If Heart Surgery Was Like School Reform

The operation to be performed on Mr. Viall, scheduled for Monday, would be complicated to say the least. So the experts gathered. The leader of the medical team which would soon transplant a heart was an Internet billionaire who first became interested in improving health care after watching Patch Adams on cable TV. Naturally, Mr. Gates, the billionaire, was having his say. “I think, because I have made billions in the Internet field, everyone should listen to me. And I believe we need better doctors and nurses in hospitals. I think we should test them on what they know every few weeks.”

Mrs. Viall, a former educator, like her heartsick husband, had been asked to attend and a keen observer might have noticed her raise an eyebrow in a first sign of disbelief. Polite to a fault, however, she held doubt in check. She would listen with care and not rock the medical boat.

A second gentleman in a white lab coat spoke up. His name tag read: “Arne Duncan.” Mrs. Viall wondered: Where had she heard that name before?

“I believe,” said Dr. Duncan, “that we should amputate Mr. Viall’s left leg.” I might not be a medical doctor,” Duncan admitted. “But I did serve as administrator of a hospital once.”

Mrs. Viall seemed about to spit out her coffee at Dr. Duncan’s remarks. “I don’t see why you’re in on this discussion….” she offered.

A fourth individual at the conference table interjected. Like all the other experts she wore a lab coat. But where her name tag should have been, the words “Pearson Education” were embroidered in green, followed by dollar signs. “You know,” offered the Pearson person, “you can never have too many tests. I think we should test Mr. Viall for glaucoma and probably Ebola.

“That would be an additional $20,000,” she added cheerfully, smiling in the general direction of Mrs. Viall.

“But those tests couldn’t possibly help. My husband has a heart condition,” Mrs. Viall tried to object.

“We have to test patients on everything, Mrs. Viall,” suggested Dr. Ripley, another expert on the team. “That’s how we know how sick they really are. Did you know patients in Finland and other advanced nations live longer than American patients? In life expectancy, we finish 26th, which only proves that other countries have superior doctors and nurses. So we need to raise standards in our medical schools.”

“I’m not sure I agree,” Mrs. Viall replied. “I think the fact my husband likes to finish off a bag of chips every time he watches The Muppet's Show might have something to do with his condition. I’m not sure the fault lies with…”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ripley remarked with a slight hint of disdain. “All of us here at this table agree: America’s health care system is failing. And besides, you have to listen to me. Because I wrote a book on the topic! As for Mr. Viall, I believe we should also remove his spleen.”

By now, Mrs. Viall was deeply worried. It seemed these “experts” had no clue. She looked round the table at the twenty men and women in the room. “How many of you have ever performed actual surgery?” she inquired with a frown.

Not a single expert raised a hand.

“I once worked briefly in a pediatrician’s office,” a woman named Rhee offered with a forced smile. “Now I like to give speeches about how to fix our nation’s health care system. In fact, I can talk to you for an hour if you like. I only charge $35,000.”

“Are you kidding? Who are you people,” Mrs. Viall exclaimed. “What makes any of you think you know anything about heart surgery? It doesn’t sound like any of you even went to medical school?”

“It doesn’t matter. We’re all experts, don’t you see,” Dr. Duncan replied. “We’re all really smart. And some of us are rich, too.”

“I’d like to talk to an actual doctor,” Mrs. Viall tried again.

“Don’t be old-fashioned,” said another white-coated figure at the end of the table. The elderly fellow looked familiar. Then it dawned on Mrs. Viall. This was Senator Mitch McConnell, taking a break from a busy schedule talking to lobbyists in Washington, D. C. “We politicians understand heart surgery better than doctors and nurses ever will. We have just passed an expanded version of No Patient Left Behind. We call it the “Every Patient Lives Act” and it’s going to be great! As a result of this legislation, we can now guarantee that every patient will survive. If patients die, we will close failing hospitals and fire all the doctors and nurses.”

“Also, we will need to create new batteries of tests, to find out what doctors know,” chirped the happy Pearson lady. “We should probably test patients, too. I mean, we’d be talking billions!”

“Who here is in charge of surgery tomorrow?” Mrs. Viall asked, looking nervously around the room. A man with “Klein” on his name tag raised a hand.

“I’m a lawyer,” Klein replied. “So I know exactly what doctors and nurses should do. I wrote a book about how bad the doctors and nurses we have really are.”

“I’ll be in charge of hooking up all those arteries and veins and positive and negative wires,” offered a younger woman seated to his left. Her name tag read, “Kopp.” For once, Mrs. Viall recognized a name. Kopp was founder of Stitch for America, an organization dedicated to bringing smarter nurses and doctors into hospital across this great land.

