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Do We Need an ‘Education President’?

John Merrow Uncategorized

If you believe that honest government is part of the solution and not, as Ronald Reagan famously said, ‘the problem,’ and if you believe that public education matters, then perhaps you would like America to have an ‘Education President’ who would use the awesome powers of the Presidency to support and improve public schools.

After all, public education is way out of whack.  Some public school students seem to have it all: 3-D printers, air-conditioned facilities, lots of Advanced Placement courses, even climbing walls, while other students attend dangerously crumbling buildings, where they are taught by uncertified teachers, using textbooks so out of date that man hasn’t been to the moon!  And to say that spending on students is uneven is the worst of understatements. For example, Boston (MA) spends $31,397 per pupil, while Meridian (ID) spends $6,941. 

Could an ‘Education President’ level that playing field? Could he or she see that all children have an equal shot at a decent education?  After all, children are our future, so shouldn’t the power of the U.S. Presidency be firmly behind an improved public education system?

Before you jump in, let’s look at some history of previous ‘Education Presidents,’ starting with George H. W. Bush, who dearly wanted to be known as the ‘Education President.’  He convened the nation’s first ‘Education Summit’ in 1989, which 49 of the 50 state governors attended (only Minnesota’s Rudy Perpich stayed home.) Out of that historic Summit came six ‘National Education Goals,’ all to be achieved by 2000.

His Secretary of Education, Lamar Alexander, wrote approvingly about his former boss thusly:  “When the dust settles and the history books are written, President George H. W. Bush’s leadership in education will be recognized as among his most significant and lasting contributions. Instead of relying on federal mandates, Bush in 1989 convened a national summit of governors to establish six national education goals focusing on improved graduation and literacy rates; student achievement; school readiness; and the elimination of drugs and violence in schools. 

But my personal experience casts doubts on Mr. Bush’s claim.  Early in his term, I was asked to apply to be his “Education Advisor,” and, with the blessing of Robin MacNeil and Jim Lehrer, I went to the White House for a series of interviews.  I was star-struck at first, eager to be involved in helping write the National Education Goals that the President was talking about.  “Not your job,” I was told. “We’ve already written them.”  I was told that I would not be advising the President. Instead, I would spend half of my time on the road doing PR for the President’s education plans and the other half  ‘advising’ the White House on science!  ‘Education Advisor’ was a half-time job, a sham, the workplace equivalent of a Potemkin Village.  President Bush was a cheerleader for public education, and that’s a good thing, but he wasn’t an ‘Education President.’

One who might have been a genuine ‘Education President’ was James Garfield. The Williams-educated Garfield, a college professor before being elected President, believed strongly in the power of education and, had he not been assassinated early in his term, apparently would have tried to persuade Congress to support education programs for enslaved people and freed slaves, one step toward ending slavery.

Garfield didn’t live long enough, and Bush was as much smoke and mirrors as substance, but, as I see it, we have had two ‘Education Presidents,’ one a Republican and the other a Democrat.  Unfortunately, those two did more harm than good to public education, making me skeptical about future ‘Education Presidents.’ 

First, some background: Education is a state issue, not a federal one.  That’s because the word ‘education’ appears nowhere in our federal Constitution, and, per the 10th Amendment, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”  That was made crystal clear in 1973, when the Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, in a case known as San Antonio USD vs. Rodriguez that US citizens do not have a constitutional right to an equal education. 

While it’s possible that a (very different) Supreme Court could overturn that 1973 decision, today every state constitution includes language establishing public education, and at least 15 state constitutions contain language affirming that education is “essential to the preservation of rights and liberties of the people.”  

Even though education is not Washington’s official business, many Presidents have figured out how to get involved.  Andrew Johnson established a Department of Education in 1867 to collect information and statistics. Not Cabinet-level, it became known as the Office of Education and was later nestled in the Cabinet level Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). Fulfilling a campaign pledge to teachers, in 1979 President Jimmy Carter created a Department of Education, which every Republican president since has tried to eliminate. 

