No Sinner Left Behind: America’s Teachers and Ministers Are Failing!

I DON’T KNOW ABOUT ANYONE ELSE, but I’m tired of hearing about America’s failing schools. Google “education crisis in America” and you turn up 368 million results in seconds.

The first story listed is a warning from U. S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. The situation is dire, he claims. American adults lack math and technical skills needed for success in a modern workplace. Compared to counterparts in most developed nations the average U. S. worker is an absolute dolt.

And who can you blame except teachers!

I happen to be a retired teacher and the story got me wondering. If our schools are in crisis what other institutional problems might pundits be missing? Are America’s doctors failing? Do we have a “hospital crisis” too? The same type of evidence used to prove there’s an “education crisis” indicates that we do. Now I have worse news to deliver. Similar evidence shows we have a “church crisis” on our hands.

This is serious, folks. Eternal damnation is no laughing matter.

In fact, I hereby declare myself a famous “church reformer.” I am going to be like Michelle Rhee, who talks constantly about what must be done to fix the schools. I will offer all kinds of fixing advice, like Secretary Duncan, or Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. They have plans to save every student. I will make their efforts look puny. I will have a plan to save every sinner!

True, I have never been a minister. I have never written a sermon. Come to think of it, I’m not even sure I remember all the commandments. But I have sat in a church pew. Not recently, I admit, but that’s a technicality.

School reformers never seem to teach or teach only briefly. That doesn’t stop them from spewing drivel.

Why am I so fired up today? The kinds of charts and graphs used to show teachers are failing also prove ministers, rabbis and priests are failing—and failing badly. Sin is up. Church attendance is down. According to Church Leaders magazine only 17.7% of Americans attend church weekly.

Even worse, when asked about attendance, we lie! Almost twice as many of us say we attend as actually show up in pews during services. Even if rampant lying wasn’t a problem, the picture would be bleak:

37% of Americans claim they go to church or mosque or temple weekly or more;

33% go monthly or yearly;

29% admit they never go at all.

Look at this chart:

THE MORE I THINK ABOUT IT the more I realize I need to write a book! That’s what famous reformers do. I will go on television and offer sage advice. Then I will go on tour and earn a few fat speaking fees.

While I get busy writing here’s what every concerned citizen can do. Call your representatives in Congress! Tell them we need a new 1,100 page law called No Sinner Left Behind. Tell them to model it after No Child Left Behind. Tell them we must set higher standards in churches. We don’t need more prayer in school. We need more prayer in cathedrals!

Don’t believe we have a “church crisis?” Look at the facts! We’ve got sex between unmarried people occurring in every nook and cranny of the nation. (See chart below.) And who can you blame? The couples having the sex? The people who don’t go to church? Oh no. It has to be the fault of the men and the women in the pulpits. (It’s like the “education crisis” where teachers get blame, even when 1 out of every 7 students misses at least a month of school each year.)

Sorry, I may be hyperventilating. But consider the evidence! More than 40% of babies in the United States are born to unwed mothers:

And what about the same “racial gap” we see in our schools? Look at divorce rates shown on the following chart. Don’t tell me poverty or conditions in neighborhoods around the churches or virulent racism in American history factor into this situation. That’s just priests and rabbis making excuses, like teachers in high-poverty areas.

So, get with it Reverend! Shape up Father. It’s time to save every sinner. Or you will be replaced.

Do ministers have tenure?

Well, if they do, we should take it away.

As I was saying, look at this gap! The crappy ministers must work in the black and white churches. How else can you explain the success of Asian-American religious leaders? Asian-American couples are half as likely to divorce. Statistics also show that 16% of Asian-American babies are born out of wedlock. For all other Americans the figure is 41%. Eight out of ten Asian-American kids are raised in two-parent families. Oddly enough—and I have no idea why this is true—the average Asian-American kid does better in school.

Anyway, good job Hindu temple leaders! Outstanding teaching, Buddhist and Shinto thinkers. You aren’t leaving sinners behind.

