Confessions of a "Bad Teacher:" I Loved Teaching like a Crack Addict Loves Crack.

I thought I was a good teacher. 
(I also thought the Bengals would win.)

MY NAME is John, and I have a problem. For thirty-three years I was a bad teacher. And I thought I was good.

Denial. That’s all it was.

 

Then, Sunday, I stumbled across an excellent article by Dr. Michael Flanagan and his words gave me strength. You see he’s a bad teacher too.

 

Dr. Flanagan had to battle through the same agonizing process I must now endure, although he does admit there were sometimes “free bagels and donuts involved.” And I am a complete sucker for donuts.

 

(I’m sorry. When I salivate, I digress.)

 

 

FOR NINETEEN YEARS he taught, successfully, or so he thought. Oh, sure, he heard school reformers say that the big problems in education boiled down to bad teachers at the front of too many rooms. Still, he refused to face the truth. Like me, he kept pretending he was good. He’d get awards for excellence…and he’d believe those awards meant something too. 

As for me, I’d be grading papers at 11:30 on a Wednesday night and I’d tell myself, “John, you’re doing a good job.” I had an addiction you see. 

Grading papers was a crutch, like a bottle of booze to a drunk. 

I’d go to work on Monday, and students would tell me they loved my class, and I’d delude myself and think they were telling the truth. I would arrive at school early and let kids come in for extra work and I’d skip lunch to help and stay late too. I was hooked.  

I thought I was good. 

Sure. There were times I wondered. I’d pick up the New York Times and read what the latest school reformers had to say. These reformers didn’t have the same problem I did because they always avoided trying to teach. But I wouldn’t listen, not even when Brent Staples said schools did a terrible job of screening and evaluating teachers, so that they hired “any warm body that comes along.” I heard what Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg told an audience at M.I.T., that the big problem in schools was too many teachers were plain dumb and still I refused to face the demons. 

I’d go right back to my phone. I’d call Vicki’s parents and say, “I love having your daughter in class.” Too late now, I see that call was a cry for help. I loved teaching like a crack addict loves crack.

 

REFORMERS constantly tried to show me I was wrong. Michelle Rhee bashed teachers every time she opened her mouth. Campbell Brown hinted that teachers were sexual deviants, protected by powerful unions. Arne Duncan, Steven Brill and Joel I. Klein all agreed that tenure and unions must go. Yet, I kept going back into my classroom day after day. I had to have that fix. I had to keep helping kids. 

I know one step toward recovery is admitting a problem and trying to make amends to anyone you hurt. So let me say I’m sorry. I apologize for spending most of my adult life working with 5,000 kids. 

I’m sorry, Steven Brill, that I called your book, Class Warfare: The Fight to Save America’s Schools, a steaming pile of donkey dung. I should have known you were fighting harder than I did, just not in an actual classroom, or with actual kids. I should have known that you and Wendy Kopp, who founded Teach for America but never taught, were going to fix the lives of children with bold words. 

I’m sorry for so much.  

I’m sorry for doubting politicians when they passed No Child Left Behind more than a decade ago. Now I see that lawmakers in Washington knew exactly what they were doing all along. I’m sorry I said that law was flawed from the start.  

I’m also sorry that No Child Left Behind is totally dead.  

I’m sorry I don’t believe Common Core will work. I’m an addict, as I’ve said. I’m sorriest of all because I doubted politicians in 2010 when they said they supported Common Core and doubted them again in 2014 when they said, never mind, we’re not for Common Core after all.  

In fact, Governor Bobby Jindal I apologize particularly to you.

 

I’m sorry I didn’t face my problem when it might have meant something to all the wonderful young people I taught. I’m sorry for saying the standardized tests I saw during my long career were weak. I’m sorry I thought the social studies portion of the Ohio Achievement Test (OAT), implemented in 2004, and the last standardized test I saw before retiring in 2008, was a farce. I was wrong to think you couldn’t prove anything with a single fifty-question test if it covered three years of material (grades 6, 7 and 8).

 

I’M NOT JUST SORRY. I’m sad. I’m sad the State of Ohio spent millions designing that social studies subject test as part of the OAT – and then dumped it in 2009 – and will soon dump the whole sorry OAT and start from scratch again. Common Core is coming you know, or maybe it’s not. I’m sorry I said when I heard this kind of news that lawmakers in Columbus had absolutely no clue. 

