America's Teachers! We're Dumb. And We Suck!

OKAY, AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS: Raise your hand if you’ve heard the education experts moaning about all your failures.  

Raise your hand again if you’ve seen the charts and graphs they use to prove you’re failing. 

You know the statistics. The horrible graduation rates in many cities and states. Worst of all, you have the poor showing U.S. students make in international academic competitions. I mean come on!  

Who but you could possibly be to blame? 

According to the school reformers, people like me were the problem.

Ask Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York. That pompous ass will set you straight. If he could have his way, he said recently, he’d fire half the teachers in New York City and start from scratch. But the evil unions won’t allow it. 

In a speech at M. I. T. last November, he grumbled that the biggest problem in American education was stupid teachers. Well, okay, he wasn’t quite that blunt; but his meaning was just as clear. He said we were culled “from the bottom 20 percent [of our college classes] and not of the best schools.” 

Bloomberg did go to Johns Hopkins University, a prestigious school. He did make $22 billion in business. That means we have to listen to him because he knows everything about education. He just hasn’t spent a day in a classroom in his entire life. 

So:  how is Bloomberg doing, in his third term in office, after promising to make education reform the signature of his elected career? He thinks teachers are the biggest roadblock on the path to reform. But he might want to check statistics. According to researchers at Johns Hopkins University (there’s irony for you), 15% of American parents let their sons or daughters miss at least 10% of all school days and do it every year. 

Hey, stupid math teachers! I know you came from the bottom 20% and went to crappy colleges and universities. But check my figures. (Give me a second. I’m pretty dumb, too.) If a kid misses 18 days every year, grades K-12, then won’t that mean he or she missed classes 234 times. If one year equals...and we divide 234 by...um…doesn’t that mean, academically, these students should be 1.3 years behind, and not because of you? 

Raise your hands if you have telepathic powers, stupid teachers. Anyone? You mean you can’t teach kids who don’t come to school? 

WTF!! What’s wrong with you! 

Well, let me humbly offer this idea. Maybe we could notify Mayor Bloomberg. He’s a brilliant guy. He’ll get this. He’ll see the truth. Someone tell him that the same study found 200,000 kids in the New York City Schools missed 10% or more of every school year. 

For the love of god and learning, tell him, “Mayor, we need better doctors in this city quick! We must be culling them from the bottom 20%, and not from the best schools! There’s plague in Lower Manhattan! There’s a smallpox epidemic in the Bronx!” 

Come on stupid teachers. If U. S. kids finish 14^th in reading, 17^th in science, and 25^th in math in the most recent international comparison (65 countries), we’ll, let’s face the Ugly Facts. We’re Dumb.

And We Suck. 

Read ‘em and weep, numbskull educators. Look at international rankings (left column) for 15-year-olds in reading! Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves? It’s a travesty and you are all to blame: 

READING (2010)


1. South Korea                                                (Singapore)

2. Finland                                                        (Italy)

3. Canada                                                        (Australia)

4. New Zealand                                               (Switzerland)

5. Japan                                                           (Japan)

6. Australia                                                     (Israel)

7. Netherlands                                                (Spain)

8. Belgium                                                      (Netherlands)

9. Norway                                                       (Sweden)

10. Estonia                                                      (Germany)

11. Switzerland                                               (Cyprus)

12. Poland                                                       (Austria)

13. Iceland                                                      (France)

14. UNITED STATES                                    (Canada)

15. Sweden                                                     (New Zealand)

16. Germany                                                   (Greece)

17. Ireland                                                       (Hong Kong)

18. France                                                       (Norway)

19. Denmark                                                   (Ireland)

20. United Kingdom                                       (Belgium)

NOW LOOK AT THE SECOND COLUMN. Be sure you have your hankie handy, because if America’s schools suck, our primary care offices and hospitals must be an abomination. According to Bloomberg News. Yep. Bloomberg Bleepin’ News. According to Bloomberg’s own publication, we don’t come anywhere close to the Top 20 when we rank the “The World’s Healthiest Countries.”

Doctors in Singapore are crushing our medical professionals. Our medical guys can’t even beat Cyprus! Check the full list. America’s health care system comes in on a stretcher, in 33^rd place. We get beat by Cuba. We get beat by Slovenia. We get beat by Kuwait!!!  

(Then again, it could be worse. We could live in Swaziland, which finishes dead last, 145^th in international rankings.) 

So:  there you have it. We use another simple list to “prove” another simple point. If U.S. students stink up rankings—and the only explanation is that teachers are to blame—at least we’re not pathetic losers like cardiologists and oncologists and transplant floor nurses.  

