A Baker's Dozen of My Favorite Posts

If you liked my post on attendance here are a few of my other favorite posts. I will say, I saved my best stories for my book, Two Legs Suffice: Lessons Learned by Teaching.

My book is now available on Amazon.com. 

1) Sham Standards: Governor Kasich and the Standardized Testing Fetish: I first started this blog in 2011, concerned that standardized testing was doing real harm in education. 

In this post we consider what happens when Loveland Middle School brings in fourteen veterans from five different wars and lets them talk to 700 students? 

It’s not standardized education but it’s learning that truly matters. Joe Whitt talks about his experiences at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Ace Gilbert, a decorated Vietnam veteran, makes listeners cry, and Seth Judy talks about ten surgeries he endured after being wounded in Iraq in 2003.

(This selection is expanded into an entire chapter in my book, Two Legs Suffice: Lessons Learned by Teaching.)

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2) How Many Reformers Does It Really Take to Fix a School? After almost fifteen years, why hasn’t school reform worked? “Perhaps we need to look at schools like automobiles to grasp why it is we’re not speeding down the intellectual Interstate like the reformers say we must. Imagine that there are three autos, all broken down alongside I-10, in the Arizona desert. The drivers are three real teachers. Each has been carrying five passengers, five students. One car is a new Lexus LX 570. The second is a 2006 Honda Civic. The third is a battered 1972 Chevrolet Impala.” 

What ideas will the reformers come up with to help real teachers and real students? Hint: none of them will actually help.

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3) NFL Adopts Common Core Playbook—Copying Education Reforms: In an effort to fix failing franchises, the NFL decides to copy education reform. In a stunning news conference, Commissioner Roger Goodell explains to reporters: “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.”

What could possibly go wrong?

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4) Why Teaching Matters—Part II: You can have an effect on students in many ways and may not know for years exactly what that effect was, or whether you did any good. Joey once racked up 38 zeroes in a row in my class. So we sat down and talked. 

A series of eight similar posts can be found by clicking on the year 2011 (December) and 2012 (January).

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4) Sample Reviews for Two Legs Suffice: I’m proud to say, readers of my book have called it “inspirational” and said it “should be required reading for all teachers, students, administrators and citizens.” One reader had this to say: “Near the end I was in tears over one sad story about a boy and then a half hour later I was laughing so hard at the ending paragraph that I was in tears again. I think every parent of school age children should read this book.”

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5) The Essence of Corporate Education: It turns out many corporations, both at the K-12 level and in higher education are in business to make money, whether students learn or not. When all is said and done, it turns out “‘corporate’ is to ‘education’ as ‘cigarette manufacturer’ is to ‘public health and well-being.’”

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 6) Are Poor Public Schools Killing the U. S. Economy? When U. S. students finish fifteenth in reading (out of 65 countries tested), tied for thirty-first in math, and twenty-third in science, critics claim public schools are killing the economy.

Oddly enough, jobs are lost to Bangladesh, a nation not even rated, with an illiteracy rate of almost 50%, and Mexico, which finished #48 in reading and #50 in math and science.

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 7) Does Arne Duncan Realize that Teachers and Students Are Dying? In one terrible week, Colleen Ritzer, a Massachusetts high school teacher, is raped and murdered by a 14-year-old student in a bathroom at her school. Two days later Michael Lansberry, a Nevada middle school teacher, is shot and killed by a 12-year-old as he tries to stop the boy from shooting classmates.

Meanwhile, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan insists kids drop out of high school mainly because teachers make it too easy.

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8) Confessions of a Bad Teacher: I Loved Teaching like an Addict Loves Crack: “My name is John and I have a problem. For thirty-three years I was a bad teacher. And I thought was good.” 

I finally face up to reality after hearing all the school reformers say America’s teachers are no good.

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9) The Scores Are In: School Reformers Earn F’s: “Test results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often called ‘the Nation’s Report Card,’ are out again this month. And now we know. Now we know what happens when arrogant reformers set out to improve the nation’s schools, contributing only hot air—their opinions—their plans—their pontificating—but not deeds. (These people don’t teach. They talk. They talk and talk and talk.)”