“My god,” Mrs. Viall gasped. “Have you ever been part of a heart surgery team, Dr. Kopp?”

“Not really. But I went to an Ivy League college! So you have to do what I say.”

“You know, I was an educator for more than thirty years,” Mrs. Viall offered. “So, if you asked me, I wouldn’t offer opinions on medical care, because that’s not my area of expertise. I only know education. My husband would say the same. Frankly, I don’t think any of you have the slightest idea what you’re talking about. You’re not trained in the medical field.”

“Doesn’t matter,” piped up a fellow named Brill. “I also wrote a book about surgeons. That means I know everything there is to know about the challenges of being a surgeon. And I think it’s clear. Surgeons are at fault every time a patient dies. By the way, I’m a lawyer, too.”

“I made a movie about surgery,” interjected a fellow two seats to Brill’s right. Guggenheim was his name. “I’m a millionaire. So my wife and children and I enjoy the very finest health care available in the United States. But I want to see poor families have better care. I want them to have the best doctors and nurses. And it’s clear: doctors and nurses in poor neighborhoods are failing, because poor people die at a younger age than rich people…So my movie puts blame where it belongs, on doctors and nurses working with poor people.”

“Maybe poor people die sooner because they have poor housing and live in dangerous neighborhoods, Mrs. Viall tried. “Maybe gang violence is a problem. Maybe drugs are rampant.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” Guggenheim interrupted. “I live in a gated community high on a hill. I mean, you don’t expect my family to actually interact with poor people, do you? I mean, I send my own children to private schools…”

“It might help if you wanted to understand the problems poor people face, and the problems a health care system faces in treating them, if you hung out with them once in a while,” Mrs. Viall muttered.

“Oh, ‘poverty, poverty, poverty,’ that’s just an excuse doctors and nurses offer for their failings.” Mrs. Viall stared at the newest speaker. No! It couldn’t be! This was no doctor, either. It was Patrick Dempsey, who played “Dr. McDreamy” on Grey’s Anatomy for many years.

For a moment, Mrs. Viall sat in stunned disbelief. Surgery tomorrow was going to be bad, really, really bad. The people who were going to do her husband’s heart transplant had no idea what they were about do. It reminded her of current trends in U. S. education, where so-called “experts” had spearheaded a naïve and entirely misguided—and expensive— movement to reform the nation’s schools.

Well, if she and Mr. Viall needed help with a will, at least there were several good lawyers in the room.

You don't have to know anything about education to become a famous education expert.
You only need an inflated opinion of yourself.

Experts for America: Like Teach for America, only Better!

Project 98.6°.

(Dateline: Washington, D.C.) Today, for the second time in less than a month, the U.S. education establishment was rocked by stunning news (See: NFL Adopts Common Core Playbook.) A secret committee of twenty-five veteran teachers, known as Project 98.6°, and working at the behest of President Barack Obama, today announced results of their deliberations.

Nancy Potts, spokesperson for the group, and a classroom veteran of nineteen years, announced a new federal initiative called “Experts for America.”

The program is meant to mirror “Teach for America.” 

Speaking to a gathering of school reform experts, executives of companies hoping to increase their role in public school education and concerned politicians hoping to extend their tenure in office, Potts noted that the time to solve the nation’s school crisis was now.

“All the big names in school reform will be involved,” she noted. “Bill Gates. Wendy Kopp, CEO of Teach for America. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.”

These remarks were met with thunderous applause. America’s children would finally be saved! 

All of them!

“Every expert in this auditorium will play a role,” Potts continued, with just a hint of disdain. “Joel I. Klein, former chancellor of the New York City Public Schools, you will have a chance to teach. Brent Staples, editorial writer for the New York Times, Richard Whitmire, acclaimed education author, Davis Guggenheim, producer of Waiting for Superman, yes, all of you will have a real chance to teach. Michelle Rhee – the most experienced expert among you, will be your mentor and colleague.”

Potts had trouble stifling a laugh.  

Quickly, she turned the microphone over to another member of the secret group, Mr. Horace Mann, an Ohio middle school history teacher for the last twenty-four years.

“First, let me tell you what an honor it is to address you all,” Mann began. “Normally, I spend my time in a 25-by-25-foot room, surrounded by hormone-addled teens. Now, here I am, talking to the men and women who do all the talking about fixing America’s schools.

“When our group first met,” he added, “we began by asking, ‘What would be the best way to improve America’s schools?’

“We heard what all of you were saying. What we really needed, you said, was better teachers. Mr. Staples, you have no idea how much you helped. When you reviewed Mr. Guggenheim’s movie, you wrote: ‘Public schools generally do a horrendous job of screening and evaluating teachers, which means that they typically end up hiring and granting tenure to any warm body that comes along.’”