I’m sorry I once brought in fourteen veterans (from five wars) to talk to 700 Loveland Middle School kids. I realize now, too late, that nothing they said could help any of those teens when it came to a standardized test. 

Especially now, since all those old tests are kaput.  

Today I understand. It wasn’t just me. I hung out with other junkies who thought they were good. We had an outstanding band director at Loveland Middle School who thought it mattered if he turned teens into musicians. We had great art teachers who imagined that if they taught kids to sketch beautifully, they were passing on value. We had a great drama teacher, who for some reason felt drama was worthwhile, and a French teacher who expected kids to speak French with skill, and we had fine coaches, who were all in denial too. Those coaches thought that teaching young men and women to work hard, to strive to improve, to win with character, might help them in life. 

Poor souls – trying to help kids who were bullied – counseling pregnant teens about choices they’d have to make – wondering how to help a boy who lived with an abusive father at home. Who were my colleagues trying to kid? 

Now I know we were all addicts, blind to our own flaws, and I look back on my career and theirs and think, “How sad!” 

But I do feel better today. I’m getting this off my chest and see I’m not alone. I can finally admit I was a “bad teacher” all along.  

I imagined that learning could be enhanced in ten thousand ways. And I was wrong. If it can’t be tested, if it can’t be reduced to A, B, C or D, it’s not learning at all. I have looked in a mirror at long last and have seen reflected an image I cannot like. Still, I can hope my colleagues and millions of public-school teachers will get the help they need. As Dr. Flanagan has shown, it’s never too late. We can all be “good teachers” if we choose. 

The politicians with all the bold plans, those zealous reformers with their millions of words, they’ll show us the way. 

They’ll show us all how to teach.

 

* 

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 a clear explanation of what good teachers can do, and what they cannot. 

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

The back cover provides a sense of what my book is about.

Big Words from School Reformers, Small Deeds: An Aesop Fable

BIG WORDS. Small deeds.
Joel I. Klein, former New York City schools chancellor (left); U. S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (center), Michelle Rhee, head of Students First (right). 

Okay, teachers. Think back to the end of your first year. What did you know? You knew how hard it was going to be to be a teacher. You knew you could improve.

You also suspected that there would never be a day that would not end without the same nagging question. How could you have done more to help your students? You already understood that teaching would never be easy.

I taught 33 years, myself, and always knew what I did mattered in kids’ lives. It just isn’t ever, ever, ever going to be easy.

Not ever. Not one day.

Since I know how hard it is to help kids, I get tired of school reformers who offer up big plans to “fix the schools.” Here’s something impossible not to notice. These reformers are big with words but small in deeds. They almost never teach.

A fable by Aesop sums up the situation.

The Water Snake, the Viper, and the Frogs

There once was a viper that went to a pond to drink. But the water snake who watched the pond didn’t like him trespassing. The two began to argue. Finally they decided to fight. Whoever won would be king of both land and water.

Just before the fight began the frogs of the pond approached the viper. “We hate the water snake,” they assured him. “When the battle begins we will help you defeat him.”

 The viper and the water snake were soon joined in furious combat. They grappled and twisted and rolled about.

All the frogs did was sit there and keep up their useless croaking. In the end, the viper was victorious. But he was furious with the frogs since they had failed to come to his aid.

“Why, you useless frogs!” he shouted. “You didn’t help a bit. All you did was sing your stupid songs.” 

“But you should have known that we had nothing else to offer,” replied the frogs. “We have only the sound of our voices.”

Who then are some of the biggest, loudest, most obnoxious frogs in the education pond?

One annoying croaker is U. S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. He never spent any time in a classroom. He never did any fighting.

But he does believe Common Core will improve any pond.

Wendy Kopp founded a program to train other frogs and named it Teach for America. Kopp never spent a day at the front of a classroom. She once told a reporter, “[I]f if I had taught, I wouldn’t have started Teach for America.”

Well, duh.

Michelle Rhee is the loudest bullfrog in the land. She taught for three years! She then told other frogs she knew everything there ever was to know about teaching. She headed for Washington, D.C. to straighten out that pond. She croaked and croaked and croaked and fired hundreds of “bad” teachers. Then she gave bonuses to “good” teachers who raised standardized test scores. It was a amphibian miracle! Well, it was until USA Today uncovered a huge cheating scandal. This debacle involved many of the “good” schools and teachers Rhee had rewarded.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg sat by the pond and promised he was going to fix New York City education. He said what we needed were smarter vipers. And everyone listened to Bloomberg—because he was rich and he attended Harvard. Bloomberg never taught one measly hour. He had no desire to help fight the water snake.