It turns out that despite billions spent on standardized testing seniors’ scores for NAEP reading are down five points and math scores are up three. It makes you wonder if our leaders know what they’re doing at all.

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10) ExxonMobil Announces Commitment to Fixing U. S. Education: ExxonMobil runs a slick commercial, explaining how it hopes to get involved with fixing America’s schools. “I know if you’re like me, your first reaction is probably, ‘Who better to understand the needs of children than oil executives?’” 

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11) America’s Teachers: We’re Dumb and We Suck! This was my first really successful post, in which I apply the same kind of statistics used to prove America’s teachers are failing to prove that America’s doctors and nurses are failing even worse! 

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THIS ONE IS A LITTLE DIFFERENT...A POLITICAL POST FROM 2012

12) Why is Being a Liberal so Hard: Romney and Ryan Bring Back the Fun: This was a political post, but it clearly resonated with tens of thousands of readers. “Sometimes,” I wrote, “it’s tough being a liberal. Rush and his legions of Dittoheads call you a ‘libertard’ and pretend they’re better Americans than you. As a liberal, you think this country and the world could be better and want to help make those twin ideals come true. Conservatives warn that you’re a communist and insist you and your type want to wipe your feet (or worse) on the U. S. Constitution.”

“”

‘’

A Perfect Mesh of Common Core Curriculum and New Technology in the Classroom

TWELVE YEARS AFTER I POSTED THIS, THE SATIRE SEEMS EVEN BETTER THAN WHEN I FIRST WROTE IT.

AND STANDARDIZED TEST SCORES HAVE GONE DOWN.

(September 20, 2025.)

A Greek temple of knowledge!
Socrates, Plato and Aristotle managed
without Common Core.

We visit a typical American classroom in the not too distant future.

 

EVILTEACH! HORRORKNOWLEDGE! 

April 1, 2025:  Two highly paid consultants, one from Wireless Generation, a leading company in the sale of education software, the other from Pearson, a major player in the testing industry, are seated in the back of John Galt’s seventh grade American history class. Neither consultant has ever taught. Yet they are here to assess how new technology, guaranteed to boost standardized test scores and company profits, is functioning. Did we just say, “Boost test scores and company profits?” 

We meant: “To enhance true learning.” 

Several surveillance cameras, all set to follow Galt’s every move, are running in the room. This is part of the push to improve schools by holding teachers totally accountable. Because let’s face it. The only person who matters in the room is the teacher. 

That’s what school reformers like to say. 

In this class every child has a computer, purchased from Amplify, a division of Wireless Generation. (Corporate motto: No Dollar Left Behind.) Galt and his students are hooked to a series of electrodes. Today, the class is trying to hold a discussion about the battle for women’s rights in the 1800s. 

“Mr. Galt,” a student named Dagney inquires, “I’ve been wondering. Who were the leaders in the fight for equality?” 

“One would be Susan B. Anthony,” Galt responds gingerly. He consults his computer to be sure Anthony is specifically mentioned in the Common Core Curriculum. She is. “Susan B. Anthony may be on the standardized test,” Galt says. “The other leader, who will not be on the test, would be Elizzzz…” 

Before he can finish his sentence, the electrodes attached to his scalp deliver a powerful shock. The smell of singed hair fills the room. 

(He was going to say: Elizabeth Cady Stanton.) 

Every student receives a flashing red warning on their screen: DANGER! MATERIAL NOT INCLUDED ON STANDARDIZED TEST! DANGER! 

A voice similar to HAL, the deranged computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey, delivers the message verbally, as well.

 

Joaquin, seated in the desk closest to the door, waits for Galt to recover. He raises a hand to add to the discussion. “I can’t understand why women weren’t granted equal rights when the U.S. Constitution was first written. My grandmother told...” 

The poor boy should have known better! 

A loud buzzing noise, followed by Joaquin’s spastic jerking, and another computer warning, teaches Joaquin and all his curious classmates an important lesson. If it can’t be tested … it isn’t education. 

Carolyn wants to know: “What year did women finally win the right to vote?” 