“That was when we decided to call ourselves Project 98.6°,” Ms. Potts interjected helpfully, again trying her hardest not to laugh.

Mann continued. “Oh, yes. Mr. Bloomberg, we heard you too. When you said the biggest problem in education was teachers hired “from the bottom 20% of their [college] classes, and not of the best schools” we stood in awe of your epic brilliance. We listened to all of you and suddenly it was perfectly clear. Who better to save the children than you here in this audience today?”

“So we came up with a plan: ‘Experts for America,’” Potts noted happily.

“With the aid of the Selective Service and approval from President Obama,” Mann explained, “a new draft will be instituted. All education experts between the ages of 23-75, all writers of books about education, all executives of companies profiting from ties to public schools, will be subject to call to active duty.”

“We know this may come as a shock for most of you. But you will be committing to work for ten years – minimum – in the toughest public schools. None of that sissy two-year stuff like ‘Teach for America.’” Mrs. Potts smiled.

“Ten years… I mean…you are committed to saving kids? Right?”

“Here are a few assignments we already know,” Mann continued. “Mr. Bill Gates, you will teach students with severe behavior disorders at Marvin Gardens High School in Seattle. You will be replacing a teacher who was assaulted last May and has not recovered from a broken nose and jaw.”

“No, no,” Gates was heard to shout from a front row seat. “You don't understand. My education foundation only dispenses advice...”

Mann’s face hardened. “You will do just fine. As for you, Mr. Klein and Mr. Bloomberg, you favored grading schools in New York City. It seems perfectly fitting, then, that you work with some of the 200,000 homeless children in your city. You’ll be evaluated on how they perform on standardized tests. Should they fail to make adequate yearly progress, you will be required to devote another year to ‘Experts for America,’ until you finally get it right.

“We need you, too, Mr. Guggenheim. You made a movie about five wonderful families, all of whom wanted the best education for their kids. You made fixing schools seem simple.

“Now you and Mr. Staples will have the chance. You will work at a special charter school, with children of parents who didn’t sign up for any lottery, who did not care about what school their kids attended. We just picked random kids for you to teach. And trust me when I say, parent conferences are going to be great! You will work with the dad who threatened his daughter with an AK-47 when her grades were low. You will be charged with educating the older son of the man who stuck his six-month-old daughter in the freezer to stop her crying. You will teach a disabled boy, born ten years ago addicted to heroin because his single mother was (and still is) a drug abuser.

“You will have the chance to fix it all. And as a bonus, you will work with the son of the mother who chased the principal out of his school last spring. She was wielding a large butcher knife. That happened at my wife’s school,” Mr. Mann noted.

Guggenheim and Staples both looked stunned.

“Ms. Rhee, you are going back to D.C. to straighten out the mess in one of the schools where you handed out big cash rewards when standardized test scores dramatically improved –where cheating was soon shown to be rampant and wrong answers on test after test after test were erased. And you will be issued special pencils.”

“Yep, no erasers,” Potts interjected.

When Mann added that Whitmire would be drafted to work alongside Rhee – that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan would be assigned to a Chicago charter school, working only with teen gang members – that Kopp would be joining him – that executives from Pearson, the money-making, standardized testing-company, would be sent to Florida to teach in a high poverty school – howls for mercy filled the room.

“The time to turn hot air into action…IS NOW!” Ms. Potts shouted into the microphone. “And don’t worry. You’re all so smart!!! Besides, for the rest of us, watching you fix the schools will mean ten years of fabulous fun!”

Mrs. Potts curtsied.

Mr. Mann bowed.

Both smiled broadly and exited the stage. They had other work to do. They had to get back to their home schools and keep helping kids.

The Yellow Brick Road to Nowhere: Teachers and the Tea Party Movement

I’VE BEEN HAVING AN ONLINE DEBATE with a Tea Party supporter, focused on the effect on schools of standardized testing. I think it’s going to be the ruin of American education. He seems like a fair-minded man but doesn’t understand my fear.

On one subject, however, we do agree. We both believe you could close down the U. S. Department of Education and no one directly involved with work in America’s classrooms would notice.

What scares me most is the fear that we’re heading down this path of standardized tests and we’re going to get so deep into the woods that we’ll never be able to find our way back. Secretary Duncan believes in testing—thinks this is the way to go—and likes to imagine he’s leading a “Race to the Top.” According to Mr. Duncan this is the opposite of the “race to the bottom” which resulted when the push for “higher standards” (which begot the era of more and more tests) began under No Child Left Behind.

It’s not the “Race to the Top” at all. It’s more like the “"Yellow Brick Road to Nowhere.”

It is a nearly perfect recipe for disaster.