However, serious federal dollars actually began flowing to K-12 education much earlier, when Dwight Eisenhower was President, under legislation known as the National Defense Education Act (NDEA).  National and Defense are the key words. When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, in 1957, America was scared, and Ike had the political wisdom to tie money for education to national security, which was enough to get Congress to act.  A few years later, Lyndon Johnson used a different strategy to send federal dollars to public schools. He earmarked the money to help educate specific groups of children, the disadvantaged, in the landmark Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

Ike and LBJ figured out how to pump federal dollars into state public education systems, and Carter elevated education to Cabinet status, and so one could award them the title of ‘Education President.’  While those three had an impact, the two Presidents whose administrations turned public education upside down were George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

It was Bush’s 2001 “No Child Left Behind” legislation that changed the rules completely. Although he had been a ‘States Rights’ supporter as Texas governor, he couldn’t resist trying to use the power of the Presidency to fix what he felt was wrong with public education.  His NCLB established in law that, in every school receiving even one federal dollar, all groups of students (Black, brown, white, disabled, English language learners, boys, girls–everyone!) had to make what NCLB called ‘Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP).’ And if all groups did not move forward, the school could be sanctioned–staff could be replaced and the school could be closed!   Progress, naturally, would be measured by scores on standardized multiple-choice tests.

With the stroke of a pen, the federal government–which was providing less than 8% of the money–was calling the shots in every public school in the country. And because AYP was determined solely by standardized test scores, schools downplayed or eliminated classes and activities that weren’t directly related to test scores. Away with recess, phys ed, art, music, theater, even foreign languages! 

It didn’t work, of course. Test scores did not go up, but this strategy did have notable unintended consequences: Measurable increases in 1) cheating by teachers and administrators and 2) student absenteeism.  

NCLB should be recognized as a bipartisan disaster, because most Democrats had supported the legislation.  What happened next, a catastrophe known as “Race to the Top,”  is on the Democrats.  Barack Obama had inherited Bush’s near-Depression economy, and the new President and the Congress passed the Economic Recovery Act of 2009, providing an unprecedented $800 billion stimulus for the reeling economy, including nearly $100 billion for education.  Congress earmarked about $95 billion of the education dollars but that left Education Secretary Arne Duncan with $4.35 billion for him to spend as he saw fit.   That single chunk of so-called ‘discretionary’ money was more than all previous Secretaries of Education had, combined!  

Desperate for dollars, states and school districts were willing to do whatever Secretary Duncan said was necessary.  His rules. His priorities.  Some disagreed with his specific priorities, wishing he had emphasized, say, kindergarten and pre-school instead of charter schools and using test scores to evaluate teachers.  Others objected on principle to having a U.S. Secretary of Education making any rules for locally-controlled public schools. Arne Duncan is not, his critics said, the National Superintendent of Schools.  

The backlash was severe. As soon as they were back in power, Republicans in Congress put lots of restrictions on future Secretaries of Education, making it clear that they don’t want a ‘National Superintendent of Education’ or an ‘Education President,’ no matter which party he or she happens to belong to.

Perhaps because he was Vice President during the disastrous “Race to the Top,” Joe Biden hasn’t aspired to be an ‘Education President,’ and that’s a good thing, as I see it.  While he has forgiven billions in student debt, for more than three years his Secretary of Education has been largely invisible. Most recently, the U.S. Department of Education botched what is arguably its most important responsibility, streamlining the process for allocating financial aid to college students.  As Time Magazine reported:   “A botched rollout of a new application process for FAFSA has caused chaos for millions of current and potential college students. As many high school seniors wait for financial aid packages, some are left deciding where to attend without a clear idea of how much they might be expected to pay.”  It may actually be worse, because apparently many low-income students are simply deciding not to go to college at all.

A future President could ask Congress to pay for the things it makes public schools do, like provide fair opportunities for handicapped children.  Funding these ‘unfunded mandates’ wouldn’t make that occupant of the White House an ‘Education President,’ but it would help public education.  A future President could ask Congress to fund all-day kindergarten and free pre-school (sending block grants to the states). A future President could ask Congress to revive and make permanent the Child Tax Credit (CTC) expansion that helped drive child poverty to a record low of 5.2 percent in 2021. A future President could work with Congress to strengthen programs that provide a ‘safety net’ for children, including housing and health care legislation. In other words, future Presidents can do more to improve children’s health, nutrition, and housing than he or she can regarding their schools.