Nope. None at all.

Joel I. Klein, Bloomberg’s school chancellor, did tutor briefly, once, way back in the 60s! That made him an “expert” among frogs and he decided the viper wasn’t fighting hard enough. He insisted that the way to make the pond better was to grade the viper. Klein got tired after sitting eight years on the shore and went back to giving legal advice for $2 million per year (plus bonuses!).

Klein is a frog lawyer not a frog hero.

Bill Gates? He won’t help fight the water snake. But he might open his checkbook! One time he donated $892,000 to help fund an “expert panel” to give advice to the New York Board of Regents in shaping school policy. Eleven frogs filled places on the panel. Each frog was paid $189,000. Six frogs never taught a day in their lives. The five other frogs had a total of ten years in teaching, with one additional year spent as a principal. Again, these frogs learned everything about schools quickly and so when they sung all the other frogs listened.

Ronald J. Packard built his own pond and named it K-12, Inc. His pond offers online education and Mr. Packard makes a little profit. He never teaches. That goes without saying. Before he started his pond he was a hedge fund manager. Now he is paid for his melodious croaking. In five years (2009 to 2013) he earned $19.4 million in compensation.

William Bennett was first chairman of the board at K-12, Inc. Bennett was Secretary of Education when Ronald Reagan was president. Bennett never taught. Don’t be stupid. He learned to croak by working in a think tank with other bold frogs.

The current chairman of K-12 is Steven Tisch. This is almost funny—but he never taught either. He did hop about and run a tobacco company, however. In 1994 he told Congress he didn’t believe smoking caused cancer.

Margaret Spellings is a frog that loves high-stakes testing. She was also a big fan of No Child Left Behind, which all frogs agreed in chorus was going to fix the problems in U. S. education. Remember all that loud singing! Even the toads and the tree frogs said NCLB was going to work just great! Spellings never gave students any tests in a classroom. She’s you’re your typical frog that never tried teaching. She did work on an education reform committee in Texas, however, before taking over the U. S. Department of Education.

Rod Paige is a toad of the Bufo houstonensis variety. (You can look it up.) He preceded Spelling as Secretary of Education. Paige taught at the college level, never in grades K-12. Later he performed his own toad miracles as superintendent of the Houston City Schools. During his tenure several high schools reported reducing dropout rates to ZERO.

All the other frogs croaked happily in appreciation.

Sadly, it was soon shown that one school reporting no dropouts had...um...463. An audit turned up a few extra dropouts.

Okay, get picky—there were at least 3,000 unreported in the old pond down in Texas.

There are many other frogs we might mention; but let us finish with a frog author. Steven Brill wrote a book called Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America’s Schools. Brill hopped about like a frog in a frying pan and blamed the problems in education on teachers’ unions. But when it came to fighting the water snake he stayed safe on the sidelines. His teaching experience: 0 years, 0 days, 0 hours.

In his book he focused on the success of one charter pond in New York City—and Jessica Reid, one dedicated non-union teacher. Even working at a charter pond turned out to be surprisingly hard, surprising to Brill, at least.

Reid, the heroine of Brill’s tale quit teaching before Brill's book even saw print.

Reid was a real teacher—not a frog sitting and croaking beside the pond. And like all teachers she learned teaching can be hard.

So there you have it, teachers. An Aesop fable about school reformers. Enjoy your summer break. You’ll have plenty of fighting to do again in August when you head back to your classrooms.

Just don’t expect any help from the frogs on the sideline.

Do Schools Fail or Do Homes Fail?

As a veteran teacher (now retired), I’ve long been interested in the role parents play in American education.

I spent 33 years in a classroom. 

So I understand that teachers matter.

What bothers me, particularly in recent years, is the laser-like focus in school reform on those who stand at the front of every class. Our “leaders” in education, various and sundry fools like Arne Duncan, insist that the key to improvement is holding teachers accountable for everything, even inclement weather. These leaders claim that we nust now measure everything teachers do, from respiration to defecation, to raise academic standards. They believe if we create enough charter schools and hand out enough vouchers then critical problems in education will magically fade away.

Call me a skeptic.

I was flipping through the pages of my personal diary last week when I came across a brief mention (in the fall of 1980) of a young New Jersey couple who offered to trade in their 14-month-old son for a used Corvette.

