acceptance of the restraints and obligations incumbent on a citizen," (p.86).

I don't think there would be too much argument with this as a basis for schools today. But then he goes on to say:

However, beyond these three elements, the claims of the state have far less merit. The state has no right to insist that I be "employable" on its terms of what a "career" may be. This is my private matter, and I take the risk that no one will purchase the services that I prepare myself to offer. The state has no right or obligation to tell me how to spend my leisure time. I can enrich myself and the state if I am cultured, but it is unreasonable of the state to impose on me its own definition of culture. As long as my style of life and values do not impinge on those of others, I should have the sovereign right to be what I want to be, including a slob. (p. 86-87, my bold)

Sizer goes on to write that "encouraging" particular careers or definitions of culture should be acceptable, to contrast with mandating these things. He rounds out his thoughts with the claim that, "Americans must come to terms with the limits on compulsion, on the minimal reasonable claims of the state on the time and minds of young citizens," (p. 87).

Today, this would fall into the category of "soft bigotry". The reform climate pushes college on everyone. Paternalistic charter schools do push a particular, middle-class culture on students. The goal of high-paying careers for as many people as possible seems to be the unspoken goal of our system. (And with good reason! Widening inequality has put those without a college degree in a very difficult position.)

Moreover, so much of today's educational discussion seems to be tied to our national economic interests (this is a particularly egregious example). Presumably, if we send everyone to college and prepare people for careers in science and technology, our GDP will rise and America will maintain its superpower status. Should this be the goal of our schools? Are there practical implications for making this the goal of our schools? If we are society that has become obsessed with our own gross domestic product and little else, we will likely create students that are obsessed with our GDP, or their own personal wealth, and little else.

We need to bring learning and the purpose of schools back to the table. I think Sizer's three criteria are a good starting place.

Rambling, incoherent

Ted Sizer wrote: "We rarely underestimate the difficulties of learning. Having had to learn, we know that it is a complicated and unpredictable business," (Horace's Compromise, p. 2).

In today's climate, I disagree. I believe the wide majority, those that have never taught, regularly discount any challenge related to learning.

You're in sixth grade and you can't add fractions with unlike denominators with 80% accuracy? There's something wrong with your teacher. Or maybe you. You're lazy, kid. Get with it.

As every punishment must fit its crime, so too must every reform correspond to a particular failing of the system. Witness the rise of the "no excuses" mantra. Want to outlaw excuses? Someone must have been making a whole damn lot of them.

Can anyone who has never taught fractions really have an opinion? Should we really be listening to them at all? I'm not trying to be divisive, I really want to know. Should Bill Gates really be a powerful voice on education? Something tells me learning fractions was never that hard for him.

Is learning hard? Teaching? What does it even mean to learn? Have you ever learned? How do you know? How could you prove it to someone? Is there more than one way to prove it? Who or what caused your learning? How do you know? Do any of these questions even matter? To whom?

Until we, and I mean everyone, really wrestle with these ideas I see little hope for progress. Hold up a great school. Let's take a look. What's that, you say? The students have learned a lot? According to whom or what source? What did they learn? Did your school teach it to them? How do you know?

Popular assumptions undergird the debate. We are quick to applaud a school with high test scores. This is unquestionably a place where much learning has taken place; thus it deserves our attention. Left unwondered: are high scores really evidence of learning? What in fact, causes high scores on this particular exam? Do we know that the school played a role in causing the high scores?

Those few that ask these questions find a small audience and risk the label of contrarian.

Teaching Is What Matters

I've recently picked up Horace's Compromise by the late Ted Sizer. I'll try to post as I go through it. So much of this book rings true to me (though some parts need updating for the 21st century) I have a feeling there will be more to write, but the first thought is with respect to teaching.

From the introduction: "Curiously most of us, lay people and educators alike, tend to underrate teaching...We can play at learning, without retaining much save the temporary pleasure of the play, and we can act the teacher, strutting expectable stuff in front of blackboards. Real learning and real teaching require more." This is obviously still true. Few of those with a mainstream voice on education policy are willing to examine the details of what great teaching entails. Certainly for the policy wonks, actual teaching is a radioactive substance best left to those slovenly masses who actually have to handle it on a daily basis. They would much rather focus on the important stuff: parsing the intricacies of school governance models or arguing endlessly about national standards.