We shouldn’t waste our time hoping for an ‘Education President’ in our future, because Washington is too far removed from public education to be able to make a significant difference.  A better approach would be to elect Governors who aspire to be an ‘Education Governor,’ meaning that they would increase state support for public education.  These ‘Education Governors’ would also aspire to eliminate, or at least minimize, the huge disparities in opportunities and expectations across their state.  

Excellent public schools make financial sense.  Right now states compete for business and industry by offering tax breaks, but enlightened business leaders know their workers want decent schools for their children.  States that close the Opportunity Gap and the Expectations Gap in education will end up with public education systems that attract businesses and highly educated residents.  

But, unfortunately, state-wide support for public schools will be a heavy lift in most states, because many Governors (generally Republicans) are undercutting public education for all in favor of vouchers, charter schools, and homeschooling. They believe in choice and competition.  Rather than embracing the idea that “A rising tide lifts all boats,” they are saying to parents, “Build your own boat!”  

Supporters of public education should not expect Washington to solve that problem.

Guess Who’s NOT Coming to School!

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

American students are skipping school in record numbers, a crisis that is so acute that it became the lead story in The New York Times recently, as well as the subject of the Times’s podcast series, The Daily.   The lead story is long on anecdotes, graphs, and other data. It’s also chock full of quotes from experts, but no students are heard from. No teachers either.

Another serious problem with the reporting, in my view, is the lack of context. The reporters place the blame for the epidemic of chronic absenteeism on COVID, making no mention of three other deep-rooted causes, 1) the right wing’s long campaign against ‘government schools,’ which has helped create widespread distrust of many other public institutions; 2) a decades-long obsession with standardized testing that has made many kids feel like numbers, objects to be manipulated; and 3) a mental health crisis among adolescents, caused in part by their heightened anxiety about school shootings, that makes many kids genuinely afraid to go to school. 

Let’s start at the top. Ronald Reagan routinely referred disparagingly to public schools as ‘government schools,’ meaning, of course, that they could not be trusted.  The MAGA movement has amplified that cry, politicizing education, taking over school board meetings (and actual school boards as well), driving away qualified veteran educators, and causing would-be teachers to decide to find other lines of work.  Schools that ban books and restrict discussions are not exactly welcoming environments for young people.  

Although the trend to see students in terms of their test scores probably dates back to the 1988 publication of “A Nation at Risk,” George W. Bush and Barack Obama ramped it up, big time. In other words, Democrats and Republicans are equally responsible for the second major cause of absenteeism.  Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” and Obama’s “Race to the Top” prioritized student test scores in math and English–at the expense of almost everything else.  Most public schools either reduced or eliminated extra-curricular activities like drama, journalism, and music.  Recess and free play also went by the wayside, as did ‘non-essential’ courses like foreign languages and social studies. The message to students was clear: the school cares only about my test score, not me….so why bother?

Cause #3: Yes, COVID shut down many public schools, depriving young people of the opportunities to socialize, to get accustomed to being with others and dealing with whatever issues arose, but the rash of widely-publicized school shootings–and government’s failure to address the crisis–have created another legitimate reason for students to opt out of school.  I met recently with a high school history teacher, a 17-year veteran, who told me his students regularly practice how to respond to ‘an incursion.’ Mental health challenges are genuine, widespread, and perfectly understandable, he told me.   

The next day I met with another teacher, a young woman who is just finishing her 5th year teaching 4th grade in a charter school in Brooklyn. Students at her school have learned what to do if trouble arises. She also said absenteeism is an issue, and she’s certain that it will spike dramatically in a week or two–once the state tests are over.  Both teachers are concerned about the quality of incoming teachers–the pool of talent is smaller and less impressive.  I infer from their comments that this development is a consequence of the attacks on teaching and teachers–“Who in their right mind would want to teach today?” is the question that hung in the air.

