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.

If You Write about Education, Shouldn't You Talk to Educators?

Sometimes, you have to wonder. 

Do the people who write about American education ever talk to educators? And do they know they should?

Those questions came to mind again when I read “The Education Assassins,” a recent editorial in The New York Times.

The title was slick and hooked my attention. Luckily, no actual bullets flew, but it turned out there were those who hoped to eliminate the U. S. Department of Education.

Typically, the author, Frank Bruni, made mocking reference to Governor Rick Perry, who wanted to eliminate the Department, but couldn't remember which one. Common Core was also mentioned. Readers learned that Jeb Bush was for Common Core. Senator Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat made a cameo appearance in the column. So did Lamar Alexander, former U. S. Secretary of Education, now, like Murray, interested in reducing the Department's sway. 

Indeed, if Ms. Murray and Mr. Alexander have their way, new legislation might hamstring Mr. Duncan. 

“There’d be no federal say, for example, in how (or if) public schoolteachers are evaluated. If the bill passes—and it has significant bipartisan support—the department would be a shadow of itself,” Mr. Bruni warned.

Naturally, he talked to several school reformers, none of whom ever taught, to get insights for his editorial. And what story about U. S. education would be complete without Joel I. Klein adding a bit of folksy wisdom? Without federal involvement, the former chancellor of the New York City Schools insisted, “Some states will do good stuff, but there will also be laggards and a lot of happy talk.”

I found myself thinking: “Who knows ‘happy talk’ better than Mr. Klein?” (He certainly knows very little about teaching.)

When Mr. Klein ran the NYC schools he routinely faulted teachers. He insisted “grading schools” was key to improvement. He was all for charter schools, never realizing charter schools might drain off capable students, leaving kids with disadvantages concentrated in neighborhood schools.

Mr. Klein never realized this might happen because Mr. Klein is a lawyer by trade, hired by a billionaire mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg (who never taught) to run the schools. Certainly, Mayor Bloomberg’s attitude was clear. He once said the problem in education was that we no longer hired teachers from the top of their college classes. They came from the bottom twenty percent, “and not of the best schools.”

Yes. Teachers were the problem. Sure, sure. Sure they were.

At this point, I began to ponder some of the myriad problems every frontline educator can see. I thought back to poor Mike, who missed 106 days of class in one year, not because he was sick but because his mother allowed it, when I had him in seventh grade. I thought about how, while Klein and Bloomberg were spending their days bashing teachers and hatching plans to increase the weight of standardized test scores in determining teacher pay, they missed an obvious obstacle.

That is: 200,000 New York City students, roughly 1 in 5, missed a month or more of classes every year.

Nevertheless, I kept reading. I was praying Mr. Bruni might talk to a real teacher or principal or school counselor. Several think tank reformers were quoted. A politician called Duncan “a helpful voice” during his six years as head of the Department of Education. 

Again, I found myself wondering: “Duncan? The poor man hasn’t strung two sentences together in six long years to indicate he has any idea what challenges frontline educators face.”

What, then, does Mr. Bruni miss in the end?

He misses what almost all writers about education today miss. No one asks educators who survived the slaughter at Sandy Hook how much “grading schools” might have helped on that sanguine day. 

No one talks to the principal at my wife’s old school about tying teacher pay to test scores, and how that might compare to being chased from her building by a knife-wielding, schizophrenic mother. 

No one offers suggestions for what frontline educators might do to aid the 6,000,000 children who are victims of abuse and neglect every year in the United States. 

No one goes into a tough Chicago neighborhood, where Mr. Duncan once ran the schools, and asks teachers, “What help could you use in meeting the needs of teens who happen to be gang members?”

No one ever asks.

I spent thirty-three years with the Loveland City Schools, a highly-regarded system, just outside Cincinnati. And if the Department of Education ever did anything to help me or help my peers or help students, I am not aware of it. The bureaucrats, politicians and reformers talk blithely about what educators must do.

They never talk to educators.

They don’t talk to Chris Burke, now principal at Loveland Middle School, and an educator I greatly respect, who says increased standardized testing has been detrimental, forcing his staff to spend nineteen days on test administration this year. “It’s all about compliance,” he tells me, with a hint of resignation. He mentions, to my surprise, that 35% of seventh graders at LMS opted out this year.

Katie Rose and Jenn Ramage, two dedicated young teachers, join the conversation, calling the testing process “nuts.”