Last April, the New York Times ran a piece about out-of-work professionals turning to teaching amid the recession. Pam Grossman, ed professor at Stanford, made some insightful statements. She wrote (bold is mine):

Because all of us have spent thousands of hours in classroom observing teachers, we may underestimate the skill required to engage a group of children or adolescents and ensure that they are learning. Much of the teaching we do in everyday life, as parents or employers, involves telling or tutoring. As parents, we help children with math homework, test them on their vocabulary words, answer their questions. But teaching is much more than telling, and teachers have to know more than right answers.

My impression is that most reformers working from without, who have little or no experience teaching, likely misunderstand fully any and all problems with our educational system, since they likely misunderstand fully any and all aspects of teaching. If teaching is a sort of knowledge transfer then logically any problem must lie with its agents; the teller or the telling is flawed.

Let me ask: Bill Gates, when you consider a high school with low math scores, do you shake your head and and wonder how teachers could not give accurate lectures on the quadratic formula? Do you wish that teachers would write equations more clearly on the blackboard? That they had more mathematical knowledge? That there were more and neater examples on paper?

Anyone with classroom experience will know that in many cases, it doesn't matter how clear your message is to the kids; it takes more and varied approaches. It takes student action and engagement with the content; it takes relevance to student lives (and I'm not talking about putting homework on an iPhone). It takes myriad other techniques, tasks, and ideas.

If teachers are going to shape the future of education, then we need to do a better job of convincing the public of what it really means to be a good teacher. Which means teachers' unions doing a better job of highlighting their star teachers and what they do. Which means media coverage that is more than a feeble-minded dichotomy between syrupy sweet Hollywood martyr-pics and "serious" articles and op-eds decrying the corruption and entitlement among teachers.

Maybe we need David Simon to make an HBO series about real schools.

Non-governmental org's have kept me here

As much as I support unions and believe in public schools for all, it hit me today that without (1) charter schools and (2) another non-profit that provides financial support and professional development, I might have quit teaching two years ago. Depending on how you view my quality as a teacher, this is either a good or a bad thing.

But if high quality teaching is critical to great schools we will continue to depend on the non-profit sector to invent means for recruiting and maintaining high quality teachers. I think there is a lot of room for non-profits in the areas of teacher evaluation and improvement. In districts where unions and school boards/mayors are constantly locked in battle, there is room for "third-party" solutions.

Fix 'Em

Via Aaron Schutz at Education Policy Blog:

"In a sense, focusing on education as the 'solution' to anything at least partly entails 'blaming the victim.' If education is the solution, then there must be something about someone that is inadequate and needs to be "fixed." A focus on education inherently implies that the 'problem' is with those who are being educated (and can't seem to learn)."

Primarily, I agree with this, in terms of policy. I hear echoes of this in today's calls for more testing, the belittling of urban students and their teachers, and the pervasive belief that academic and economic success are simply choices avoided by the lazy poor.

For many that work at high-poverty schools, however, this is an oversimplification bordering on utter distortion.

Public schools are safe places in high-poverty neighborhoods where many kids love spending their time. We know this because of the many children that show up hours ahead of time and linger in the hallways for hours after the end of the day. We know this because of the joy and success lots of kids feel in our schools, academically and in extracurricular activities. Adults often work in these schools not because they want to "fix" inadequacies but because they want to be a part of a positive force in a high-poverty neighborhood. Maybe schools aren't the only positive force, but they carry strength nonetheless. If we acknowledge stresses and negative factors pervasive in such neighborhoods, it is, I think, natural to want to be a part of a school. Not the desire to "fix" children, but a desire to make schools great places for kids that want love and validation just like all kids do. If that's imperialism then I'm confused.

A second thought: in a country not long on institutions of social welfare, is there another force for fighting poverty from which we can expect much? I'm asking seriously. As unions fade and politicians succumb further to moneyed interests, schools remain open to all and have an opportunity to be major players in their communities. Certainly over-testing and the sort of "tough" accountability being tossed around by Secretary Duncan and others likely will only ingrain poverty by decontextualizing and oversimplifying learning, but can we imagine a version of schooling that would be a force against poverty? I think we ought at least to try.