ZAPPPPPP. Another shock for a foolish student. Again, computers flash warning: DANGER! MATERIAL NOT INCLUDED ON STANDARDIZED TEST! DANGER! 

Galt wants to answer. He wants to say “1920,” and note that his mother was in kindergarten by the time men got around to deciding that women were capable of voting. He wants to say to the girls in the room, “Just think. In all the long centuries of human history the dumbest man walking the face of the earth had more rights than any woman.” Galt had used this line for years – before Common Core – and remembers how it always riled up the ladies and got them interested. Now he knows if it’s not on the test, it doesn’t matter. Considering that Ohio enacted laws in 2013 to tie teacher pay to test scores, maybe it’s for the best. Still, he’s a professional. He wants his kids to learn. 

“It wasn’t just women who couldn’t vote,” he says. “Poor white men.…” 

That’s as far as he gets. Another shock is administered, and Galt jumps where he stands like a fish on an electrified line. 

He’s a stubborn man where learning is involved. He tries again, disguising his reply: “No vote. Pale skin. Poor…” ZAPPPPPP. The computer gets wise to what he’s up to and delivers a jolt. 

The consultant from Pearson makes a note: “May need to increase voltage.”

 

Perhaps in his confusion, Galt forgets where he is, in a modern U.S. classroom with all the reforms of recent years welded firmly into place. He forgets he’s expected to follow what is virtually a script. He is going to tell students that in the summer of 1964, Congress debated a massive civil rights bill designed to guarantee equal treatment to people of all races, religions, and ethnic backgrounds. He is going to explain that Representative Howard W. Smith from Virginia stepped forward to block the legislation. Smith feared a world in which blacks might win equal rights. (Galt is also thinking he may bring up the Loring v. Virginia case, which overturned state laws against interracial marriage three years later.) As Galt knows, Smith devised a clever ruse to derail the bill. He suggested on the floor of the House that the word “sex” be added to the bill. 

Surely, he imagined, no sane person could vote for a bill which granted equal rights to blacks and women!  

Galt is going to tell this story because he thinks it reveals the ludicrous nature of prejudice in all its forms. He tries to get it out by talking fast – telling the story at preternatural speed – and the cameras and electrodes and computer are baffled for precious seconds. He gets in “summer of 1964” and “Howard W. Smith” but when he mentions the word “sex” the system catches up and gives him a mighty shock. 

When the smoke round his head clears Galt sees a brave seventh grader in the front row put up a hand. The boy wants to ask a question about gay marriage and discrimination. But he decides it’s not worth the risk and lowers his hand. 

Galt tells the class he needs to sit. You know, recover his wits. He consults his materials, prepared over the course of forty-five years in the classroom, and tries to figure out what he’s allowed to cover. He has a lengthy reading prepared on the fight for women’s rights but realizes that on a standardized test there won’t be more than a single question on this topic. Should he include extra material? If his classes learn , but what they learn isn’t tested, does that count as learning? 

If someone asks a question in the forest and the tree falls on his head and no one hears the answer, does it matter? 

Isn’t that how the riddle goes? 

Maybe there’s still some way to slip this reading past the Common Core censors. He knows, over the years, that students have always found it interesting. 

It reads in part: 

The ideal woman [in the 1800s] was a wife and mother. And wives must be content within this sphere. One expert on women, a man, by chance, argued that bed-making was “good exercise.” He continued: “There is more to be learned about pouring out tea and coffee than most young ladies are willing to believe.” 

“A woman is a nobody,” one newspaper commented. “A wife is everything.”   

The handout Galt has always used continues in that vein for ten pages. One writer compares men to elm trees and women to ivy vines. They need a man to lean on for support. The husband controls all property, including his wife’s paycheck (if any). Judges uphold the right of husbands to beat their wives for nagging. A Massachusetts judge does order a husband not use a stick any bigger around than his thumb. 

At this point, in an era before standardized everything, standardized tests, standardized texts, standardized humanity, Galt would have illustrated the point by picking up his pointer and whipping it through the air. The “whooshing” noise would make it clear how much damage a rod of similar thickness might do. 