If you love standardized testing, consider the list below, provided in the State of Ohio’s eighth grade curriculum, which all Ohio social studies teachers were ordered to follow in regard to the American Civil War (at least between 2004 and 2009. These are the sum totals of standards and benchmarks and indicators we were ordered to cover.

This was “learning” in the Era of the Testing Fix:

BENCHMARK G: Analyze the consequences of the American Civil War

INDICATOR 10: Explain the course and consequences of the Civil War with emphasis on:

Contributions of key individuals, including Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant

The Emancipation Proclamation

The Battle of Gettysburg


If you value broad-based knowledge, you might notice that this is a sparse and pathetic offering. But what we discovered as classroom teachers, every year, when the Ohio Achievement Test (OAT) was given, was that unless a person was named or a document noted or a term highlighted in the curriculum it could not be turned into a question on the standardized test.

So, if I'm teaching in Ohio, should I mention William Tecumseh Sherman? Not really. He can’t end up on the test.

His comment: “War is hell?” No longer relevant.

Stonewall Jackson? Nope. Not on the test.

What about insuring that students know what the Confederate flag looked like? They might see this symbol in real life. No, no, no, doesn’t matter.

Not going to be on the test.

THERE WAS A TIME, OF COURSE, WHEN TEACHERS had the flexibility to set their own standards. And then, I would always say it does matter if students recognize the symbol; and I tried to be sure my black students, in particular, knew what that red flag with the blue X and white stars meant, both in 1861, and what it can mean today.

The existential dilemma I faced in my last years in a classroom, and the problem all young teachers face today, is that learning no longer counted unless it could be measured—and this idea of the flag?

It wasn’t going to be measured in any way.

With an increasingly narrow focus on testing, and with merit pay tied to test results thrown in for good measure, I believe we need to understand that true learning must inevitably suffer. When I was still in the classroom, and before bureaucrats gained control, I was able to convince students to read books like Gone With the Wind, Cold Mountain and Killer Angels, all great Civil War novels. Another popular choice was Co. Aytch, a memoir written by Sam Watkins, a Confederate soldier.

Now I knew that nothing in these novels and nothing Sam Watkins could say about warfare could ever end up on the OAT. In other words, time devoted to reading great literature wouldn’t count as learning because it couldn’t be measured.[1]

Frankly, that struck me as nuts.

If you’ve never heard of Watkins, I admit I hadn’t either, till halfway through my teaching career. Sam was a Tennessee infantryman who enlisted with great enthusiasm in 1861 and had to survive four bloody years of war. I had never read the book until Ken Burns quoted heavily from Watkins’ story in his acclaimed Civil War series in 1990.

I picked up a copy soon after, read it with immense pleasure, and knew immediately that if I created a summary of Sam’s tale I could get students interested in this part of our nation’s history. So, in my class we went far beyond “basics” and students read an eight-page selection detailing Watkins’ experiences.

Again, keep this clearly in mind: none of what Watkins says can end up on any standardized test.

WE USED TO DO SKITS IN MY CLASS, like plays without dialogue, with my students at center stage. Whenever it came time to wrap up my Civil War unit, I found it easy to get volunteers to play the roles of soldiers from both sides. You could have two Yankees and two Confederates talk about their experiences, maybe even throw a girlfriend or a wife to get a woman’s perspective. And it was easy to find kids who could keep the discussion going the entire period.

(I don’t know what the bureaucrats would say—but I believe that’s learning of the highest and most important form.)

Like any good teacher, I knew you should never tell a student, “No, I don’t believe you can do it.” And only once did I come close.

Brad was a pleasant young man in my seventh bell. On the surface he was unimpressive, clothes rumpled, hair uncombed, afflicted with a terrible stutter. Despite his handicap he was a pleasure in class. He loved history and could add astute comment to any discussion. If you called on him, though, you had to have time. Words came slowly, painfully, and you had to listen closely in order to follow his logic. Sometimes, if I was in a hurry, I pretended not to see his hand raised in order to wrap up a lesson.

One day, I was sitting at my desk while students started the Watkins reading. I reminded everyone who still had a project to do (each student had multiple options for projects and had to do four every year—damn—again with the non-standardized learning) that this would be a good time to come back and explain their ideas. Brad quietly approached. For obvious reasons he had never volunteered to get up in front of class before. Now he said he would like to do a skit on the life of a Civil War soldier, a subject that clearly intrigued him. I held my doubt in check, asking only, “Who will be working with you?” Stumbling over every syllable, he replied that he would go it alone. “I…I…I wa…wa…wan…wan…want to bu…bu…be a Rebel sol…jer,” he stammered.