And if you’re ready for more bad news, let’s face another set of Ugly Facts:  In an annual report, titled “F as in Fat,” state rankings for adult obesity were released today. Where do we find the worst dietitians? 

Mississippi, where the obesity rate is 34.9%. 

I’m just a dumb, retired teacher; but if you ask me, it looks like we need Congress to act and pronto. Let’s shape up lousy, lazy medical people. It’s time for Congress to pass a law and call it No Fat American Left Behind.

(Maybe No Fat American Behind Left Behind?) 

If we’re going to criticize teachers based on simplistic comparisons, let’s not forget all the dumb people clogging up the U. S. health care system.



What the heck? What's wrong with America's doctors and nurses?
(I'm joking, of course.)

Could it be that Mr. Bloomberg is an idiot?

Rick Perry Was...Um...Uh..Right: Get Rid of the U. S. Department of Education

IF YOU SAW RICK PERRY'S MOST RECENT DEBATE PERFORMANCE you know it was... um...not marked by...uh...Let me think. Give me a second. Oops.

I think the word I'm looking for is "coherence."

At the time, Mr. Perry was outlining the steps he'd take if elected president and trying to list three federal departments he'd eliminate. One was Commerce. Another was Education. The third was... uh...well... maybe Baking?

Still, the Governor was onto something. I'm a retired teacher and the chances I'd vote for Perry are as slim as a New York City fashion model. That doesn't mean I wouldn't be thrilled to see President Perry, if he should win, close down the U. S. Department of Education. I doubt many teachers would mourn its passing, or notice, unless someone announced it over the PA system at their school and gave them the news. 

Like I say:  I can't see a scenario where I end up voting for the Texas Hair Model. But if he does get to the Oval Office I hope one of his first acts is to issue an executive order that sends Arne Duncan, that insufferable ass, right back into the classroom in the lowest performing school in the US of A. 

I'd like to see Arne do a little teaching. 

Really, what does the Department of Education do?  (Its budget for 2011 was estimated to be $71 billion and employees numbered  more than 5,000.) I'm going to say this for sure:  I taught 33 years, and never saw a hint of evidence that what the Department was doing was helping teachers or in any way helping students.

So let's see if we can't cut a few dollars from the federal deficit. On this Tea Party folks and Real Teachers can unite. According to Friday's New York Times, even the Department of Agriculture is cutting back these days. Dozens of reports are being scrapped this year. So we're not going to have the annual goat census (it was 3,000,000 in 2010). 

The catfish census (177,000,000) is out and we're going to have to do without a report that calculates the value of honey sales by North Dakota bee keepers ($70 million). 

We won't know any more which state is #1 in sales of mink pelts (Wisconsin) and we won't have a clue which state (Texas!) shipped the most flats of pansies.



Maybe we don't need the Department of Education.
Maybe we need to get all bureaucrats and education refomers into the classroom.
Then let them work their magic!

Young teachers might not recall:  but the U. S. Department of Education was created in 1979, under President Jimmy Carter, and then turned over to control of Shirley Hufstedler, who you might guess had an extensive background in education.

No! If you guessed that, you'd be a total doofus! That would have made sense. Ms. Hufstedler was a former federal judge.

It was the start of a tradition, where seven out of nine people who ran (or run) the Department never taught a day in their and another taught only phys. ed., and so routinely failed to understand the challenges in a real classroom. So what did we gain? Well, the people at Education churned out all kinds of reports. They tabulated and measured. They put together cool charts and graphs, issued all sorts of regulations, and multiplied the paperwork speech therapists and special education teachers and just about everyone else had to complete.

(If Secretary Duncan and leading reformers have their way teachers are soon going to have to fill out a whole lot more forms and we're going to bury U. S. education in useless statistics.)

Then in 2002, the Big Wigs at the Department of Education began focusing on implementation of No Child Left Behind. They talked a great game:  helping states write new standards, then national standards when state standards yielded less-than-zero results. Mr. Duncan almost guaranteed success and called for a "Race to the Top" program, a bold new plan to improve America's public schools.

If you think it's a mess now, wait until the avalanche of "value added" charts and graphs hits schools and bureaucrats set about trying to measure everything every teacher does, has done, or ever might think about doing, from the first grade art teacher (number of brush strokes per child), on up to the middle school speech therapist (correct syllables spoken), to the high school band director (notes played per minute).

It's going to be the I.R.S. model for education.

WE'VE SPENT BILLIONS OF DOLLARS on this effort--and about all we've got to show for it is more frustration for the good teachers, who are always swamped trying to do their jobs.