“Nineteen days,” Katie exclaims. “Can you believe it? And forget Reconstruction [which the curriculum says she should cover at year’s end]. I only had one day left to cover the Civil War.”

Her disgust in the face of all this piddling interference with real attempts to educate teens is clear.

I’ve been working on a book about teaching for some time, myself. And I keep asking every teacher or retired principal or counselor I meet what they think about the direction we’re headed. I try to pose one question in the most neutral tone possible: “Do you think all the testing and recent changes in education have enhanced learning, hurt learning, or had, basically, a neutral effect?”

At a wedding in California a few weeks ago, I sat down beside a woman who turned out to be a retired elementary school principal. When I got to the word “hurt” in my usual query she interrupted. 

“HURT,” she said emphatically. “Does anyone say anything else?”

I laughed and said she had to let me finish. “But, to be honest, no,” I admitted. “They don’t.”

That’s what those who write about education might discover if they ever took time to ask. The growing backlash against testing, the bitter disdain for Mr. Duncan among frontline educators (the NEA called for his resignation in 2014), the willingness to shut down the U. S. Department of Education, these are not matters of mere politics.

These issues affect educators and the children they deal with every day.

When I asked Jeane Weisbrod, my old friend, who retired recently after a career in Loveland, she told me me she resented all the testing because it meant “sacrifice of valuable instructional time.”

I was talking with current staff members, and retirees, during a ceremony to honor Jeane and Diane Sullivan, a retiring art teacher, and Ora Sue Peabody, a fine school secretary, who was hanging up the phone for good in July. 

Jane Barre, former Loveland Middle School principal, called the metastasizing testing burden “lunacy” when I asked her opinion. Jane went on to serve as assistant superintendent for another local district after she left Loveland. When she began that job testing took up ten percent of her time. By 2009, testing ate up half her day, making it hard to accomplish anything else of substance. Diane chimed in to say she felt sorry for younger teachers who would have to deal with this mess for years to come. Like Diogenes, but stopping occasionally to sample the brownies, I was looking for anyone who felt our “leaders” in Washington knew what they were doing. Sue Lundy and Lauren Cripe, two of the best educators I ever knew (Sue is retired; Lauren just finished her tenth year) agreed all the testing was terrible. 

Sue called it “crazy.”

So, there you have it. That’s what Mr. Bruni missed. Those who work with children, or have worked with children, believe Secretary Duncan and the politicians have absolutely led us down the wrong path. 

They believe learning has suffered harm.

In fact, if we want to help children, here’s what we might do. Take part of the $70 billion spent by the Department of Education every year. Hire more counselors and more psychologists to work directly with kids. Get creative if you want to aid our nation’s youth. Take $20 billion and award $20,000 college scholarships to a million high school seniors every year. Use another $20 billion to help 1.6 million children who experience homelessness, who suffer both in and out of school. 

That would provide $12,500 in good housing for each child.

I think real educators, those in the academic trenches, could come up with all kinds of ways to use money and manpower to improve the lives of the boys and girls they work with every day. Arne Duncan? Let him go into a classroom in an inner city Chicago school. Let him work with teens in gangs.

Joel I. Klein? Let him have a chance to teach, too. He can work with kids who've been sexually abused at home and see how much “grading schools” matters.

If Mr. Bruni were to ask me, or ask most of my old colleagues and friends, what we thought about the Department of Education, I suspect most of us would say, “Sure. Scrap it. And scrap all the standardized tests.”

Those tests cost $1.7 billion annually.

I’d tell him: “Take that money and divide it among 17,000,000 elementary school students. Let each child take $100 to the nearest book store. Let them buy books—and see if reading scores don’t go up faster than they have in the last fifteen years, despite this absurd fetish for all the standardized tests.”

If nothing else, if you are writing about education, start by talking to people who actually do the educating. 

Spend more money on books. That might help students improve reading scores.

*********

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 for a little bit cheaper. 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.

I actually taught for 33 years, more than all nine U. S. Secretaries of Education, Michelle Rhee, Wendy Kopp, Bill Gates, Melinda Gates, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Stephen Brill and about a hundred more “school reformers” combined.

Yep. Combined!

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.

How Many Reformers Does it Take to Really Fix a School?

In honor of Betsy DeVos, perhaps the most clueless of all clueless school reformers in the history of cluelessness, I am running the blog post again.