The dealer wanted $8,800 but…hey…these lousy parents had an extra child they didn’t want. How about a swamp: flesh for metal?

I don’t think in this young boy’s life that teachers were going to be the problem. 

In 1998, after spending an evening calling parents at home to inform them their sons or daughters were behind on their work in my class, I again jotted down a few thoughts in my diary (only the names have been changed below):

Spent 1 ½ hours on phone tonight with five parents. Bill Hawley’s mom has him in AA three nights a week and says he’s rated chemically dependent. (Carol [his sister] is also in the program on a limited basis.) Bill’s dad started him drinking at six—Bill got into his father’s cocaine.

Sure. Teachers matter. But parents play a fundamental role in education—shaping their children from the moment they’re born.

In my experience, most parents did a good job—just as did most teachers. But where children were badly warped by life in the home my colleagues and I could only mitigate the harm already inflicted.

My wife (also a retired educator) and I were watching an old CNN documentary about education recently, narrated by Morgan Spurlock. Spurlock, you might not remember, first became famous when he tried to live on McDonald’s food for a month. So his take on education was interesting. First, he visited a school in Finland—because Finland is now supposed to be a leader in education. (I think that’s a bit of a myth; but leave that issue aside.) Spurlock was trying to be fair and even did a little teaching, admitting later it was much harder than expected. Then he returned to visit Williamsburg Collegiate Charter School, a successful charter operation in Brooklyn.

I know there are good charter schools out there and based on Spurlock’s story, I think most of us would be happy to send our children to Williamsburg. I visited Discovery Academy in March, myself. This Toledo charter school is run by one of my former students, Mr. Noah Campbell. As expected his school was well-run and I came away impressed. I also talked to his faculty and again came away impressed. Most of his teachers we’re first-year educators but all were clearly serious about their crucial work with children. Good administrators and teachers always make schools better. But even dedicated individuals like those on staff at Discovery Academy can’t do everything.

Near the end of Spurlock’s documentary, he makes a bold and erroneous statement. He says every parent wants their child to succeed in school. 

That’s not true. 

Or: in too many cases, it’s only true to this degree sense. All of us who want to lose weight care about losing weight. We just don’t care enough to take real action.

The grim truth is that not all parents are equal—and truly bad parents cripple their children in ways educators find incredibly difficult and sometimes nearly impossible to overcome. All too often this crippling effect begins in the womb, with one in ten American mothers abusing drugs or alcohol during pregnancy. You can’t cure that kind of problem by grading schools as many of our school reform “leaders” insist.

You might as well grade hospitals.

To say all parents really care is absurd. Suppose your dad is Travis Henry, former NFL running back with the Denver Broncos. Dad has trouble finding time to help with your homework because…well…Dad has nine children by nine different women. Dad would like to pay child support, too, but Dad can’t do it, despite millions of dollars earned during his career, because he’s been busted several times for drug possession and finally for cocaine trafficking.

Bad parents come in all colors and can be seen at the top of the economic heap just as often as at the bottom. I taught in an affluent suburban district near Cincinnati and almost all my students were white and from well-to-do families. That didn’t stop one father from repeatedly molesting his seventh grade daughter—and stalling off teachers when we began to home in on root causes of the girl’s depression. I called that son-of-bitch several times and invited him in twice for meetings and he always assured us his daughter was happy at home. She just didn’t like school.

Every teacher comes to understand what Spurlock and all the reformers miss—that every imaginable type of human being can become a parent. You don’t even need to be sane to produce sperm or egg. Remember Ariel Castro, the sociopath who chained up three women in the basement of his home for more than a decade? He had a daughter by one of his victims.

Who in their right mind would argue that the biggest problems a child like that would face in life would be the quality of her elementary teachers?

How about Fred Phelps, who died this April? Phelps headed the Westboro Baptist Church, a hateful religious operation famous for picketing the funerals of American service people.. According to Time magazine one of his sons claimed dad kept all his offspring in line with fists and a club. Nate Phelps spoke of a life “filled with anger, fear and violence.” On one occasion his father used the handle of a mattock to beat his children into good behavior.

If all parents wanted their children to succeed in school or even lead a decent existence stories like that of Megan Huntsman wouldn’t make lurid headlines. The bodies of seven dead newborns, apparently born to Huntsman over the last decade, were found swaddled in rags in cardboard boxes in her garage. Where was her former husband, father of the couple’s three surviving daughters? Oh yes. In 2005 he was sentenced to nine years in prison on drug charges.