It was in my blood and bones to have faith in my kids, to assume that each young man and young woman could do more than either they or I knew. For once, I wanted to say: “No. You can’t.” I could only imagine how awful Brad’s experience might be, exposed in front of an entire class, trying to talk for forty-five minutes. The tip of my tongue touched my palette to form the word “no.” I didn’t want this kind-hearted young man to be cut up by the verbal knives of peers. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell him to lose faith.

I caught myself and gave approval.

A week later Brad stood at the front of the room dressed in gray jacket and battered, gray slouch hat. For all intents and purposes he was naked emotionally, risking at age 14 being stripped of his dignity should he fail.

It was quickly apparent he had studied long and hard. Brad wove details from Watkins’ story and half-a-dozen other sources into a cohesive narrative. What surprised us all was the clarity with which he spoke. Perhaps because he was focused only on what he had to tell, his stuttering was less profound. He still stuttered, but we all realized we were witnessing something different and great. Brad told us about battles in which he played a role—talked sadly of seeing friends die—and mentioned love letters his girl back home sent to him. When asked what his girlfriend looked like he said she was “b..b..beautiful, with d..dark hair and d..dark eyes.” He handled every question we asked, stumbled over syllables, but never faltered in his tale, and held center stage the full period.

When he finished, his class did something I’d never seen before. They rose and gave him a standing ovation.

I almost started to cry.

TODAY, OF COURSE, SINCE NONE OF WHAT BRAD DID COULD BE MEASURED, none of this would count as real education.

Like I said before, that’s nuts.[2]

---

[1] Technically, if my students read more this might help them on the reading section of the OAT. Sadly, I would be rewarded or penalized only for scores on the social studies section of the same test. (The test was total crap, by the way.)

[2] Call it double nuts when you realize that the State of Ohio dumped its own social studies test in 2009 and—not one iota wiser—started all over, designing a new and improved standardized test.

The owner of this farm, just off I-71, north of Cincinnati, 
used to hold KKK rallies on his property.
Should students know what this symbol sometimes means?
(There's also a burned cross standing in his orchard.)

Happy Fathers' Day: A Problem in American Education

WHEN PRESIDENT OBAMA TOOK OFFICE, I had high hopes that education policy would improve. I hoped he and Arne Duncan, his new Secretary of Education, would prove to be more realistic.

They couldn’t possibly be so naive as to believe No Child Left Behind was a success. It could only get better. Or so I thought.

You’d think President Obama—who grew up without a father—would know better; but Mr. Duncan goes around preaching at every turn that to fix education all we really need to do is find better teachers. Duncan makes it sound like the failings of our schools are entirely related to teachers.

We need to be realistic.

Sure, there are bad teachers. I’m up in Maine right now, at the start of a bicycle trip across the country. In the Bangor Daily News I see the kind of story that Fox News will highlight for the next two weeks. Rob Mocarsky, 41, a kindergarten teacher, recently pleaded guilty to a charge of “creating child pornography.” Now he faces fifteen to thirty years in a federal prison. The article explains that Mocarsky did a lot of dress-up activities with his students, pirates and fairies and such. At various times he managed to trick four little girls into staying after school, and took pictures of them in various costumes...and....well...he’s a rotten bastard.

By all means, let’s get rid of bad teachers; and let’s be sure we put people like Mocarsky in jail.

Preparing to start a bicycle trip across America.

BUT LET’S NOT FORGET THAT THERE ARE all kinds of problems in our schools that have their roots in the home, as well. That means we have to be honest about what school reform can do and what it cannot.

In the same paper today, another kindergarten teacher, Amy Lake, was in the news. Last week, her estranged husband shot her dead and also their two children. In the same paper, in a similar story, Leah Gordon, 9, and brother, Christian, 8, watched their father Nathaniel chase down their mother Sarah and shoot her too.

The question I keep coming back to when I see stories like this is: What school reform laws are going to address the needs of families like these?

At times recently the news on American fathers has been bleak.

In 1960 only 5% of children in America were born out of wedlock. In 2008 the figure was 41%. I’m a liberal, so I know that might not be the end of the world. But the problem for kids is that so many fathers are absent in their lives. A Pew Research Center study recently found that 27% of fathers with kids 18 or younger live away from at least one of their children and many of those fathers admit they haven’t seen their child in more than a year.

Way to go, dad!

Even worse, the poorest families are the most likely to have children born out of wedlock—and to have fathers who are absent. As a result, problems for poor children are compounded. For black children, 72% are born out of wedlock; for Hispanics, 59%; for white children, 37%. For fathers who don’t have a high school diploma the numbers are 65%, for those who graduate from high school, 51%, for fathers with a college degree, only 13%.