Four years since I wrote this and we still have to listen to political leaders and so-called experts who know nothing about actual teaching. So here is my old post:

IF YOU’RE AN AMERICAN TEACHER it’s likely you’ve noticed a depressing trend. Deep into a second decade of all-out school reform, or third, depending on who's counting, we’re still going nowhere fast.

“Backward” doesn’t count.

School reformers seem baffled; but baffled school reformers don’t stay baffled long. When one reform plan doesn’t work they conjure up another plan. They’re school reformers for god sakes. That’s just what they do.

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.

None of them will run.

A bus load of school reformers heading for a convention in Las Vegas sees them stranded by the side of the road and screeches to a halt. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan climbs out to survey the dire situation. Other famous passengers include Michael R. Bloomberg, mayor of New York, and Joel I. Klein, his one-time school chancellor. (Klein got worn out after trying for eight years to fix the city schools. Now he’s back in the cozy corporate world, earning millions, giving Rupert Murdoch legal and education-related advice.) Michelle Rhee is a passenger, too, and there are all kinds of politicians and lobbyists and sales persons for big testing companies filling the seats. Sadly, none of them knows a pile of shit from a spark plug when it comes to car repairs.


What could possibly go wrong
when Rupert Murdoch, left, and Joel I. Klein, right,
go to work to fix America's public schools?

Duncan is first to suggest a solution to the problem of the three stalled-out cars. “We are going to paint the Impala red to make it run.”

“We will call this plan ‘Race to the Garage.’ We will offer states $4.35 billion in federal aid if they agree to paint all their cars red.” A call is made, and at great expense, apparatus is brought out to the desert, and the car is painted red. It still won’t run.

Arne scratches his head.

Arne will point the way.
And, no, Duncan never actually taught.

Michelle Rhee pipes up next. Even the other reformers roll their eyes. After hours spent together on the bus they realize this lady’s favorite topic is herself and her second favorite is Michelle Rhee.

“I say we make these drivers apply for new licenses.” she sneers. “If you had better drivers the cars would surely run. I once taught for three years. So I know everything there could possibly be to know about saving children. These drivers must be terrible. Every child deserves an excellent driver. I am thinking... someone pretty much like me.” 

“Yeah,” Mr. Galt agrees. He was behind the wheel of the Civic until it died and he has thirty-three years of experience in the classroom. “Paved roads don’t matter…or guard rails…or laws against drunk driving…or bridges.”

Rhee misses the veteran’s sarcasm. Galt continues: “Or turn signals…or windshields. Hell...not even wheels.”

Suddenly, Rhee suspects she’s being mocked and shoots Galt a look.

Rhee now cashes in on her three years as a classroom teacher.
Trust us:  She doesn't offer free advice.

No matter, because Mayor Bloomberg is quick to agree with Rhee. “The problem in U. S. education is that we hire drivers from the bottom 20% of their graduating college classes—and not of the best schools.”

 The Harvard-educated billionaire informs everyone that the driver of the Honda will have to go. Another call goes out and a graduate of Teach for America is brought to the desert. The young professional gets behind the wheel and tries twice to start the engine. When it won’t turn over, the Teach for American kid exclaims, “Well, I only signed up for two tries. My work is done, my resume is padded.” The car she arrived in is still idling by the side of the Interstate and she jumps back in, saying to the driver, “Take me to the nearest law school, and step on it. I never planned to make a career in education anyway.”

Joel I. Klein, who never taught a single solitary minute in his life, offers up another plan. Of course he does. “I have a plan! And my plan is sure to fix the problem. We grade the cars. Then parents can choose the best cars for their children and all mechanical problems will go away. He gives the Impala an ‘F’ and the Honda gets a ‘D+.’ The Lexus gets a ‘B’ because it went a hundred yards farther down the highway before its engine coughed and died. Klein slaps bumper stickers with grades on all three cars.

They still don’t run. 

A Tea Party governor speaks up. It’s John Kasich. (Kasich knows all about schools because he used to be an investment banker.) “We are going to require drivers in failing cars to take tests,” he explains to his reforming buddies, “and prove they know their subject matter. We are also going to give that third grader in the back of the Impala a reading test. If they fail—we will fire the driver and hold the kid back. In Ohio this will be known as the ‘Third Grade Reading Guarantee.’ I will be the hero who saved the Ohio schools and maybe get some fat campaign contributions from lobbyists!”

The three drivers mutter darkly and the third grader stares at the governor in disbelief. Kasich hands the driver of the Impala and the kid the requisite tests and tells them to sit in the shade, if they can find any, maybe behind the stalled-out vehicles.