You can look at the problem on a case-by-case basis or consider it societally. It’s simple true. Not all parents are equal. Not even close. In 2013 it was reported that 2.7 million U. S. children had one or both parents locked up behind bars.

Most teachers I’ve ever met care deeply about helping every child—but when they can’t save them all, blaming them only makes their job, already hard, much harder. And it does nothing to help the children who most need help. I’m retired. Technically, I don’t have to worry. But if we really cared about every child we’d do far more to help every child. 

Think all parents care? Don’t be so naive. In 2009, for example, CBS reported that one fourth of all mothers and fathers who owed child support paid nothing. Zip. If we’re going to grade schools, as many of our reformers say we must, what do these deadbeat parents earn for a grade?

A ZERO in the gradebook seems appropriate.

In fact, even our greatest school reformers haven’t been able to fix broken families. Arne Duncan couldn’t fix the problem of youths in gangs in the Chicago Public Schools. Mayor Michael Bloomberg had three terms in office to improve schools in New York City? That didn’t help the rising tide of homeless children—22,000 of them. And remember Michelle Rhee? The Broom Queen was going to fix the Washington, D. C. public schools by sweeping out all the bad teachers. According to an article in the Washington Post last week it turns out teachers weren’t the biggest problem where thousands of D. C. students were concerned. Nout unless we’re going to fault teachers for lack of telepathic powers.

Even after all of Rhee’s sweeping, it turns out that one in five D. C. children piled up at least twenty days of unexcused absences last year; and that doesn’t factor in any excused absences. To put it simply: 20% of parents in D. C. allowed children to miss school 20% of the time. Even grading such moms and dads on a curve, they’d earn no better than a D- for ineffective parenting.

I have a good friend, a conservative fan of Fox News, and if you ask him he believes most public school teachers spend their days having sex with children and running to union representatives for protection. We know, of course, that scum bags do occasionally find employment in the classroom—and the faster we get rid of them the better. But one teacher having sex with a student garners more attention than 10,000 parents sexually abusing their children. There are, after all, an estimated three millions cases of child abuse and neglect in this country annually, involving six million children.

On average, four or five youngsters die every twenty-four hours.

Every good teacher and every good administrator I’ve ever known could have told you pretty much the same. These people devote their lives to trying to help the kinds of students who badly need help in school because they get no help (and often harm) at home. But our leaders continue to miss this dilemma. They talk about education as if only teachers factor into results. How would they help a homeless child and that homeless child’s teacher? Grade the school if the child can’t read at grade level. What about that seventh grader who was being molested by her father? How do our leaders help me, if I’m still teaching, help this poor young woman? 

Oh, hell, here’s their bold idea; Let’s have the girl take more and more and more standardized tests.

I’m retired. Maybe I’m just old and crotchety. But, if you ask me, I don’t believe our education “leaders” have any clue what they’re doing.



POSTSCRIPT:  Let me note very clearly that I am not bashing parents. Most of the parents I dealt with over the years were doing a fine job, just as I did with my children, just as most parents across the nation do every day.

In my experience, however, the kids who most needed saving usually came from homes where parents had failed badly. If we want to save ALL children we need to focus on that reality and do more to help teachers.

R.I.P. No Child Left Behind: You Were A Mulit-Billion Dollar Failure!

SOMEWHERE, in a dimly-lit bar, America’s education leaders gather. Arne Duncan cradles his head in his hands. He’s weeping. Michelle Rhee, once chancellor of the Washington, D.C. schools, is passed out on the floor.

Rod Paige, Secretary of Education under President George W. Bush, takes another slug of beer. Then he tries to explain how the “Texas Miracle” was actually real. Even his drinking buddies know that’s bull%$#@.

They’re just too polite to call him on it.

Right now, they’re listening to former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg ramble on about school reform and how his foolproof plans came to nothing. Nothing! Bloomberg has clearly had too much Dom Perignon.

“Sheese sheachers,” he grumbles, “they don' come fro’…burp…thaaa best schcools. Me? I wen’ to Haaavad. HAAAVAD, do you hear me?”

Several members of Congress, seated at the same long table nod. “God,” they’re thinking, “where did we go wrong?” That’s the question that looms over them all. They promised when No Child Left Behind was passed, that every boy and girl in America would be proficient in reading and math by...well...2014.

Now here it was, 2014....