Now, Galt knows better. Too much depth. Depth has nothing to do with Common Core Curriculum. Depth of knowledge can’t be tested. 

He remembers how he used to tell classes about that writer in 1850, who wrote about elm trees and ivy vines, and warned that without a man, a woman was doomed to fall in the dust. The girls who played sports always laughed at that story … but again, it’s not going to be on any Pearson test. 

No sense telling it now. 

Then Galt thinks about all the damage fools who claim to be fixing education do and it makes him angry to the core. (Irony intended.) Like all good teachers, he has dedicated himself to imparting all the knowledge he can. He is determined to broaden today’s discussion. He will tell his classes how it was for women in this country even in the 1960s and 70s. He will explain how his old high school tried to start a girl’s track team in 1967, and how almost everyone thought the idea was absurd. Only two girls showed up for tryouts. Galt will emphasize how much attitudes – what we think we can do and what we think we cannot do – shape our lives. He believes this is a lesson he can impart to students. He feels it in his bones. 

He feels the lesson matters. 

They will discuss the idea that women were once considered too delicate to run long distances. He will throw out the example of Paula Radcliffe, who set the record for women in 2003, running the London Marathon in 2 hours and 15 minutes, a pace of 5:09 per mile. He will circle back again to the idea that women are weak like ivy vines. He thinks he can plant a seed, hint to all the girls that they should take on any challenge … and Galt will make it clear the same attitude equally applies to boys. 

“When I was in high school,” he begins. 

ZAAAAP. 

“They said girls were too weak.…” 

ZAAAAAAAAAAP! 

“Paula Radcliffe.…” 

ZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!! 

Student computers are now blinking wildly: DANGER! NON-STANDARDIZED LEARNING! EVILTEACH! HORRORKNOWLEDGE! ACADEMICKILL! DANGER! DANGER! 

By now Galt is prone on the floor. He looks bad. He raises his head slightly and gasps. “Women … not … ivy vines.…” 

ZZZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!

 

* 

The consultants shoot each other knowing looks. The Pearson rep makes a note to include one question on the standardized test about Susan B. Anthony. After all, you want the tests to align with the Common Core Curriculum. 

Oh hell, who cares! Pearson is making hundreds of millions of dollars annually designing more and more standardized tests. 

The consultant from Amplify is happy, too. Galt is out cold. Now the kids have no choice but to rely on their computers for some warm student-machine interaction. 

It’s U.S. education for the future.

Somehow this image seems more fitting
when we talk about
school reform today.

Ten Myths about America’s Public Schools

Since I retired in 2008, I’ve been working on a book about what good teachers do. That means I’ve had the dubious pleasure of reading hundreds of articles on the state of our nation’s schools. Certain trends in coverage are impossible to miss. One glaring fact is that no one bothers to ask teachers what they think.

As a result, nonsense spouted by ignorant critics is repeated without challenge. Slowly but surely, nonsense becomes myth.

 

Top Ten Education Myths

1. Myth of the Failing Public Schools:  How do we know U. S. public schools are failing? We look at international competition. Experts insist U. S. kids can barely sharpen their pencils without sticking themselves in their eyes or getting writing devices stuck up their nostrils. In 2012 fifteen-year-olds from the United States finished 21st in reading, 25th in science and 33rd in math compared to kids around the world. We got our red, white and blue butts kicked by Liechtenstein!

And how about all the dropouts! At the rate we’re going the last U. S. high school graduate our nation ever produces will don cap and gown c. 2050. This catastrophic dropout rate is entirely the fault of idiot teachers.


2. Saga of the Idiot Teacher: The reason public schools are failing is because teachers are stupid. According to critics the men and women at the front the classrooms are a sad “collection of warm bodies.” These poor, dumb sods are “chosen from the bottom 20% of their college classes, and not of the best schools.”

(Sources—Brent Staples in the New York Times—Michael R. Bloomberg in a speech at M.I.T.—pretty much any Fox News commentator.)

The author:  a retired educator.
This is what a stupid teacher looks like.
He probably didn't even read all those books.