Perhaps we need to consider a model that seeks to change neighborhoods through schools, such as the Harlem Children's Zone, which, though anchored around schools, provides many auxiliary services to combat the stresses and problems of being poor. Perhaps we need to consider a curriculum that empowers students to organize and build political capital in their communities, in order to engender beneficial economic and social policies. Perhaps we need to consider schools that would truly be the hearts of their communities, offering free medical, legal, and other services beyond the traditional school day.

I guess I have trouble with the dismissal of those who choose to work in urban schools as part of an "imperialist" ideology. It's hard to fathom a more insulting word for what I do.

What do we want from schools?

More and more, it seems, the public sees our public K-12 system as a means to entering college, the gateway to a higher income. All students must be "college ready". The conventional wisdom seems to hold that sending more poor students to college is the solution to poverty.

The ever-controversial Richard Rothstein writes recently in The American Prospect:

"If more youth from disadvantaged backgrounds got the education and training to compete for skilled jobs, would the number of good jobs expand to soak up these newly qualified beneficiaries of better schooling and active labor-market policies? Or would these youth displace competitors from middle-class backgrounds?"

It seems obvious to me that simply sending more students to college will not, in fact, help our economy in a meaningful way. Nor is it the magic bullet that is the solution to ending poverty. Nor will it serve to make our society more equal.

Schools certainly play a role. But so does economic policy that doesn't blindly serve the rich. So do strong unions and politicians that are elected with working people in mind. We need to stop buying into the idea that the wealthy and middle classes earned their salaries and homes simply by having good teachers and working hard in school. There were fortuitous circumstances that helped out. A major question for the future: will similar fortuitous circumstances return?

Because I'm on a pro-teacher kick

Or, maybe, I'm just very pro-teacher. Timothy Egan, in the New York Times, recently presented a "back to school" blog post. This, another, in the spirit of Brill's New Yorker article, is filled with the usual loose language that belittles teachers and teaching. I guess it's a little better because Egan was at least trying to be funny.

Far more interesting are the comments. Check this out:

I’m writing this at 5:45 am as I ready myself to go to school where I teach high school English. I accepted a $3000 pay cut: I have a masters plus an additional 21 credits of post graduate study, I’m 46 and a single mom, I work about 55 hours a week and I earn $50K. What does Timothy Egan earn? Does his career as a reporter have oddities and weird examples - corruption, entitlement - if I comb the entire country for ‘proof’? I’m sure it does. But why would I do that? Why? Unless I was filled with bile and contempt for a career, and was blessed with a platform, and above all, wanted to help destroy journalism.

In this time, when teaching is at a crucial juncture, it is extraordinarily irresponsible for Mr Egan to twist a handful of incidences into an article about ‘bad’ teaching. THere are SO many good teachers out there. So many of us give hours and hours to try to help our children learn, and yet here is the contempt and misinformation yet again. It’s very dispiriting and it’s no wonder that so many people leave the teaching profession.

— Diana

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?

Bouncing Around The Room

This week The New Yorker weighs in on school "reform" with Steven Brill's piece, "The Rubber Room". Inflammatorily subtitled, "The battle over New York City's worst teachers," the article treats its audience to a slice of the much-decried bureaucracy of teaching in the city, while more acutely making residents of the Temporary Reassignment Center (TRC) (a.k.a., the Rubber Room) look dumb. Like, really dumb.

“Before Bloomberg and Klein, everyone knew that an incompetent teacher would realize it and leave on their own,” pronounces Brandi Scheiner, the first individual Brill permits to wholly embarrass herself before a national readership of hundreds of thousands. It is hard to imagine how silly this must sound to anyone that has never met a dyed-in-the-wool union stalwart. Later, from an unnamed TRC denizen: “We can tell if we’re doing our jobs. We love these children.” I'm sure this comment resonates strongly with the lawyers, doctors, and private sector employees that have contracts relying heavily on their ability to self-evaluate. Brill's pièce de résistance, however, is his recounting of the story of "Patricia Adams", a pseudonym for a Rubber Room defendant who eventually returned to the job and was lionized by the UFT. “Bravo!,” reads the union website where she is described returning to work, and the reader is allowed perhaps a twinge of sympathy, until the truth is revealed: Ms. Adams was an alcoholic who was sent to the TRC for being found “'in an unconscious state' in her classroom," leaving 34 students unsupervised. Yes, drunk and asleep on the job. With tenure, one can only assume.

