Teachers Anonymous: A Twelve Step Program for Frontline Educators

This student thinks you're a good teacher. 
But school reformers will insist you're not.

LAST WEEK, I SEARCHED my soul and faced a harsh truth. I was a bad teacher. That realization was hard to accept.

True, listening for years while Secretary of Education Arne Duncan bashed our entire profession helped pave the way to the truth. Reading articles and books by leading school reformers also helped me plumb my pedagogical depths. 

Those reformers pretty much believe all teachers are stupid, lazy or do a terrible job. 

When I posted my full confession a few days ago (now: three years ago, as I update my post), I was heartened to learn I was not alone. Thousands of bad teachers felt a need to confess their own classroom crimes and sins. Many have spent years in education working with all types of kids. Like me, they loved teaching (I am retired) or do.

Like me, they thought they were good.

All that delusion—it hit me like a punch in the nether region. Suddenly, I knew teachers needed a Twelve Step Program, like AA. If I could come up with proper language, perhaps I could help others face their demons too.

Here, then, are the Twelve Steps of Teachers Anonymous. If you would like to offer suggestions feel free to comment on this blog. From what I can see from the safety of retirement, the job of teachers is only getting more difficult.

Still, together, I know we can recover.

NOTE: Participants in AA place their faith and fates in the hands of God. For our purposes (below) the higher powers—capitalized accordingly—will be School Reformers, Authors of Books about Teaching, Who Never Taught, etc.. 

In updating this, I have added Betsy DeVos, the Grizzly Killer, to the recovery mix. 

THE TWELVE STEPS

STEP ONE: Admit that you are powerless in the face of Testing Companies. Your life has become an unmanageable mess due to paperwork.

This isn’t AA, so if at any time you feel the need, pour yourself a stiff drink. You may need to make it a double these days.

STEP TWO: Admit that only a Greater Power can restore you to sanity and health. Such as: the Grizzly Killer or a U.S. Department of Education Bureaucrat.

STEP THREE: Make the decision to turn your life and your will over to the care of the Testing Companies because tests rule over you and your students. Not to mention: Testing Companies donate millions to Politicians.

STEP FOUR. Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of your faults. Feel free to use extra paper; according to the School Reformers you really do a terrible, terrible job.

This is a tough one. If you claim poverty harms kids, making it harder to learn, go back to Step One. 

If you dare hint that terrible parents are sometimes the biggest problem in kids’ lives, go back to Step One.

If you think any of the problems children face today cannot be solved by requiring them to take more standardized tests...you guessed it...back to Step One. 

STEP FIVE: Admit to all Politicians and School Reformers, and Authors of Books, Who Don’t Teach, and most of all to yourself, the exact nature of your wrongs.

You think you’re really helping kids in your class succeed? Come on! You’re terrible. Members of Congress and Lobbyists and Highly Paid Executives heading for-profit charter schools, those are the people who care about kids!  

STEP SIX: You must put your fate in the hands of Authors of Books. They know how to fix education. They will show you the defects in your character and your classroom techniques.

Suggested readings include:

Lessons of Hope: How to Fix Our Schools by Joel I. Klein: who basically says, yes, we can fix the schools by firing most of the teachers.

Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America’s Schools by Steven Brill. He offers the same message as Klein.

The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They got that Way by Amanda Ripley: the story of how kids in Finland kick ass in school because teachers in Finland aren’t dumb, whereas teachers in America are.

(Total teaching experience of the authors above: 0 years, 0 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds.)

STEP SEVEN: Humbly support all current and future Secretaries of Education no matter what policy they choose to implement. Ask only that they help you overcome your professional shortcomings.

And yes, you must listen to the Grizzly Killer even though she never taught, never attended public schools and never sent her children to public schools.  

It doesn’t matter; you must admit the Grizzly Killer knows more than you! Can’t do it you say? Pack to Step One and try it again.

STEP EIGHT: Make a list of all the persons you have harmed and be willing to make amends.

Stand on your school lawn. Shout: “If any child has not succeeded in school it has to be entirely my fault. I am sorry the promise of No Child Left Behind was not fulfilled. I am sorry for pretty much anything that goes wrong with the U.S. economy, because I have failed to prepare kids to compete in a global economy. I admit fault in the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa, in the spread of Ebola and for the inability of the Cubs to even make the World Series.