Really: if we wanted to fix our system of education the best place might be to start by teaching would-be-dads to use condoms.

At any rate, I wish every committed dad in America a “Happy Fathers’ Day,” no matter their race, creed or color.


P. S. I may not be updating my blog too often for a while. I'm bicycling across the United States to raise money for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

(If you would like to read about the trip go to:  viall4diabetes2011.blogspot.com.)

If you would like to donate to help find a cure for type-1 diabetes please click HERE!

Limiting Real Education: The Curse of Standardized Testing

ONE REASON MOST OF THE "LEADERS" IN EDUCATION favor standardized testing is because most of those "leaders" never had to spend any time in a classroom. That's right. They were too busy leading!

You have Michelle Rhee (3 years in a classroom) and that's about it. Bill Gates, Chester Finn, Jr., Joel I. Klein, Davis Guggenheim, Arne Duncan and six other U. S. Secretaries of Education never taught a day in their lives.

So they think education is about "standards."  Good teachers know education is about "learning."

Worth teaching this poem?
A bureaucrat shouldn't be deciding.

What scares me, of course, is the idea that if we keep following the path we're on now we're going to end up with the IRS model in the classroom. We're going to have a system in which technocrats decide what teachers must do.

The efforts we've seen so far don't give me much confidence.

Consider the "standards" listed in the eighth grade Ohio social studies curriculum in 2008. Here was all the guidance teachers were given on what to cover in the period following the Civil War:

INDICATOR 11: Analyze the consequences of Reconstruction with emphasis on:

A. President Lincoln’s assassination and the ensuing struggle for control of Reconstruction, including the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson.

B. Attempts to protect the rights of and enhance opportunities for the freedmen, including the basic provisions of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the United States Constitution.

C. The Ku Klux Klan and the enactment of the black codes.

What exactly does the State want kids to learn? Should students know who John Wilkes Booth was, for example?

Normally, I would argue they should.

The reasoning is simple. Every assassination in this country leads to comparisons; and mentions of Lincoln and Booth, or Kennedy and Oswald, often follow. (No one remembers James A. Garfield and Charles J. Guiteau.)

When the State of Ohio designs it's standardized test the bureaucrats forget a central tenet: that education, generally, and history, specifically, must somehow be useful. We should be asking: Does it serve a purpose to know why Johnson was impeached? Students need to know that the president (and other top government officials) can be impeached. They should understand that this protects us from tyranny.

They need to know what "tyranny" is, as well.

So, I’d say  if we're going to talk about Johnson, we throw in Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, more modern examples.

The real standard, not some manufactured standard designed to “measure” what we teach, is how much students learn and how much they can use what we teach in later years. I have no problem focusing on the struggle for equality. I always covered the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, which ended slavery, granted citizenship to blacks and guaranteed "due process" rights under state law, and gave black men the right to vote, in that order—because the question of justice goes to the heart of what makes this nation great.

NOW, IN THE AGE OF THE TESTING FIX, I live in fear that the State of Ohio may ask students to discuss which amendment is which. I know adults don’t know. I know that I have never needed to know.

The fight for equality, however, has been brutal and there our focus should lie.

Since the issue of race has loomed like a dark cloud even unto this day it seems wise to look at Jim Crow laws (black codes) and segregation. Apparently, though, the State will not use the term “Jim Crow.” I believe it is a common usage.

Well, then, should I teach it?

When I do this unit, I start by asking students to list five ways blacks and whites were once legally separated. After a couple of years, I can predict which examples classes will always give. I write them down on the board ahead of time and pull down a map to cover my prediction. The five are: SCHOOL, BUSES, RESTAURANTS, DRINKING FOUNTAINS and in SPORTS.

I want to teach more. I don't want to stick to wimpy "standards." I want students to understand the depth and breadth of the racial divide and the antipathy that made Jim Crow laws seem necessary. So I compile a handout giving as many examples as possible:

The sad era of “Jim Crow” began officially in 1887. Florida started the process by ordering the separation of black and white passengers on railroads. Mississippi copied the idea, adding “Colored” and “White Only” waiting rooms. Other Southern states fell in line. But most made one exception: if a black nursemaid was caring for a white baby. Soon states like Alabama and Georgia had separate homes for the deaf, blind, and mentally ill. The races were divided in prisons and on chain gangs. By 1890 Jackson, Mississippi had instituted “Jim Crow” rules in city cemeteries.

Think about it, I say to my class. You’re blind! Isn’t everyone black if you’re blind? I pantomime a sightless person searching for a Negro, a futile proposition. I put my hands on some student’s head and ask, “Are you black, because if you are, I don’t like you!”