NOW THAT I HAVE IDENTIFIED THIS CRISIS, it is up to me, as famous church reformer, to offer advice. So, here’s what we do:

First:  require ministers to focus on “basics” in every sermon. Then measure “before” and “after” rates of sinning. If lying and cursing continue, publish the names of failing priests, etc. in local papers.

If rates of adultery and stealing fall ministers earn merit pay.

Second:  grade churches. That way, parishioners know which reverends are most likely to help them save their souls. Suppose 39% of marriages performed by a Presbyterian minister end in divorce, vs. 19% for a Lutheran minister down the street. Then the latter church gets a “B+” and the former a “D” and you fire the minister.

Third:  introduce Common Core Church Standards. I admit that one’s going to be hard, since there are so many different ideas about how to get to Heaven. I’m still working on this; but I promise I’ll have all the answers if you buy my book.

Fourth: get smarter ministers! School reformers say the problem in U. S. education is that teachers are too dumb. So, create a program modeled on the efforts of Wendy Kopp, and “Teach for America.” Get top students from Harvard and Yale and Stanford to enter the ministry. Call this new organization “Preach for America.”

Trust me:  it would be great.

Really, I have all kinds of bold ideas—so buy my book as soon as you can. It would make the perfect stocking stuffer. And remember, there’s not a moment to lose. America’s teachers and ministers are all failing.

Clearly, we need to start grading churches.
We need to hold ministers accountable when their parishioners sin.

Do Recent School Reforms Enhance or Hinder Real Learning?

Yesterday, I posted a question (below) to the Facebook pages of Badass Teachers’ Association and In Defense of Teachers:

I was curious—and still am—about what other teachers think. How would you answer from what you’re seeing?

Consider all the reforms since you started teaching, whether it be increasing use of technology, more charter schools, the push to grade schools, new ways to certify teachers, emphasis on standardized testing, and many more.

Do you think learning, which is the true goal of education has been greatly enhanced, stayed the same, or been hindered?

That’s my concern: that recent “education reforms” have hindered learning. It’s the same concern I was feeling in May 2008 when I retired from teaching. And I loved teaching.

First to respond was Nomde Plume, an educator with twenty years’ experience: “No question about it—hindered.”

Peg Cummings Carbone was second: “Without a doubt, hindered.”

Melanie Miday-Stern was third: “Hindered—15 years…CCSS is CRAP.”

Capital letters! I think Melanie feels as I did. (I have noted some of my concerns in earlier posts.) But is it possible all of us are wrong? I find myself hoping we are. I hope our system of public education is on the threshold of great improvement. I just don’t see it. Earnestly, honestly, I do not see it.

Nomde Plume added details in a second response:  

Hindered from real, effective, engaging teaching due to over-testing, ratings tied to tests, constant references to ‘data driven instruction,’ [including] grouping based on test data, data walls in classroom, data walks, bulletin board standards, lesson plan standards, quarterly goals standards (meaning these are all for someone else and not for teaching or the kids learning)…The requirements are endless and have nothing to do with actually teaching students. There is so much more! I am too tired to write about it. I was in at 6:30 yesterday and today, worked last night till after 10:00 p.m. And today till six. If my tired brain can actually calculate this, I worked 27 hours in two days…

Elizabeth Mays jumped into the conversation: “Not only hindered, but because so many ‘latest and greatest’ [reform ideas] have gone through the pipeline, I try to ignore them the best I can…since it will be replaced with some other ‘latest and greatest.’”

I can add from my experience here, that in the late 80s, the State of Ohio designed its own Ninth Grade Proficiency Tests. These tests were supposed to greatly improve education in the Buckeye State.

After a little more than a decade, these Ohio tests were scrapped and replaced by new tests tied to No Child Left Behind. And we all know how NCLB worked out.

Next to answer my original question was Margaret Sanderson: “Hindered.”

Ed Dziedzic took his turn: “Hindered. But when I started an old timer told me every time some damn fool new program came out ‘this too shall pass.’”

Priscilla Sanstead weighed in: “The whole purpose of Badass Teachers Association is to fight CC$$. ‘Hindered’ is a candyass, lightweight term for the child abuse that IS Common Core.”