At a nearby table, a dozen real teachers are blowing off steam after a hard week at work. They can hear the reformers crying in their beer — or Dom Perignon — and shake their heads in disbelief. They knew NCLB was a stupid idea from the start. But none of the lawmakers asked teachers what they thought.

“Hey, Congress sucks,” one educator shouts. She’s a veteran of twenty-one years in the classroom, teaching third grade math. That means she has more time working with kids than all the drunks at the other table put together.

“You’ve got a 9% approval rating in the latest poll,” she adds with teacher sarcasm. “Wake Rhee up and give her some pencils with erasers. That’s how she raised test scores.”

Her friends shush her but Duncan glances her way and starts blubbering. He was so sure his plan was going to work. 

“Nice SAT scores, Arne,” the obstreperous math teacher adds in a loud voice. Her friends shush her a second time.

Ah, yes. The SAT scores for college-bound students had just come out—and after a decade spent beating up on front line teachers, results were grim. Schools spent billions of dollars preparing for, administering and grading standardized tests.

They did exactly what the fools at the “leaders” table ordered them to do.

One of the classroom teachers has a copy of Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores since 2002, when No Child Left Behind was implemented. He rises from his seat, walks to the other table, and hands it to the Secretary of Education. Duncan and his pals already know what it shows and that’s part of the reason they’re drinking:

	Math	Reading	Writing	Total
2002-2003	507	519
2003-2004	508	518
2004-2005	508	520
2005-2006	503	518	497	1518
2006-2007	501	513	493	1507
2007-2008	500	514	493	1507
2008-2009	499	514	492	1505
2009-2010	500	515	491	1506
2010-2011	497	514	489	1500
2011-2012	496	514	488	1498
2012-2013	496	514	488	1498

Meanwhile, Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Leader Harry Reid share a bottle of expensive wine. They can’t pass any laws.

Might as well drown their sorrows.

Both men supported NCLB. Now they’ve seen stories in the paper about scores on the American College Test (ACT). “Maybe, these scores are really rising,” Boehner mumbles, “and we just can’t see it.” Reid shoots Boehner a funny look.

And how have U. S. students done on ACT tests in recent years? Again, our leaders know the picture is not pretty:

At the other table, a middle school history teacher is running down the 2013 ACT results for colleagues. Overall, scores are down slightly and he is trying not to sound bitter. He knows his “leaders” have made a giant mess of education over the last decade. 

The drunks at the “leaders” table have seen the same evidence and can’t quite fathom what it means. Before passing out, Rhee was making the case that scores on the National Assessment for Educational Progress proved all their ideas were working. For a few moments she had everyone listening.

Average reading scores for nine-year-olds, she had pointed out, were rising: 1971 (208); 2004 (219); 2012 (221).

(She waved the chart shown below at her buddies.)

Reading gains for 13-year-olds weren’t nearly as impressive: 1971 (255); 2004 (259); 2012 (263). Still, Rhee briefly had everyone at her table convinced that rising scores represented awesome academic progress!

At first, the Congress people felt better. It didn’t hurt when lobbyists at the bar, who represented all the biggest testing companies, sent over several bottles of champagne. The companies had had a great year and made $1.7 billion selling tests to America’s public school systems. 

Unfortunately, Rhee had to keep talking. Rhee always has to keep talking. When she mentioned reading scores for seventeen-year-olds conversation turned depressing. Older American students, the end product of the whole testing scheme, scored 285 in reading in 1971, dropped to 283 in 2004, and rebounded slightly, to 287 in 2012.

If anyone had asked the teachers at the other table they could have told them it would have done more good to spend all that money wasted on testing and buy books and hand them out to children. But, no, we had to listen to our genius leaders. We had to listen to Rhee and Duncan and Bloomberg and all those other pompous asses. When all was said and done reading scores were up by a measly 2 points for soon-to-graduate students.

Two points in forty-one years!

Well, then, perhaps math scores were surging. That would take some of the sting out of the pitiful reading reports. How were nine-year-olds doing in math? In 1978 they scored an average of 219; by 2004 they were up to 239; and in 2012 they hit 244.

That looked impressive.

Then again, every teacher in America understood the hidden cost. Time spent on reading and math instruction had risen in every state. But since most states had no tests in social studies or science and since you could hardly have standardized testing in art or music, time devoted to those subjects dwindled or vanished entirely.

David Berliner, in his book Collateral Damage, had noted—as a bonus—that cheating to meet testing goals was rampant. In fact, Rhee was trying to convince Senator Ted Cruz that she knew nothing about the cheating scandal in her old district when the lobbyist-supplied champagne took hold and she toppled from her seat.