What about cemeteries? I ask: Do any of you think you might care who is buried next to you when you die? The kids laugh and I believe they are laughing at the idea of separation, seeing inequality as a mockery of what we say we believe in this country.

The reading continues—seventy examples—not because students need to know seventy examples—but because the weight of it bears down on the way they think, makes the system appear senseless:

After 1915, Oklahoma required “separate phone booths for white and colored patrons [customers].” South Carolina factory workers were paid at different windows, used different stairways and could not use the same “drinking water buckets, cups, dippers or glasses.” In a move of stunning stupidity, Birmingham, Alabama made it “unlawful for a Negro and a white person to play together” at dominoes.

Checkers was also forbidden!

In a police-officer-like voice I say, “Drop the checkers and come out with your hands up!” It seems hard to believe that anyone ever thought such laws were necessary.

I don’t mean to blame the South. So we turn to examples from the north, where my grandfather had Jim Crow sections in his theaters in Akron, Ohio. We keep on plowing with one goal in mind. We want to destroy the idea that any form of inequality is acceptable.

The list of rules was as long as human imagination is twisted…Blood banks kept Negro blood on different shelves. “Public libraries” in the South denied blacks the right to check out books! Southern gas stations had three bath-rooms. One was for “WHITE MEN,” one for “WHITE WOMEN.”

A third was marked “COLORED.”

During most of my career, Loveland, where I taught, had a single black teacher. So I used him (with his approval) as example. Both of us were born in 1949. I explained, “If Mr. Battle’s family pulled up to the same gas station as the Viall family, the Battles couldn’t go at the same time. Members would have to wait their turns.”

“Think of how your mother would feel…” I added. I knew every kid understood that.

I don’t know if kids who sat through my classes can tell you why Andrew Johnson was impeached; but I'm okay with that.

I wanted them to have a hatred for injustice burning in their hearts.

And that's not "standardized" education.

Sarah Palin and Real Education Reform: Put Down that Fork!

TODAY THE REALLY BIG TALK IN EDUCATION is all about “higher standards” or “bench-marking” U. S. standards to standards in countries like Finland, Japan and South Korea, where education is supposedly better. 

I’m not much of a believer in “standards” as a solution to school problems; but clearly we need to do a better job teaching American history.

At a stop in New England, during her recent bus tour, Sarah Palin was asked to comment on Paul Revere’s ride. To say that her answer missed the mark and lacked a certain grammatical polish is an understatement. Palin explained:

He who warned, uh, the…the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms, uh, by ringin’ those bells and um by makin’ sure that as he’s ridin’ his horse through town to send those warnin’ shots and bells that uh we were gonna be secure and we were gonna be free…and we were gonna be armed.

I taught American history for 33 years; so I suppose Palin’s teachers could have done better. Then again, maybe it’s not them. We all bear some responsibility for what we know and what we don’t know. In my case I clowned around in school as a teen and don’t know as much chemistry or biology as I could have.

Sometimes, the schools and teachers are doing their jobs. Sometimes it’s students who aren’t working enough.

Changing “standards” so far has had a minimal effect—or no effect at all when it comes to improving our schools. It’s kind of like the change from a “food pyramid” to a “food circle,” shaped like a plate. I support First Lady Michelle Obama’s efforts to promote better eating. I just don’t believe the pyramid was the problem and I doubt the plate is a solution.

IT’S THE SAME WHEN EXPERTS get loose and start slinging their favorite theories of education.

At best, the “standards movement” sweeping the nation will have minimal effect. We know it’s already expensive. My gravest fear is that it will backfire badly and be even more expensive in the end than it already is.

Take my history class, for example. When we covered the American Revolution my students and I spent an entire day on the story of Lexington and Concord. (The girls thought it was interesting because at least one woman was seen by the British to be firing their way.) I then asked my students to write a 300-word “eyewitness account.” Anyone who ever had me for class could tell you, I graded this kind of assignment like I was an English teacher.

In this case, I was trying to give students more writing practice.

The problem, of course, is that on a standardized test a HISTORY teacher won’t ever be credited with successfully teaching writing.

So, teaching writing would technically be a waste of time.

That struck me as nuts when I was still teaching and still does today. It seems like a strange way to “improve” learning outcomes.

So, no. I don’t believe “standards” will be our salvation.

If you want better schools a major part of the problem can only be fixed when we convince students to work harder or begin demanding that they do. If we want to lose weight we don’t need new diet plans or standards.

We need to exercise a little will power. We need to show a bit of restraint. We need to do our part and lay down our forks.

Numbers Don't Lie: Our Teachers (and Doctors) Are Failing

I RETIRED FROM TEACHING three years ago. So I finally have time to do a little writing. If you follow education news these days you have to know public school teachers are being fed a steady diet of abuse by critics. When U. S. students are compared and ranked, internationally, based on test scores the results are depressing.