If I were reporting this story, I would do what we did in 2012, talk to young people. This school district on the Mexican border had an abysmal dropout rate, so its new superintendent went out and found kids who had dropped out and asked what it would take to get them to come back.  More challenges, he learned, and so he created opportunities for kids to earn college credits while going to high school.  A few years later, a bunch of high school seniors received both their HS diplomas and their 2-year community college degrees.  Remarkable story, and a win-win-win for everyone. Please click on the link to see what I mean.

Adults concerned about chronic absenteeism ought to be trying to get young people to want to come to school regularly, not simply ‘to attend school.’  To do that, we need to make schools interesting, challenging, and safe.  Stop treating kids as numbers (their standardized test scores).  Stop asking “How smart are you?” and ask a different question about each child: ‘How are you smart?”  

Here are four specific steps that will bring kids back:  1) Restore the full range of extra-curricular opportunities–because most kids come to school so they can do interesting stuff with their friends!  2) Homeroom in middle and high school should become an extended period, not just a quick five minutes when attendance is taken. Make daily homeroom a pressure-free time when students can catch up with friends, forge new relationships, finish homework, or even take naps.  “Home” is the operative word here.  3) Expand course offerings to include some college classes and vocational training opportunities. 

Step number 4 deserves its own paragraph!  To end chronic absenteeism, make schools safe. The first step toward safety is to acknowledge that school safety is a 3-part concept. Students deserve schools that are physically, emotionally, and intellectually safe.  Emotional safety means that bullying and cyber-bullying are not tolerated.  Intellectually safe schools celebrate curiosity.  In these schools, adults encourage students to admit when they do not understand or are confused, often by modeling that behavior. Intellectually safe schools don’t treat kids as numbers but as growing and changing individuals.  (And young people who are treated with respect are unlikely to bring their dad’s AK-47 to school.)

More can be done to bring young people back to school, but concerned local educators can take those four steps to begin the process. 

“Toward a More Perfect Union”

John Merrow Uncategorized , , ,

I’ve always loved the elegant, aspirational phrase, “Toward a More Perfect Union,” found in the opening sentence of our Constitution.  It was our Founding Fathers’ first priority, ahead of establishing justice, ensuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

I think it’s time to do more to honor those who in their daily lives attempt to move us “Toward a More Perfect Union.” To that end, and only slightly with tongue in cheek, I suggest we create an award–call it the TAMPU Prize–acknowledging those who are attempting to push the envelope forward.  

While someone else works out the rules and timing, I am jumping the gun and awarding the TAMPU Prize to three remarkable people who are on my mind this week.  Please read on, and please add your own names.

The first TAMPU recipient is from the world of education, Peter Greene. Mr. Greene, whom I do not know, spent 39 years teaching English and now devotes his time to turning over rocks to expose wrong-doing in public education, to celebrate accomplishments, and to make us think.  You can find a lot of his well-researched columns here on Forbes Magazine, but he also blogs regularly at ‘Curmudgucation,’ a word I assume he made up.  

Here’s how Mr. Greene describes himself:  I started out life in New Hampshire and finished growing up in Northwest Pennsylvania. I attended a non-traditional education program that no longer exists at Allegheny College, a small liberal arts college, student taught in Cleveland Heights, and landed my first job in Lorain, Ohio. The year started with a strike and ended with a large workforce layoff, so I came back home, bought a mobile home, and lived in a trailer court while I subbed in three districts.

After a year, I started landing year-long sub jobs with the same school district I had graduated from in the mid-seventies. It was not the plan, but there was a woman… After thirty-some years in that district, I’ve taught pretty much every brand of English we have here, 7-12. But high school is my home; middle schoolers are, as I said back when I taught them, the emotional equivalent of having someone scream in your ears all day. God bless, MS teachers. And now, after thirty-nine total years in the classroom, I’ve retired.

My second recipient is Jessica Craven, a veritable ‘Energizer Bunny’ who’s working to help our democracy survive extremism of all sorts, but particularly MAGA.  She blogs almost every day, with a newsletter she calls “Chop Wood, Carry Water,” a title that carries a message: This is what you do when the chips are down–Get to work!