Kasich decides it’s too warm outside for him and jumps back on the air-conditioned bus. It’s hot and heading for 100° as the sun climbs high in the noon sky. The teacher and the student wipe their sweating brows and finish up their tests.

Sadly, when they’re done, the cars still don’t run.

Charles and David Koch are next to have a say. They’re not school reformers at all; but they love to lobby politicians. They want states to pay for vouchers, allowing more kids to go to private schools, and want corporations to take over whatever public schools manage to stay alive. The brothers hand out five-figure checks to lawmakers and governors seated on the bus. Naturally, Kasich and Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin get their share. The brothers can afford to spread around a little extra cash. Each has a personal fortune of $31 billion and now—money dispensed—they expect some action.

Walker agrees to take union protection away from all the drivers in his state. Calls are made to lawmakers back home and the necessary law (already written by a shadowy “non-partisan group” called the American Legislative Exchange Council, which the Koch brothers just so happen to fund) is enacted quickly. The drivers are ordered to get back behind the wheel and crank the engines or they’ll be terminated.

Regardless, none of the cars comes close to starting. 

The Koch brothers don’t really care about education, generally, or the children stranded in the desert, specifically. They hate unions—because unions usually back Democrats for political office—and what the Koch brothers really care about is political power. And taxes. Those boys loathe paying taxes on their personal fortunes.

Taxes make them mad.

Their wealth has actually increased since 2011.
They can afford to buy a few politicians.

A representative of Pearson Education offers up yet another plan. “What we need are more standardized tests, which my company will be happy to provide for a small fee, just a few million dollars, every year, from every state. We test students in all subjects and grades and maybe charge for scoliosis testing.” She opens a large briefcase filled with tests and all fifteen kids are ordered to get to work again. They complete this new set of tests and turn them in and the Pearson representative hails the next passing auto and climbs inside. She’s taking the tests to the nearest testing center for grading. “I’ll send you the bill,” she calls out cheerfully to Mr. Duncan. Then she’s gone.

Tired of all the delays—not to mention the failures—the various reformers fall to arguing. One insists that if they added new technology to the Impala it would run. Technology, he insists, will save us. A second says the problem with the cars comes down to owners’ manuals. What is needed is a Common Core Standards Owners’ Manual, the same for every car in our great land. A third expert says, no, we need charter garages. If we park a car that doesn’t run in a charter garage it’s sure to start right up—or something.

It’s now a donnybrook and bold plans are flying in all directions.

Suddenly, Rhee exclaims: “I’m late for a speech I’m supposed to give about the future of American education, during which I will hint that I am the savior everyone must follow. I can’t miss out on this. I’m being paid a $50,000 fee.” She jumps back on the bus.  

“I’m a brilliant billionaire,” Bloomberg reminds the others. “Surely no one can expect a man as important as me to stand here in the desert and cook my mega-brain.” He climbs aboard the bus. All the politicians and lobbyists and testing company execs follow and off they go.  

“Good luck, kids,” a former Texas governor named George W. Bush shouts from an open rear window. “No Child Left Behind!”


Bloomberg might try teaching;
we know he's more than smart enough.

THE THREE TEACHERS AND THEIR FIFTEEN STUDENTS watch as the bus disappears into a glorious red and orange and yellow Arizona sunset. They’re on their own again. Ms. Beasley, the driver of the Lexus, turns to face the others. “The key to moving forward in any car or any school,” she says, “comes down to just one word.

“That is: ‘motive.’”

“Like ‘motivation?’” asks Wanda, one of Beasley’s better students. 

“Yes,” Ms. Beasley agrees. “If we expect to get out of this desert it doesn’t make an ounce of difference what color the cars might be or what kind of garage we’re going to park in once we arrive. We’re going to have to put our backs into it and shove.”  

Rick, a high school senior who had been riding in the Civic, immediately grasps her point. “The key part of ‘automotive,’ is not ‘auto,’ but ‘motive.’ The car can’t move without some source of motive power.”  

“Looks like we’re going to have to do some sweating if we expect to move these cars along,” says Shaquille, who was riding in the Impala. “If we expect to get anywhere in education we, as students, are going to have to push.”

“Teachers must push, too,” Ms. Beasley notes. 