No one had heard anything from her, except snoring, for the last fifteen minutes.

Even the math results looked grim. Again, there was a decent bump upward at the 13-year-old level. In 1978, U. S. students averaged a score of 264. By 2004, the average had risen to 279, and by 2012 it was 285.

Unfortunately, when the last billion was spent math gains were also anemic. In 1978, America’s 17-year-olds scored 300 in math. By 1992, the average score was 307 (before all the standardized tests); and that score remained unchanged in 2004.

And then, in 2012, it dropped by one point.

Why, if a teacher didn’t know better—he or she might think that students could have raised scores much more, and easily, if they’d done nothing but devote an extra ten hours per year, studying their own math and reading.

Of course, that would mean we expected students to play a role in raising scores. And we all know, because Duncan and his crowd tell us so, that the only way to raise scores is to “hold teachers accountable.”

By now, the drunks at the leaders table had been reduced to one faint hope. If only they could see progress on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests, which pit our 15-year-olds against kids from other nations!

That afternoon the PISA results had been released! In 2000 the average score of U. S. teens in three areas was:

Math—493

Science—499

Reading—504

In 2009:

Math—487

Science—502

Reading—500

In 2013, the average 15-year-old American scored:

Math—481 (-12 points)

Science—497 (-2)

Reading—498 (-6)

Sweet Mother Mary—and in the name of John Dewey—all these brilliant reforms foisted on teachers and students.

Now, even the elitists at the other table knew they had failed. It was hard for men and women of such giant egos to admit.

So: they blamed it all on teachers.

Suddenly, Rhee roused herself from an alcoholic stupor. “Common Core will save us!” she insisted. Then she passed out for good.

***

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

Or contact me at vilejjv@yahoo.com and I can probably send you a copy direct, a little more cheaply. My book is meant to be a defense of all good teachers and a clear explanation of what good teachers can do, and what they cannot do.

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

Does Arne Duncan Realize that Teachers and Students Are Dying?

Two education stories captured my attention this week. One that involved U. S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan seemed stupid.

The other turned my stomach.

We now know the accused killer of Colleen Ritzer, a Massachusetts high school teacher, has been charged with aggravated rape. Ritzer, 24, was murdered in a second floor women’s bathroom at Danvers High in October. Apparently she asked the accused killer to stay after school and prepare for a test. The suspect was a 14-year old freshman in one of her math classes.

“The indictments returned today reveal horrific and unspeakable acts,” a district attorney noted. He’s right. The details are awful. Philip Chism, the accused, is said to have planned the crime in detail and left a note behind.

“I hate you all,” it read.

Why does this story touch me? If for no other reason, because I have two daughters about the same age as Colleen Ritzer. I worked with wonderful young female teachers throughout my career. This could have been any of them.

And what do our “leaders” say about these kinds of incidents? They hardly notice. Duncan travels the country talking blithely about Common Core Standards. He thinks a curriculum can fix what’s wrong with schools. Does he ever wonder?

What would Duncan say to Michael Lansberry? Lansberry survived a tour of duty in Afghanistan but was shot down on the playground at Sparks Middle School the same week Ritzer was raped and killed. This time the assailant was a 12-year-old boy. Lansberry was trying to stop him from shooting his classmates. The boy killed Lansberry. Then he killed himself.

I’m sick of such stories.

Perhaps you’ve noticed. The people who want to fix our schools have settled on the idea that the biggest problem is teachers. Like Ritzer should be the focus of all their fixing. These arrogant fools say teachers are too lazy—too unionized—too dumb. Read a typical editorial in the New York Times if you don’t believe me. It’s titled: “Teachers: Will We Ever Learn?” Listen to Mayor Michael Bloomberg talk about education. Watch Waiting for Superman, a truly stupid film produced by Davis Guggenheim, about five good kids and America’s “failing schools.”

I know kids. I taught 33 years. I know there are way, way more good kids than bad. Still, there are young people like Ritzer’s killer. Will we ever learn? That’s the question the New York Times editorial poses.

“We will never learn,” I want to say to our leaders. “Not so long as we listen to you.”

Ms. Ritzer already had more experience in a classroom when she was murdered than Duncan, Bloomberg and Guggenheim combined. You’d think these insufferable asses might notice and be more humble. Instead, they enjoy kicking teachers in the teeth. Consider Bloomberg and his School Chancellor, Joel Klein. Klein never taught either. They said the way to fix U. S. education was to grade schools.