(Note: that last issue has been resolved.)

STEP NINE: Make direct amends to all those you harmed wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Tell your former principal you are sorry he or she got fired when test scores didn’t rise fast enough, even if the tests were later replaced by other tests, because the School Reformers, Testing Companies and Politicians had better ideas about how to fix the schools.

STEP TEN: Continue to take personal inventory and when you are wrong (which is always, according to the School Reformers), promptly admit it.

Say it now: I was wrong! I thought I could teach. I was wrong! So wrong! I was wronger than wrong! I was the wrongest person in the entire field of education!

STEP ELEVEN: Seek through prayer or meditation to improve your conscious contact with Secretary Duncan (now: the Grizzly Killer) and all School Reformers, praying for knowledge of their will and the power to carry it out.

If they say we must have tests tied to No Child Left Behind then you must love those tests! If they say we must have new tests tied to Common Core, you must love those tests instead. If various states revoke their decision to participate in Common Core and go back to state standardized tests—yes, love those tests too! Love any and all standardized tests.

STEP TWELVE: Having experienced a spiritual awakening, carry this message to other teachers, all who think they are doing good work in the schools. Practice these twelve principles in all your affairs.

And remember. This isn’t AA. So feel free at any point to have another drink. 

Keep giving those standardized tests, too, even if you don’t think they’re doing any good, and even if you fell they are doing actual harm to real kids.

                                                                                                Yours truly,

                                                                                                A Bad Teacher

Corporate Public Schools! It's Going to be Great!

Last week I visited the first completely corporate public school system in the country. For years, corporate crusaders have been claiming that breaking the “public school monopoly” and bringing business efficiency to education will only improve results.

So it was that I found myself seated in the office of the superintendent of the Enron City Schools in Enron, Texas.

Glancing out a window, I couldn’t help but notice three oil wells pumping on the front lawn of the administration building.

The superintendent, Henry Clay Frick, explained. “Here in Enron, we believe business principles applied to education will always bring good. So we have a lucrative deal with British Petroleum to pump oil from under the schools.

“Yeah, what could go wrong with that,” I replied, faking a smile.

Frick wondered if I might like a tour and led the way out to the parking lot and we jumped in his Lamborghini. I asked how an administrator could afford such a beautiful automobile. He admitted corporate education was different. First, there were no pesky unions demanding raises or fringe benefits for teachers. “In Enron, we pay for talent,” he explained. “Our top executives earn more because, frankly, they work harder.”

When I asked how much more, Frick said his district copied the K-12 Inc. model, a successful for-profit charter school chain. “Our eight top executives earn a combined $21.37 million,”

I do some quick calculating. If the average Texas teacher earns $50,179, then administrators made as much as 426 classroom teachers.

“It’s not easy running an efficient corporate school system,” Frick claimed as we pulled up in front of the high school. “We need money to lobby politicians, so sometimes we have to cut costs in other ways. Luckily, almost all our money comes from state coffers, so when we pay lobbyists, taxpayers foot the bill.”

“How much do you budget for lobbying?”

“We’re not quite where we need to be,” Frick replied. “We’re competing with for-profit charter operators like David Brennan, who runs White Hat Schools in Ohio, and who hopes to expand into every state. In the last eight years he’s donated $3.8 million to fifty-one politicians.”

Moments later, we enter the building. Admittedly, Enron High is neat and clean. The janitor sweeping the hall is obviously a “special needs” individual.

“We in Enron are committed to helping those who require a hand up, not a handout,” Frick says, following my gaze. “All our janitors are severely handicapped—supplied to us by Henry’s Turkey Service.”

“Aren’t they the guys that shipped disabled workers to Iowa for thirty years to work in meat packing plants?”

“Exactly,” Frick agreed. “And we use their system. We house our janitors in a bunkhouse behind the school. We charge rent, charge for meals….”

“How much do they earn when you subtract for food and lodging?”

“Oh, I would estimate about the same as the Iowa workers,” Frick says. “Around forty cents an hour.”