It has to be teachers, right? Not long ago, Glenn Beck lumped teachers’ unions in with Islamic terrorists. Seriously. The movie Waiting for Superman made it look like teachers were a bunch of slugs. Here in Ohio Governor Kasich acts like we’re Vikings intent on ransacking the State Treasury.

I talk to teachers these days and find them more discouraged than at any time since I first became interested in a career in education. So my blog will always be a defense of good teachers—but never bad ones. 

There’s a difference, which most of our leaders and almost all of the critics seem to forget. Take Arne Duncan. He says education reform is “all about the talent.”

He means it’s all about teachers.

Trust me:  I’m a liberal. I voted for President Obama and always knew he had a valid birth certificate. But I’d like to sock Mr. Duncan, his Secretary of Education in the jaw. (Same goes for Davis Guggenheim, producer of Waiting for Superman, by the way.)

If you listen to critics this is what you hear:  We have a “school crisis” on our hands. How do we know? We know because our students finished 25^th in math in 2006, when students from thirty nations were tested. Worse, we spend more on education than almost all the countries that beat us. See:  America’s teachers are lazy and overpaid.

Here were the bleak math results in 2006:

1. Finland
2. South Korea
3. Netherlands
4. Switzerland
5. Canada
6. Japan
7. New Zealand
8. Belgium
9. Australia
10. Denmark
11. Czech Republic
12. Iceland
13. Austria
14. Germany
15. Sweden
16. Ireland
17. France
18. United Kingdom
19. Poland
20. Slovak Republic
21. Hungary
22. Luxembourg
23. Norway
24. Spain 
25. UNITED STATES
26. Portugal
27. Italy
28. Greece
29. Turkey
30. Mexico

Study that list a bit and it can seem depressing. Our poor students were just baffled when it came to multiplying decimals and transforming common fractions into percentages. Who else could you blame? It had to be teachers.

In my case, I looked at that list for a long time and wondered. Was America going to math hell in a hand basket?

WHAT OTHER PROBLEMS WERE CRITICS MISSING? Was it just America’s teachers who were failing? Or was there a broader cultural failure to concern us?

What about doctors?

Time magazine provided the first hint of danger in a brief comparison (December 12, 2008) of health care systems round the world. After that, I was on the story like Woodward and Bernstein, or maybe just Woodward, since it’s just me.

Health care costs in the United States ate up 16% of GDP, the highest figure in the world, a per capita cost of $7,026. Life expectancy was 77.8 years.

Japan spent 7.9% of GDP, or $2,690 per capita. Yet the Japanese lived an average of 83 years.

Numbers don’t lie and the more numbers you study the more lying you don’t see. School reformers like Secretary Duncan assure us that if we collect enough data and tie test results to teacher pay we can save American education. Maybe we can collect enough data to save hospitals, too. In southern Minnesota people live into their 80’s. People in eastern Kentucky live a mere 72.6 years.

What’s needed, clearly, is a system to rate doctors and nurses in Minnesota “excellent” and medical people in Kentucky “failing” or under “academic watch” or some category of that nature. Or we could fire all the Kentucky medical people and get some real professionals in there to clean up the mess.

In fact, to get a picture of how our oncologists and proctologists are doing, let’s gather some data. Compare life expectancy in the same countries that beat out our brains in math.

Here were the dismal “health care” rankings for 2009:

1.    Japan                          

2.    Australia                     

3.    Canada                                   

4.    France                        

5.    Sweden                      

6.    Switzerland                

7.    Iceland                                   

8.    Israel                          

9.    New Zealand             

10.  Italy                            

11.  Norway                      

12.  Spain                          

13.  Austria                                   

14.  Greece                        

15.  Netherlands                

16.  Luxembourg               

17.  Germany                    

18.  Belgium                      

19.  Finland           

20.  United Kingdom        

21.  Denmark                    

22.  Ireland                        

23.  Portugal                      

24.  UNITED STATES    

25.  Czech Republic          

26.  Mexico                       

27.  South Korea               

28.  Poland                        

29.  Slovakia                     

30.  Turkey                     

So, what do simple lists prove? If America’s teachers are failing, a truth the media universally accept, then this chart proves that U. S. doctors are lazy and overpaid idiots—and they aren’t even unionized.

(Thank god they don't have tenure!!!)

So, Mr. Duncan, if you ever do get punched in the nose by an angry, retired teacher, head for Canada if you want good affordable health care.

And don’t mention our terrible doctors to Glenn Beck.

He’ll only start crying.

(For even MORE chilling statistical evidence go to:  “America's Teachers Stink Up the Place Again.”