Well, what “grade” do we give Danvers High? Does the school get an “F” if a young teacher was raped and killed in a bathroom?

Is that our focus?

Duncan talks about how we need more charter schools. Real teachers wonder: Would Chism have been less deeply troubled, less violent if he attended a charter school?

There are others who insist you can “fix education” by handing out vouchers and letting parents decide what schools their children attend. Suppose Chism’s parents had had a voucher. Would the same exclusive private school that was happy to enroll Mr. Guggenheim’s children have allowed Philip through the front door? Of course not.

What in god’s name do our leaders ever do to help teachers? What did they ever do to make the job of Ritzer and Lansberry easier? Not one damn thing. They only required them to complete more paperwork—made them try to prove they were really teaching.

It makes me sick.

Which of our leaders was within a hundred miles of Sandy Hook Elementary on the day of the terrible massacre? Which of them jumped in front of the gunman and tried to shield those poor kids? Bloomberg might be rich enough to build a personal fortress out of giant piles of money. But it was a young teacher, Victoria Soto, 27, who gave her life trying to save a classroom of six and seven-year-old children. Soto put her body in the line of fire and died in the attempt. So, how much did it matter what college she attended before she entered the teaching profession? (See Bloomberg comment linked above.)

Will we ever learn? That’s a critical question.

Do our leaders truly believe you can fix schools without fixing society? Most of the worst problems in schools have roots in neighborhoods and homes that surround them. Tell us what education plan you have to address the matter of pregnant mothers who smoke meth. What good is any curriculum if one baby is born in America every hour addicted to opiates? Do you really believe Common Core standards are the key? Well then, read about the father who stuck his newborn in a freezer to stop her from crying. Consider the dad who threatened his daughter with an AK-47 because she got a “B” on an assignment. Or “google” the phrase: “Father kills…”

You may not know, but Duncan rose to fame by “reforming” the Chicago Public School system. One of his brilliant ideas was to close “failing schools” and send students to different buildings. Want to guess what happened? The kids with serious problems brought their serious problems with them to new schools. Nothing was actually fixed. Sure:  I know public schools must do what they can to help every child. But if a young man belongs to a gang, a vexing problem in the Windy City, blaming teachers for low test scores is worse than no solution at all.

You want to “fix the schools?” Explain how all your fixing would have helped Darryl Green. The 16-year-old Chicagoan was gunned down recently because he refused to join a gang.

(Hey, I have a great idea to help him. Why not make it harder for teachers to get tenure?)

Even if our leaders did nothing but shut up it might help. It might help if they tried to be realistic—to stop acting like teachers are the problem. Do that in memory of Colleen Ritzer, Michael Lansberry, and all those slaughtered at Sandy Hook. That would be a start. Then if someone like Mayor Bloomberg still wants to fix everything he can roll up his sleeves and pitch in and help. I suggest he start by working with high-risk kids like Shaaliver Douse. At age 14, Douse was already a member of a violent New York City street gang. He had two gun-related arrests on his record, including one for attempted murder. This past August he was killed by police after he was spotted shooting at another teen and chasing him down the street.

I say let Mr. Duncan step out of his office and march right into a classroom. Let him work one-on-one with the boy who shot up Chardon High School here in Ohio in 2012. There’s a truly terrible story, especially if you consider the shooter’s conduct during his trial. Forget the new Common Core Standards, Secretary Duncan.

This is your chance to make a difference.

Will we ever learn? This can’t be that hard to grasp. Secretary Duncan graduated from Harvard. He can’t be that dumb. But what was the U. S. Secretary of Education talking about this week? He was touting the cure-all powers of a new national curriculum. The dropout rate in America is too high, he told reporters. Is it because of gangs? Does it have anything to do with drug abuse? Crazy parents? Chronic absenteeism? Or endemic violence?

Oh no.

Kids drop out, says Duncan, because school is too easy. Teachers are the problem. They don’t set high enough standards.

That’s like saying it was Colleen Ritzer’s fault. God help me, I wish our leaders would shut up. If they know nothing, let them hold their tongues.

Say a prayer for the teachers and students we've lost.

******

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

Or contact me at vilejjv@yahoo.com and I can probably send you a copy direct, a little more cheaply. My book is meant to be a defense of all good teachers and a clear explanation of what good teachers can do, and what they cannot do.

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