Click here to begin the “Chop Wood, Carry Water” experience.  Here’s how she introduces herself and her newsletter: 

What goes on here? Well, this newsletter is dedicated to saving democracy, addressing the climate crisis, preserving our freedoms, electing better lawmakers, and, in general, creating a better country—one simple action at a time. As the author, I’m essentially a bundler. Not of donations, but of easy things each of us can do to make a difference. I do these things, too—because I want my kid to grow up in a democracy AND because doing them makes me feel less anxious. My motto? Hope is an action.

I have no idea where Ms Craven lives with her husband, child, cat, and dog. Ms Craven publishes at least six times a week and always tells readers how to get involved.  She makes activism easy, no small feat.   “Chop Wood, Carry Water” is free, but I hope you will do as I do and subscribe ($60 per year). 

My final TAMPU recipient (this time around) is National Book Award recipient Jonathan Kozol, whose new book, “An End to Inequality,” is the 12th in his illustrious career. Now 87, Jonathan burst on the scene in 1967 with “Death at an Early Age,” which I can remember devouring.  His new book–which he says will be his last–is a passionate call for racial justice in education and the larger society.  Never one to call for compromise, he rejects all forms of tokenism.  “There is no such thing as perfectible apartheid. It’s all a grand delusion,” he writes. “Apartheid education isn’t something you can ‘fix.’ It needs to be dismantled.”  For more, see Dana Goldstein’s recent profile of Jonathan in the New York Times.

(Digression: I’ve known Jonathan for a long time, and he kindly wrote a glowing preface to a book of mine, “Choosing Excellence,” back in 2001. Unfortunately, my (inept) publisher misspelled his first name. Jonathon!  When they sent me an advance copy, I saw the error and immediately called the publisher.  “Sorry,” they said, “But the initial printing is only 5,000 copies. We will correct it on the next printing.” 

I explained very calmly that I would sue their asses if they released that printing, and I suggested that they shred those 5,000 copies and reprint it.  Instead, they hired people to paste over the error with a small sticker that spelled his name correctly. Somewhere I have the uncorrected version and a pasted-over version, as well as a clean copy from the second printing.)

So those three, Jessica Craven, Peter Greene, and Jonathan Kozol, are pushing and pulling us toward A More Perfect Union.  Who else deserves our attention?

This Is Not a Drill!

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

With the presidential election less than 8 months away, the mainstream media is still treating it as a horse race, scrutinizing polls and interviewing so-called experts about Biden’s age and Trump’s rambling instead of contrasting the candidate’s positions on important issues. The success of the President’s State of the Union speech may change the narrative, but odds are the press will soon revert to its superficial coverage, sadly.

I want to call your attention to one issue that the ‘horse race’ approach misses: the 80 million or so eligible adults who did NOT vote in 2020.    Even though voter turnout in 2020 was the highest since 1900, roughly one-third of those who were eligible to vote did not.  

Think of it this way:  That group (call it Did Not Vote, or “DNV”) would have finished a close second in 2020:  In First Place, Joe Biden, 81,000,000, followed by DNV with 80,000,000 votes. And in third place, Donald Trump, with 74,000,000 votes.

Who knows the reasons? Perhaps people who make up the DNV weren’t registered, perhaps they were indifferent or too busy, or perhaps obstacles were placed in their way. 

While both political parties are reaching out to those in the DNV in hopes of garnering their support, you can get involved from your home, writing postcards or making phone calls.  It’s easy to connect with organizations that do this regularly, like Postcards to Voters.  The single best source of information for people who want to get involved is the Chop Wood, Carry Water blog, written by a human dynamo named Jessica Craven.  I am in awe of her, to be honest.

I have one other suggestion:  Because the votes of young Americans are likely to decide who wins in November, Consider writing to the young people in your own world.  I’ve been doing that, and below is the template of the letter I’ve sent out.  Feel free to copy/change/write your own, but please act now.