3. The Helsinki Myth: We need to follow the lead of Finland or Japan because students from those nations score higher in international competitions. Finland—wow—Finland has awesome teachers. The same is true for Japan. And Liechtenstein! That little postage stamp of a country has kick-ass educators.


4. Ghost of the Middle Class Job: The failure of public schools explains our nation’s declining position in a competitive global economy. All the good jobs are disappearing—to Liechtenstein!—because our schools produce graduates who can’t understand math or science or read ordinary street signs.

Typical American job candidate on the way to an interview: “Does that sign say ‘Stop’ or ‘One Way?’ Never mind. It’s a mailbox.”


5. Fable of the Ivy-Covered Wall: Thank god for all the brilliant school reformers, all armed with their own plans to save the children! These people are really smart, especially compared to the rejects manning our classrooms. U. S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan graduated from Harvard. So he must be correct in every syllable he utters. Michelle Rhee graduated from Cornell. She would run Students First and give speeches about how to fix education for free if only fans would stop paying her five-figure speaker’s fees!

Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach for America, also graduated from a prestigious Ivy-League institution.


6. Test it and They Will Come: According to all the greatest school reformers if we do enough testing and “measuring” our schools can be great again. We will test first graders in long division and third graders in physics and measure what every child does in gym. If some chubby girl or boy can’t run a 7:00 mile by the end of eighth grade we will fire the gym teacher!


7. The Voucher that Wouldn’t Die: If standardized testing doesn’t work, even though brilliant reformers insist it will, we will save every child by opening up more charter schools and passing out more vouchers so parents can send sons and daughters to good private schools. Public schools are the problem.

In fact the real cure for what’s wrong with the public schools is probably exorcism.


8. The Teacher Who Walked on Water: If every child had an excellent teacher every year then every child would excel in school. No: every child would live happily ever after! All the girls would marry princes. Brilliant reformers do not plan to rest until they put an excellent teacher into every classroom and even a few coat closets. Not themselves, of course. Oh no. Oh no. They are far too valuable—and well paid—serving as leaders.

These heroes will never stop until Teach for America, founded by Kopp on the principle that we need to replace idiot teachers with smart ones, puts 3,000,000 Harvard and Stanford and Yale graduates into classrooms across the nation. Out go the dumbbells we have. In go the smart people. Okay, sure. Since 1990, the organization has trained only 28,000 teachers; and no one can tell us how many have remained in the classrooms. (They commit to two years.) But not to worry, because the smart people will save us. We are going to demand excellence in the teaching profession, just like we do in Congress. While we are at it every child is going to get a puppy or a kitten.

Maybe a bunny.


9. Myth of the Malevolent Thug: Teachers’ unions are the only reason school reforms fail. The plans can’t possibly be screwed up! Because the planners are all so brilliant! If standardized testing doesn’t work the failure has to be tied to unions. Every union member is a sloth with the scruples of a purse-snatcher. Teaching is a cushy job, especially in inner-city schools, and particularly for those men and women who make it past the five-year mark by which time half of all educators quit and find different employment.


10. Parable of the Adoring Mother: All parents will do right by their children if we pass the right laws. If we hand out vouchers, for example, every mom and dad will sit down and start studying their “school choice” options. Every girl and boy will suddenly have a parent (maybe two!!!) backing them up, working tirelessly to get them into the best schools. Before you can utter the words “Horace Mann” and click your ruby red slippers three times, poor kids will find elite private schools swinging doors wide to admit them. Religious schools will start taking kids with severe behavior disorders because that’s what Jesus would do.

Parental drug and alcohol use, physical and mental abuse of children, homelessness and gang violence, will vanish from the land.

THE END

There you have it—the mythical path to educational perfection. Get rid of idiot teachers and hire smart ones. Give all good parents—that’s the only kind there are—plenty of choices and that’s all you need. All the jobs in America will be saved—except maybe the job of “education reformer,” since education will be perfected.

At some glorious future date, when students are tested internationally, America’s kids will finish 1st in reading, 1st in science, and 1st in math.

Then we will be able to say, as proud American’s, “Stick it, Liechtenstein.”