Don't get me wrong:  We need to do more to weed out bad teachers. And once we do I say we fill those empty spots at the front of the classroom with the likes of Duncan and Michelle Rhee, with Wendy Kopp of Teach for America (let that lady TEACH!), Joel I. Klein, self-appointed saviour of the New York City Schools, Mayor Michael Bloomberg (who says the key is grading schools), Steven Brill (who wrote a book fixing schools) and Davis Guggenheim (producer of Waiting for "Superman") to name just a few.

We don't need to wait for Superman. We've got Rhee and Kopp and Brill, sitting on the bench, telling real teachers what to do, just waiting for the chance to get in the game and save the day.

So...yeah....um...I say we do without the goat census and close down the Department of Education. And for god sakes, make these experts TEACH.

NAEP Reading Scores Flat-Line in 2011.



ANOTHER DAY in a typical American school, this one in Loveland, Ohio. Time to take attendance. This is a smart class, first period. 

I start my day easy.

“Bloomberg, Michael,” I call out, not looking up from my grade book. “Here.” “George W.?” He’s here, too. “Arne? Arne Duncan?” “Present.” “Klein? Joel Klein?” He’s busy flirting with Michelle Rhee, one row over and doesn’t answer until I call him again.  

“Obama?”

I run down my roster and they’re all here.

In my real class, I asked students to read more books.

“Today,” I explain, “we’re going to discuss reading scores in the United States. Can anyone tell me where this country ranks in reading compared to other nations?”

Hands shoot up all around.

“Michelle?”

“Mr. Viall, in 2003, we ranked 15th out of twenty-nine countries. I think it’s because teachers are in unions....”

“Thank you, Ms. Rhee.”

“I’d like to add that teacher tenure is a major problem,” she continued. 

I have tenure, myself, but I decide not to comment. Little Arne is waving his hand from the back of the room. I call on him for a comment. “Mr. Viall,” he said, “I think the problem is in how No Child Left Behind is being implemented. We need to create national standards...”

“Alright, Arne, I feel your pain. Does anyone know what the latest report from the National Assessment of Education Progress shows?”

The Bush kid raised his hand, seemed unsure, and lowered it again. Nice boy. Not necessarily the brightest boy in the bunch. The new student (born in Kenya one of my colleagues recently said), waved his left hand to get my attention.

“Barack?”
 
“According to recent testing data, U.S. 12th graders had an average score of 286, down one point since 2002. Eighth graders were up one point, to 265, over the same period. Fourth grade scores rose two points over a nine-year stretch, from 219 to 221. According to experts these gains were statistically insignificant.”

“How do you explain this trend, class? If the U.S. is spending billions to implement all kinds of reforms in education, why aren’t scores rising dramatically?”

Michelle has her hand up. I try not to grimace and call on her once more. “I think it’s because we don’t tie teacher pay to test scores.”

The Bloomberg boy, and the Klein kid, both want to speak. “I think we need more charter schools,” Michael says. Joel, his buddy, agrees. “Vouchers, too,” says Joel. “We need vouchers and charter schools.”

“Okay,” I respond. “Let’s say we wanted kids to improve their reading scores – but we didn’t have one additional dime to spend to design new standardized tests and we couldn’t afford to hire one more bureaucrat to draw up all kinds of national standards? What else might work?

The Chisman girl, probably the most logical thinker in the room, put up her hand, and I called on her to respond.

“Well, it’s not like libraries don’t exist. Maybe you could raise scores, without spending a dime, if parents took their kids to the library more often.”

Michelle and Arne and George W. and most of the other kids seemed dumbfounded. “Good point, Lori,” I reply, and shoot her a wink.

Andrea Dubell, the hardest worker in the entire class, waves her hand to get my attention and adds, when called upon, “I think we could raise reading scores in this country without doing anything differently in schools. I don’t think we need more standardized tests, or vouchers, or charter schools. I think if parents read more to their little children and set a good example by reading more themselves, test scores would rise. You know...don’t let kids watch six hours of TV every day.” 

“I think I can improve my own reading score, no matter what you do, Mr. Viall, by reading more for pleasure,” she adds.

A hint of a smile passes over my face, and I tap the side of my skull with an index finger, to indicate that I believe her thinking is sound.

Except for Andrea and Lori, the rest of the class appears stunned.

 

(For real: I used to give students a list of several hundred books from which they could use to read for my class. See this link.) 

 

UPDATE (March 2025): As you may realize, most of these fictitious students are named after real “school reformers” from the previous decade. Most of those reformers have moved on to other pursuits – only to be replaced by fresh battalions of reformers with fresh ideas on how teachers can raise test scores. 

Yet, as of March 2025, standardized test scores have stubbornly failed to rise.