I agree with Ms. Sanstead and particularly like her $ signs, because I think corporate school reform is a growing danger. But I keep thinking maybe I’m wrong. The education reforms of recent years seem crazy to me.

I don’t feel crazy, though. (I think my wife would tell me.)

Megan Bartley commented next: “Well it has been one hell of a waste of money. That is for sure.”

(In 2012, it was estimated that states were spending $1.7 billion annually on standardized tests. All those tests—tied to NCLB—are now recycled paper.)

Maybe Barbara K. Yohnka, next to comment, would respond favorably. One can always hope!

Nope:  “No question—hindered.”

Lauren Green-Mainowski: “Hindered! With all the assessing who has time to teach?”

Lauren’s comment reminds me of the dilemma I faced my final year in the classroom, in 2008. Our entire social studies department was taken out of class for three days so we could design practice tests to prepare students for the social studies section of the Ohio Assessment Test (OAT). We devoted three more days to giving the practices tests. In May, our students spent four more days taking the OAT.

So we lost ten days to learning, just so we could prove our students were learning! Was I crazy? I told my principal I thought this was educational malpractice. Is Barbara crazy, too? Is Lauren?

Maybe that’s the real problem. Maybe America’s teachers are crazy.

Lauren offered this additional insight: “Don’t get me wrong. I’m on board with the idea of CCSS. I just wish we could have the resources and be left alone enough to actually teach that way, theme teaching is how I was raised and I like to think I turned out pretty well and loved learning.”

What! “Loved learning?” How do we measure that when it comes to testing?

Joan Jefferson Lanier Bennett was next to offer an opinion: 

The amount of paperwork to support all the ‘data based’ teaching with proof you have data, not to mention days lost testing to see if there has been progress, which generates more data to record/put in portfolios, HINDERS time to plan and execute real teaching and student interaction.

And here’s a real kicker. Joan continued: “I am on year 54—yes, I retired once and thought I was dying of boredom—and I base my remarks on all those years’ experience!”

If Joan is right, I’m more worried than ever. And I think she’s right.

Anna Davis agreed: 

Hindered, I have been teaching for seven years, all of it in the data driven frenzy. During pre-service I was told that the district who hired me would help me develop as a professional. The only thing that seems to matter is how high we can get the numbers. I get canned lessons to teach but very little real professional development.

I may steal that phrase: “data driven frenzy.”

Holly Clouse followed:  

You know, it comes down to thinking, asking, trying, adjust—that’s what I do with my kids. The whole corporate takeover, robo-thinking, scripted plans are just stupid. Don’t get me started on data collecting—the pendulum has swung too far right and will swing back. Meanwhile, I’ll teach my kids to think, question, try, adjust and celebrate. I refuse to let idiots ruin my students’ education. 

Tera Wolf had this to say: “[I teach] Special Ed students only: I would say services are better for Special Ed students now but the testing mania has hurt them.”

Amen to that. I suspect almost all teachers would agree with Ms. Wolf that schools do a much better job integrating Special Ed students in regular classrooms now, than they did when I started teaching in 1975.

Megan Bartley rejoined the conversation:  

The only good data is the data you collect as a teacher, day to day in your classroom. All of the rest is fluff! Administrators should hold teachers’ feet to the fire to show how they are using information on formative assessments to help individual students. Time spent on Marzanoing and NWEAfests and MAPtatic Multiple Choice Extravaganzas is a pure waste when the rubber hits the road.

Over on the page for In Defense of Teachers, Geralyn Pfaff added: “Greatly hindered. Special education students should not be forced to take the same extremely difficult standardized tests as their typically-developed peers. And Special Ed teachers should not have to have their livelihoods held accountable to those scores.”

Charmaine Wilks went with the one word I fear says it all: “Hindered.”

Finally, back on the BAT page, Kelly Braun offered a little reassurance: “Post [the comments] after you write it and we will all badass back you up.”