The Rubber Room was introduced to most non-teachers through an engaging and well-produced piece on Ira Glass's "This American Life". While Glass's treatment presented sob stories of teachers, lives thrown into turmoil through seemingly harsh accusations and the inhumane conditions of the TRC, Brill doesn't concern himself with such trivialities. The Rubber Room is an unquestionably necessary, if unfortunate, reality, as he posits, "The stated rationale for the reassignment centers is unassailable: Get these people away from children, even if tenure rules require that they continue to be paid." This is not all Brill presents as unassailable; at various points he deems due process as overly expensive and gratuitous, Obama's "Race To The Top" money as a necessary, coveted prize, and ATR teachers as lazy and unemployable.

Detailed presentations of teaching, particularly teaching in urban, low-income settings, are rare in high-profile publications like The New Yorker. As infrequent as they are, they are astoundingly important to the national discussion about education in America. The New Yorker's wealthy, liberal audience is a powerful force when it comes time to vote, donate money to non-profits and candidates, and generally weigh in on domestic policy. To present a view of New York City's teachers by focusing on the less than 1% that are so grossly incompetent as to be drunk on the job,to nickname a student "the enforcer" and put him in charge of discipline, and to make sweeping, nonsensical generalizations about teaching as a job that only requires loving children, is irresponsible.

In order to advance the cause of education for all in this country, we need high-circulation publications to present the real "battles" that confront high-poverty teachers: teaching deep concepts vs. teaching what's on the test, devoting 80 hours per week to give impoverished students the support they require vs. having a family and life outside of the workplace, charter schools vs. public schools, staying in an inner-city classroom for low pay vs. teaching in the suburbs for more, and the list goes on. So few in the non-teaching public have a true understanding of these issues, and yet they represent the truly important debates that need to be had.

Steven Brill presents a cogent, strong article that does let the public know about a process that is overly expensive and wasteful. Additionally, the UFT is rightly chastised for standing up for teachers that have no business being in the classroom. Unfortunately, too many people already believe that the majority, rather than the minority, of teachers have no business in the classroom, and this piece is only fueling that fire. Let's hope in the future The New Yorker and other publications will feature battles being fought by the best, rather than the worst, teachers in New York City.

Can I deal with this confluence of facts?

Five years ago I decided I wanted to be a teacher. There were, I felt, lots of reasons. I liked math. I liked kids. I had enjoyed the time I spent volunteering in some urban elementary schools. I wanted a job. Teach For America gave me the hard sell. I enjoyed tutoring college kids. But, mainly, I wanted to do something about poverty. I wanted to do something about widening inequality, and it seemed schools were the obvious answer.

I was beyond naive. "Sure, I thought, teach the kids, they pass the test, do well on their SATs, "stay of the street," they can go to college, get a good job, get rich, problem solved. Inequality is a problem that is to be solved by our schools."

I've come to see this as a distinctly American, if factually inaccurate, view. Only in America would we have such a thin belief in public institutions. Only in America would we leave the impoverished to fend for themselves, and lean so heavily on under-resourced schools to overcome generations and cultures of poverty through 8 hours of daily instruction (and yes, Arne, you could change that to 10 or 12 and I'm not convinced it would make a difference).

So now, four years later, I'm trying to come to terms with three major realizations.

1) Schools are not the solution to poverty.

2) Poverty is the result of the machinations of our political and economic systems.

3) The job of a teacher is extraordinarily difficult: it is to develop meaningful lessons that cause students to learn to think for themselves.

Not sure where it all leaves me...

Do you have one of these in your neighborhood?

Because my school does. So please, before you say that you understand growing up in an impoverished community, agree that we just need to fire the bad teachers, and mail your check to the Manhattan Institute, try to consider growing up with a gigantic police watchtower keeping your neighborhood under surveillance.

In the latest TAP: Widening Inequality + Locally Funded Schools = Credit Crunch

The American Prospect is growing on me. Founder Robert Reich is one of my intellectual heroes and TAP is an intelligent, unapologetic source of progressive ideas.