They all look off down the highway. Only twelve miles to go to Tucson and it isn’t going to be getting any easier. Still, even Carlos, a first grader, has the proper attitude. “Well, I guess we better start,” he says and prepares to put his fifty pounds of muscle to work. 

He thinks a moment, though, and adds:  “It would have been nice if all those people on that bus had stuck around to help.”

The three drivers give each other knowing looks. Then all the teachers and all the students lean in together and do their part.


FELLOW TEACHERS:  IF YOU AGREE THIS ANALOGY IS ACCURATE PLEASE SPREAD IT TO COLLEAGUES AND FRIENDS.

TIME TO STAND UP TO THE INEPT REFORMERS WHO ARE SO BUSY RUINING AMERICAN EDUCATION TODAY.

P. S. Answer to the title question: NONE.


ADDENDUM:  Several of my administrator friends have read this post; to be fair, I should include a principal who comes looking for the missing teachers and students and gives one of the cars a tow.

In the real world, we should also keep in mind that not ALL teachers and not ALL students are really anxious to push. Again, motivation becomes the key.

The key in education is always motive power.
School reformers don't get it. They think the key is some new plan.


******

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. 

I Blame Teachers for Everything

SOMETIMES, I READ what critics say about U. S. education and feel myself spiraling downward into deep depression. Just look at all the evidence of our failing schools! The best proof yet:  the idiot analysis that seems to pass without questioning. That's right. I blame schools for failing to teach basic logic and reasoning to journalists.

Consider this recent headline in the New York Times:

PANEL SAYS SCHOOLS' FAILINGS 

COULD THREATEN ECONOMY AND NATIONAL SECURITY.

"Holy @$#%!" I mutter, even before I start reading the story. Bad enough that teachers get blamed for bad reading scores. Now we seem to be putting the U. S. jobs and safety at risk!

What's wrong with this particularly stupid article? To begin with, the report is issued by a panel led by former Secretary of State Condolezza Rice and Joel I. Klein, longtime chancellor of the New York City public schools.

If you're like me, you're taken aback from the start. I was a humble history teacher in 2003. I don't remember leading the charge into Iraq that spring. I never said Iraqis had stockpiles of chemical weapons. I never spooked the country with talk about Iraqi nuclear weapons and atomic clouds. Nope, if there are threats to our national security today, that might be on  Ms. Rice and her friends in the Bush administration.

What about Mr. Klein? Why does this millionaire lawyer make me grit my teeth? I think it's because he never taught a day in his life. So asking his opinions about education is like asking me what it's like to serve in combat. True:  I spent two years in the Marines during the Vietnam War. But I did my "tour of duty" behind a supply desk in California. Not exactly "heroic" service.

So I'd be ashamed to brag around combat veterans about what I would have done if I had been in their places.

Sadly, Klein and his type have no shame. Or, as Shakespeare once put it so aptly "he hath a killing tongue and a quiet sword."

WELL THEN, how are schools' failings destroying our great nation? Simple:  75% of young adults no longer qualify to serve in the military because they are physically unfit, have criminal records, or because their level of education is inadequate.

Read that sentence carefully, though. See if it makes any sense. The United States leads the world in rates of incarcerations--and now crime is the fault of schools? And fat kids? Maybe they're following the diet lead of fat parents, after all.

I blame teachers and schools
for making me eat so much candy!

Sometimes, statistics related to declining SAT scores and rising obesity rates, don't reveal the truths we think they do. America is a changing nation and a wide array of negative changes outside schools are reflected in the hallways every single day.

Consider, for example, our current obesity epidemic. In 1986, less than 10% of adults in states like Ohio and Alabama were obese. Only seven states had rates above 10%, none more than 14%. (Twenty-five states didn't even bother to keep tracking data.)

Unfortunately, the late 80s were good years for Twinkies. (Lord knows, I ate more than my share.) By 1990, states were taking note. Only six failed to track obesity and only ten had rates below 10%. In 1991, four states reported adult obesity rates of 15% or higher.

It wasn't until 1994 that the last holdout, Wyoming, began tracking. By then it was clear that the 90s weren't going to be any better on the diet front. Now, sixteen states had obesity rates of 15-19%. Three more years of Coca-Cola-drinking and Frito-chomping, and the three states crossed the 20% obesity threshold:  Mississippi, Indiana and Kentucky.

By 2001 calories were catching up to all of us:  Mississippi passed the 25% mark. In 2004, nine states had reached that 25% mark. In 2005, another milestone was passed:  Louisiana, Mississippi and West Virginia reaching the 30% level. By 2009, nine states had a 30% adult obesity rate and only one remained below 20%:  Colorado.