So: am I crazy? Let me say again:  I loved teaching. I never doubted that what I did in my classroom mattered.

In my heart I truly felt focusing on Songhai trade and Shay’s Rebellion (two topics covered on the social studies section of the OAT) might not be the best way to enhance real, broad-based learning.

In any case, I retired in 2008. In 2009 the social studies section of the OAT was killed by the State of Ohio which had designed it and implemented only five years before. Today the entire OAT is dead. 

No Child Left Behind, with all its emphasis on standardized tests, is no longer among the living.

Coming soon to a school near you: New tests! New test preparation! New expenses tied to all the testing! New and onerous paperwork for teachers and administrators, and Common Core Curriculum!

Call it the Standardized Testing Zombie, the creature it was almost impossible to kill!

If I’m wrong, if I’m crazy, I hope real teachers will take time to weigh in and reassure me. Care to comment, anyone?

______________________________________________________

Addendum: Over the course of three weeks, more than 1,700 people took a look at this post. Eventually, Kevin Barre, a principal, weighed in with a pro-reform response.

The tone was probably harsher than he intended and he went on to qualify his comments in response to questions and comments by other educators. I still have my doubts, but, again, I hope he turns out to be correct. I fear that the future of U.S. education hinges on getting this question right. He explained: 

I’m actually enjoying the dialogue created in these OTES pre and post conferences. News flash: principals that whine about the time they are spending and teachers barking about the extra paperwork are forgetting that time management is part of the game. I’ve got 14 years in the biz, and I can promise you that the extra five hours of educational dialogue this takes per teacher only cuts into the negative and idle time wasted daily in a school building. Yes, I said it. It’s holding people accountable, I think, once people get over the insecurities of change, they’ll see how it’s good for growth and amazing for kids. I believe many people, admins included, need this push to reinvigorate growth. It’s a breath of fresh air, pedagogically speaking. It makes us talk.

Anyway, I know, because I taught history, that in matters of opinion we can almost never prove which side is right.

I will say it again, however. I fear the testing trend is doing irrevocable damage in U. S. education.

  

NFL Adopts Common Core Playbook--Copying Education Reforms

(Washington, D. C.) In a surprise news conference today U. S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell announced plans to improve NFL performance in coming seasons.

Unlike news conferences on education, which draw sparse crowds, representatives from hundreds of newspapers, television and radio networks, and ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPN for Kids and ESPN Tales from the Crypt were in attendance.

Mr. Duncan spoke first. “We are pleased to announce a partnership involving the U. S. Department of Education and the NFL,” he explained. “We will call this new effort to improve pro football ‘Race to the End Zone.’ All the leading school reform experts insist this approach will dramatically improve the quality of football play.”

“Frankly,” Commissioner Goodell admitted, “this joint effort developed out of a concern for failing NFL franchises. We have watched the brilliant successes wrought by Mr. Duncan and others like him in recent years and believe it is time to adopt a variety of sports reforms, similar to school reforms, and introduce them in our league. We believe with such changes in place the Cleveland Browns can finally reach the Super Bowl and win.”

“We in the NFL love the Common Core Curriculum that Mr. Duncan is pushing on schools here in D. C. and in forty-five states,” Goodell continued. “Just as he believes Common Core Curriculum can save the schools, we believe a Common Core Playbook will save our struggling teams. Beginning with the 2013 season every coach and every team will use the same playbook.”

A collective gasp went up from the audience. “Does Bill Belichick know about this?” a reporter from ABC wondered.

An MSNBC reporter shouted from the fifth row: “Do you truly believe if all teams run the same plays they’ll all have the same success?”

“Of course,” Mr. Duncan interjected. “It’s going to work in education, too. I promise. And I went to Harvard. So you have to listen to me.”

“You don’t know anything about NFL football…” a Fox Sports Channel representative pointedly remarked.

“Yes, well, Mr. Duncan never taught school, either,” Goodell offered in lame defense. “And look at the fantastic job he’s doing fixing U. S. schools. Only $4.35 billion spent on ‘Race to the Top’ and scores on standardized tests are soaring.”