We head down the hall. Stopping a moment, I listen as an American history class goes over material that is expected to be on the next round of standardized tests. There are probably a hundred students crammed into the room. Frick is happy to explain. “Pack ‘em in, we say here in Enron. It’s the same as the airlines. “We even charge a $50 fee if students want to bring book bags to class.”

I offer a wan smile.

I notice a plaque over the door of the history room. It turns out the school copies the business model of the San Francisco 49ers. That means selling naming rights to everything you might imagine. This class meets in the Axe Body Wash Room. There’s also the Reynolds Tobacco Media Center and the Flo-Max Faculty Men’s Restroom. (Frick says later the school is thinking about requiring students to wear uniforms, and he is working hard on an exclusive contract with the Abercrombie and Fitch people.)

Frick soon asks if I would like to tour any of his other schools, and fifteen minutes later we pull up in front of Lehman Brothers Elementary School, I notice a maintenance worker resting a moment beside a lawn tractor. I stop to ask what he most enjoys about working for Enron Schools. He stares at me blankly.

“Oh, that’s Juan,” Frick nudges me. “We need to make a profit, you know. Don’t say I told you, but we hire all kinds of undocumented workers. Man, if you pay them under the table, those guys work cheap!”

“We’re just like the Gulen chain of charter schools,” Frick adds with a laugh. This time, I don’t even try to fake a smile.

As you tour the Enron Schools, you have to be impressed. A stop in the cafeteria at lunch reveals another truth. Junk food = big money. Students may no longer bring food from home. It’s like going to a movie theater. You can order a large Coke for $4.50. (It looks like they’re handing you a bucket.) Or maybe you’d like the special: hamburgers—only $3.50. Frick winks as we go through the line and advises me to skip the burgers.

(He admits later that the meat came from a company that was perhaps bending a few regulations and selling meat from diseased cows.)

Our last stop for the day takes us to Michael Milken Middle School. Frick is proud of the new system and outlines a few of the ways a profit can be squeezed when it comes to students. Each school has an office set aside for a representative of Pearson, the successful maker of standardized tests. Huge piles of cash are there to be grabbed—so one business scratches the back of another—and Pearson sends state education commissioners and Enron leaders to cool education conferences in places like Rio de Janeiro. And what do you know! Pearson now holds the contract to supply more and more tests to Texas schools.

“There’s some huge money right there,” Frick grins. “The Pearson contract is worth $468 million per year.”

Time is growing short, so we hurry along. I see barrels of toxic chemicals stacked in a corner of the art room. Safety costs money. So Enron cuts corners when it must. To cover their tracks they copy the Massey Energy model, meaning there are two sets of safety books, one for company use and the other to dupe inspectors. True: occasionally a few people get blown to bits, but what’s a corporate school supposed to do? Not make gigantic profits?

“We’ve pretty much monetized everything,” Frick says as we finally head back to his office. “If parents can’t pay fees or afford school supplies, we encourage them to take out payday loans. I’m proud to say we’ve copied First Premier Bank of South Dakota when it comes to lunch charges. We allow families to open accounts but cap charge limits at $300. They pay $95 to create the account and a $75 annual service fee.”

“So...you’d be looking at an APR of…67%?”

“We’ve also adopted the discipline system of the Noble Charter Schools up in Chicago,” Frick says, changing the subject. “We charge students who get into trouble for ‘discipline packets.’ What a corporate business model! Noble pulled down $188,000 in discipline fines and fees in just one school year.

“You probably noticed how few discipline problems we have, too,” Frick continued. “We’ve been following the Jansen Pharmaceutical Model. If our nurse thinks a child has behavioral issues she makes sure that child is given a prescription for anti-psychotic drugs. 

“Man, sales are up!”

“Isn’t there evidence some of these drugs have dangerous side effects and that children may die as a result?”

I think Frick suddenly realizes I may be some sort of commie agitator. “Jansen keeps only the finest doctors (and our school nurse) on its payroll and those doctors issue reports to show that these drugs are completely safe,” he says defensively. “And, naturally, our well-compensated school nurse agrees. Just because some Arkansas court fined Jansen $1.2 billion dollars for lying….”