Another twelve months--another season of Halloween candy and Super Bowl parties, and every state had surpassed the 20% mark. A dozen states now topped 30%--led by Mississippi (34%), West Virginia (32.5), Alabama (32.2), South Carolina (31.5), Louisiana (31) and Texas (31).

SO WHAT DO WE KNOW when we read stories like this? You can blame schools if you want. I've been know to pack on the pounds, myself. But I don't recall ever seeing a teacher standing in the candy aisle at Krogers ordering shoppers to grab another bag of Twix bars.

It's the same if too many kids have criminal records. Why don't we blame crappy police and crappy lawyers, (yeah, that's you, Mr. Klein) and judges?

Of course, that doesn't make sense at all, but neither does most of what passes for "reasoned criticism" of America's education system and America's teachers.

How About Better Parents?

If you missed it, an editorial in the New York Times yesterday, by Thomas L. Friedman, "uncovered" an ugly truth.  Apparently, parents matter when it comes to education!

As Homer Simpson likes to say, "D'oh!"

If you've been reading my blog you know my intent, in part, is to defend good teachers--by far the majority.  Still, I admit:  I've seen some bad ones.  I once worked with an educator who was so unmotivated, you wondered:  If he died at his desk, would students notice the difference between rigor mortis and his normal level of "activity?"  Or would decomposition have to set in?

Yes.  Let's get rid of bad teachers.  In fact, let's say you could get rid of them all today. 

You'd still have the same Continental Divide in education.  You can't make the Rocky Mountains disappear, no matter how hard you flog America's public school teachers.  You can take away their tenure, if you like, and have all the vouchers and charter schools you want.  But you still have good parents and you still have bad ones----and more than a few terrible ones--and therein lies the problem which NONE of our education experts ever address.  Michelle Rhee?  She says it's all teachers.  Arne Duncan?  Same.  Joel I. Klein in New York City?  Yep:  teachers.  Davis Guggenheim in his movie, Waiting for Superman?  In his celluloid world only good parents and grandparents exist. 

So, sure, the problem must be crappy teachers. 


Who'd have imagined?
Parents who read to children at home
or make sure they have books
have children who score higher on
PISA tests.

Friedman, however, cites evidence to prove that--yes--the world is round.  A just-released study by the Program for International Student Assesssment finds that even accounting for variables like race and economic status, children of parents who read to them regularly when they are young, who ask questions about what school was like every day, who check on homework and talk up the idea of getting into college score significantly higher on the PISA tests.

As Friedman notes, in recent years "we've been treated to reams of op-ed articles about how we need better teachers in our public schools and, if only the teachers' unions would go away, our kids would score like Singapore's on the big international tests....But here's what some new studies are showing:  We need better parents.  Parents more focused on their children's education can also make a huge difference in a student's achievement."

Again, we all know good teachers matter.  Still, the evidence has been there all along--and I've been thinking about this issue since 1981, at least, when President Reagan and his advisors first started talking about vouchers and how they would cure all the problems in U. S. education.

In fact, for those who believe vouchers and charter schools are the answer, here's an old bedtime story from that era and you can read it to your children, which will help then when they go to school:

Once upon a time, when the argument for vouchers was new (January 1981) there lived a family in Augusta, Maine. There was no evil stepmother in this story. No mom, either. The father, Willard Radley, was no handsome prince. Mr. Radley had four sons. His problem was not that he required vouchers. His problem was that he produced sperm. 

The boys’ problem wasn’t that they needed vouchers, either. Their problem was that Willard was their dad. 

An investigation began in April 1980, after Ernest Radley, 7, was struck and killed by a car. Ernest’s brothers, ages 5 to 9, laid out a shocking tale for police. Mr. Radley had “induced his children to commit a variety of acts that would allow him to collect insurance money.” 

To be specific:  he ordered them to run into streets and take hits so he could take the profits.

In the real world there are no fairy-tale godmothers and vouchers are not magic wands.  Thirty years later, the argument for vouchers still founders on the same rock.

TOMORROW WE LOOK AT BAD PARENTS IN RECENT NEWS AND ASK:  HOW DO WE HELP KIDS WHO ABSOLUTELY NEED HELP THE MOST?

DO I HEAR:  PARENTAL VOUCHERS, ANYONE????