At this point, reporters could be seen shooting each other strange looks. Frankly, none of them paid the slightest attention to stories about American education. So, for all they knew, Goodell might be telling the truth.

“We believe with this system in place every player can succeed,” the Commissioner added. “By 2020 we believe every player in the league will be proficient in blocking, tackling and pass catching.”

“Are you saying that a new playbook—nothing more than diagrams on paper—will magically change the game?” a representative of local television station WJLA wanted to know.

“From now on every quarterback will be calling the same plays,” Goodell replied. “In other words, all of them will play like Tom Brady and Peyton Manning.

“Even Mark Sanchez?” asked a dubious correspondent from the New York Post.

“That’s the beauty of the Common Core Playbook,” Duncan explained. “We draw up new standards—kind of like we said we would do under No Child Left Behind—but this time the standards really work, because I promise they will. After all, I’m really smart. Did I mention that I went to Harvard? See: all the running backs run the same plays and all succeed the same way, because the coaches don’t try to design their own schemes.”

“Naturally, all defenses will be set up in the same way,” the Commissioner added.

A young lady standing in the back of the auditorium raised a hand. The Secretary called on her to state her question.

“I’m sorry. I’m not a sports person. I’m just a third grade teacher visiting the capitol on vacation. Are you saying that if all coaches follow the same plays and all players follow the same offensive and defensive plans this will guarantee success for every player and every team?”

“Yes…” Duncan began; but the teacher had more to say.

“Wouldn’t it be wiser to let the coaches design their plays? Aren’t coaches skilled in their field and doesn’t knowledge gathered over many years in the game count for anything? Don’t players have different strengths and weaknesses, so that coaches must tailor plans to meet their needs? Don’t players, themselves, have a dramatic impact on their own success or failure during the games and the success of their teams? No  playbook in the world would have saved Aaron Hernandez if he was truly intent on committing murder this past week. And I’ve heard Peyton Manning studies more game film than anyone else…”

By now, Duncan was shifting nervously from foot to foot at the podium where he stood. “Did I mention I went to Harvard? I think we experts can fix the NFL, just like we’re fixing the schools! Pretty soon, we’ll be like Finland, whose students rank #1 in reading and math whenever international competitions are held. Just listen to me and all the other school reformers. By the way, I went to Harvard, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“I don’t think that guy knows s$%# about football,” a sportscaster from Chicago could be heard telling the teacher.

“I don’t think he knows anything about education, either,” she nodded glumly. Unlike school reformers she had learned about helping students by actually helping students for many years. She already knew what worked in a classroom and understood that writing a bunch of standards had almost nothing to do with real success.

(Standards in education, she realized, were like diet advice. Losing weight boiled down to motivation in the end.)

She tried one last question: “Mr. Duncan, I know experts say Finland’s scores are high because they have better teachers. Do you think we should copy their system in other ways? For example, their schools have no sports teams and focus entirely on academics. Might we copy them in that respect? Might we do away with organized sports in our schools?”

At that point pandemonium ensued, with shouting ESPN reporters and fainting sports columnists, and Goodell looking aghast. A Fox Sports correspondent jumped on stage and tried to wrestle the microphone away before Secretary Duncan could posit an answer. No one in the audience could even fathom the idea.

Insanity, surely, putting academics first—and right here in America, too!

The teacher smiled at the irony and exited from the room.

Here’s how Common Core Playbook will work: 
All teams will use identical plays.

Coaches' and players' strengths and weakness 
will no longer be paramount.

Written standards of play are clearly the key—
just as it now is in U. S. education.

It’s not “how you play the game.”

It’s a bureaucrat’s dream of how you play the game.

This is satire only; but real teachers know this is how dumb our leaders in education reform actually are. 

******

If you liked this post, you might like my book about teaching, Two Legs Suffice, now available on Amazon. 

My book is meant to be a defense of all good teachers and an explanation of what they can do, and what they cannot be expected to do without help.

Two Legs Suffice is also about what students, parents and others involved in education must also do if we want to truly enhance learning.