Frick’s voice trails off. I glance at my watch and see it’s really time to go. I thank him for his time and ask one final question.

“Is there any way you think you can still improve profit margins in the Enron City Schools?”

He puzzles over the matter a moment. “If only we could copy the cost-cutting methods of Apple Inc., which operates a number of factories in China.”

“You mean,” I grimace, “violating overtime rules, child labor, workers penned in behind barbed wire….”

“Child labor...if only,” Frick says wistfully. This time he doesn’t smile. “You want cheaper iPads—or cheaper education—you have to make tough decisions.” He gets a faraway look and I hear him mutter, “There must be a way to outsource jobs in American education….”

I bid a goodbye and soon find myself driving north on Interstate-35, back toward Cincinnati, Ohio. “I have seen the future of corporate education,” I tell myself, paraphrasing Lincoln Steffens. “And it works.”

Really, this is going to be great.

Logo for the Enron Public Schools: Endless possibilities...for profiting!

Standardized Testing: So Far, We Might as Well Dump the Money in the Ocean

Teachers, imagine you had $1.7 billion to spend this year to buy good books and hand them out to students. Do you think average reading scores might rise because you put millions of books in eager young hands?

Of course you do. You’re teachers. You have faith in children.

Unfortunately, you don’t have that money because states are busy paying for all the standardized tests.

Do you think profits for testing companies are rising? And do you believe campaign contributions to politicians (by testing companies) are increasing? Yes. Yes, you do.

How much has Pearson Education, the leader in standardized testing spent on lobbying in recent years?

Well, with all this lobbying and testing how are students doing now? According to one study, students spend between 60 and 110 hours each year in grades where standardized tests are given—preparing for those tests. As a result, the National Assessment of Educational Progress reports reading scores for America’s seniors are soaring!

No, no, I’m just messing with you.

We’ve wasted a decade and we’ve been marching in place, if not backward. NAEP scores for seniors, since 1992:

How about scores in mathematics for seniors? This time there’s joy in Mudville! Now we’re talking progress!!!!

I’m being sarcastic. Scores are up three points since 2005, with no gain since 2009:

Even worse, huge racial gaps remain. The school reformers promised one virtue of No Child Left Behind would be closure of this racial gap. Now they have nothing to show for all their talk and all their meddling.

Curtailing teacher tenure? Didn’t help. More charter schools? No. Opening up new paths to teacher certification? Nope. More Teach for America geniuses in the classroom? Nope, you dopes. That didn’t help. How about more paperwork for teachers to fill out to prove they’re actually teaching? Oh, hell, nope.

None of this helped.

The white-black gap in math remained unchanged:

 

In reading it got worse:

Oddly enough, Asian-American/Pacific Islander kids continued to do better. Sitting in the same classes, listening to the same teachers, drinking from the same water fountains, they continued to score higher than their lighter and darker-skinned peers.

Not three points higher either.

Way higher.

(If you didn’t know better you might think factors beyond the control of teachers had a potent impact on learning. You know: factors like poverty concentrated among certain ethnic groups. Or cultural attitudes.)

Only twelve states chose to release their data. Nevertheless, we see that some states do better than others when educating children.

I suppose this means Massachusetts teachers are way better than those poor dolts teaching in West Virginia. (Sarcasm intended.) Therefore, I am calling on my favorite school reformers, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Wendy Kopp, to send a convoy of Teach for America stars to the Mountain State to save all the children! In both math and reading, West Virginia students finished last:

Of course, when all is said and done, simplistic “comparisons” mask a host of complex social issues. But we do know this. We’ve spent twenty billion dollars or so on standardized testing since 2002—and the end result when kids graduate is a giant pile of nothing. 

We might as well take next year’s $1.7 billion out to the middle of the Pacific Ocean and dump it. I can think of a few school reformers I'd like to dump in the ocean, too.

*

FOR AN UPDATE SEE: THE SCORES ARE IN: SCHOOL REFORMERS GET AN "F," ALSO ON THIS BLOG.

If you agree with my premise you might also like my book: Two Legs Suffice: Lessons Learned by Teaching. It is based on my 33 years in a classroom; and makes the best case I can against standardized testing as a measure of true learning.

Now available on Amazon.