The latest has a good summary piece on the national education debate, although for my tastes it is too willing to paint Rhee, Klein, et al. as "reformers". This is the sort of David Brooksian nonsense that too much of the public, and even our President, has bought into. Painting the debate as one that pits these "reformers" against Randi and the union is a gross oversimplification.

It also, unsurprisingly, has a lot concerning the stimulus package and current economics. The cover story by Cornell economist Robert H. Frank, explains how widening inequality and property tax-funded schools contribute to overspending by the middle class:

Additional spending by the rich shifts the frame of reference for those just below the near rich, and so on, all the way down the income ladder. Such expenditure cascades help explain why the median new house build in the U.S. is now about 50% larger than its counterpart from 30 years ago, even though the median real wage has risen little since then. Higher spending by middle-income families is driven less by a desire to keep up with the Joneses than by the simple fact that the ability to achieve important goals often depends on relative spending. Because of the link between housing prices and neighborhood school quality, for example, the median family would have to send its children to below-average schools if it failed to match the spending of its peers on housing. Instead, middle-income families have opted to save less, borrow more, work longer hours, and commute longer distances than ever before, all in an effort to keep pace with escalating consumption standards. (Bold added)

The connection between property values and local school quality has been a long-standing and well-recognized obstacle to true equity. Frank's point stretches beyond the traditional egalitarian argument and shows how the connection between property values and school quality has actually fueled our crazed consumption, thirst for credit, and massive mortgages that are beyond our means.

All of this, of course, makes me want to become an economist.

So does reading this. Seriously, a must-read.

John Dewey

Had a lot of awesome things to say. And much of it rings true today, 100 years later. Most important, I think we're at place today where so many people that talk, write, and make decisions about education are not educators. Dewey was an educator, and it comes through in everything he writes. While the non-educator crowd will continue to push for pencil-and-paper tests that ask for regurgitation of simple facts and not understand how anything else could be important to learning, Dewey speaks the language of educators in his push for more thought and thinking in education:

"[A]ny habit of teaching which encourages the pupil for the sake of a successful recitation or of a display of memorized information glide over the thin ice of genuine problems reverses the true method of mind training."

-from How We Think, 1910

I agree, and at this point wonder what this looks like in 2009. Who are the teachers and schools that are doing this? What does it look like, especially in low-income communities? Can this kind of teaching and learning be reconciled with pencil-and-paper tests? Can it be made politically popular enough to be put into practice anywhere?

race and the election

Via Edwize, a cool video that shows that there is something special going on this time around.

Things Charters Get Right #1: More Time For Staff

Well, it's been a while. I have a new school, a new home, and new thoughts. Well maybe some of the same thoughts, too. I'm going to try to post some ideas I've had about my new setting, as well as some bigger picture stuff related to the presidential campaigns and the recent conventions.

Here's a first thought on an obvious way charter schools get it right (compared with traditional public schools): more required work time before the schoolyear begins. This year I reported for work on the last day of July. That is a full 34 days before I found myself, clipboard in hand, in a classroom with live eighth graders. Contrast this with the day I would have been required to report (August 28, a mere five days before students) had I remained in a traditional public school.

There is little room for argument here. Five days? Two of which the school will actually be open for your use? Two days in the building to set up your classroom, hold P.D. (this is one of the few opportunities all year to actually learn something new about teaching), learn the discipline code, establish grade-level routines, meet as a department, not to mention all of the other administrative duties that fall through the cracks?

Working with children, especially high-need, years-behind, institutionally-excluded children, requires consistency, confidence, and competence among the staff. To me this is impossible to build in two days. Consider that during August, my staff had a two hour meeting to discuss the minute-by-minute proceedings of the first hour of the first day of school. Try penciling that in as part of your two days among everything else that needs to happen.

And the pay-off is obvious. In order for children to do the right thing, they need to, first and foremost, know what that thing is; this can't happen unless all adults are on the same page.

Add to all of this that in August I also hammered out a year-long curriculum, my first major exam, and three weeks worth of lesson plans. True, this was always part of my August plan when I was with the Board of Ed, but to work in a collegial, professional environment in which I can collaborate and get feedback is a major improvement. Not to mention, being compensated for this time helps, as well.