Dear xxx

May I bend your ear about politics?  I gather from our occasional conversations that you are pretty down on our 2-party system and our economic system generally. I understand your being dissatisfied with our economic system, because it so clearly favors the rich and punishes those without money and inherited social status.  Recent headlines reinforce the point once again: Black women in New York City are nine times more likely to die in childbirth as white female New Yorkers, and that’s largely because of their socio-economic status, which is unfortunately closely correlated with race.  Systems that are weighted against non-white and non-wealthy can be found in other countries, but ours seems wildly out of whack.  

The American 2-party system is a different issue, in my view.  We’ve often flirted with third party candidates, usually with unfortunate results.  For example, in 2000 about 90,000 voters in Florida voted for the third-party candidate Ralph Nader, and George W. Bush ended up winning Florida (and therefore the Presidency) by 570 votes!  There’s no doubt that most of those 90,000 Nader voters were Democrats, meaning their decision to vote for Nader cost Al Gore the Presidency.  Because we got Bush instead of Gore, we ended up in a disastrous war in Iraq, tax breaks for the rich, a ‘War on Terror’ that actually created more enemies for the US, truly horrible policies in education, and more.  Those voters who chose Nader to protest their dissatisfaction with Democrats and Republicans may have felt virtuous, but they did immeasurable damage to the country.

Today there are a bunch of third-party candidates, including RFK, Jr, an anti-vaxxer who apparently would also end support for Ukraine; Cornel West; Jill Stein, and some others. While none of these candidates will become President, their voters may put Donald Trump back in the White House.  If he wins, 2024 may be our last free election, because Trump led an insurrection to keep himself in power in 2020, strong evidence that, in the future, he will do whatever is necessary to stay in power forever.

Perhaps you and some of your friends are considering NOT voting as a way of protesting against our system. Perhaps you and your friends feel that not voting is ‘a courageous statement,’  ‘a brave moral stance,’ or  ‘a strong message to a corrupt system.’  I would argue to the contrary: By not voting you would be rendering yourself invisible; you would be silencing your own voice, a form of self-marginalization. Basically, you would be allowing your future to be determined by other people.  

So please consider these three actions:  1) Register to vote if you haven’t already done so; 2) Urge at least 10 of your friends to register to vote; and 3) Please don’t sit out this election. Vote in November!  

I am NOT asking you to vote for Democrats, but to vote for candidates who support the issues you care about.  I hope you will look at the records of the men and women running for office.  Do they support a woman’s right to choose? Do they support higher taxes on the rich? Measures that will reduce the impact of climate change? Universal health care?  More support for public transportation and public education? A sensible policy on immigration?  And so on.   

Love, 

(Uncle/Grandpa/Neighbor) John

How to Teach Children to Read

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

A teacher is standing in front of her class of First Graders, most of them 6-year-olds, a few age five.  She holds up a sign:   

“Who can read this?”

Almost every hand goes up, and a few children call out the answer.

“That’s very good. I thought that you would know that word. Maybe you recognize the sign because you see it on lots of street corners.  It says ‘Stop,’ but now let’s take it apart, letter by letter.  The first letter, S, makes a sound.  What sound does an S make?”  

She then goes through the sounds the other three letters make, the children make the sounds, and they put the word together.  

Then she holds up a slightly different sign, one that reads STOPE. She tells them how it is pronounced and explains that, when the letter E follows a vowel, that vowel ‘says its own name.’  She tells them how to pronounce it, and then she writes several words on the blackboard: NICE, HOSE, and CASE.  The children sound them out.

That teacher is using a method known as Phonics, more formally called Phonics and Phonemic Awareness as the basis for her instruction.  Basically, it recognizes that letters have sounds associated with them, and that those sounds often change when letters are rearranged.  She’s teaching her students to decode or decipher words.

Phonics is one of two competing approaches to teaching reading.  The other method, Whole Language, stresses recognition of words rather than sounding them out, and using their context, including pictures, to decipher or guess at meaning.  The battle over how to teach reading has been going on forever.  Should children learn to take words apart, letter by letter, or should they be taught to recognize words–the ‘look-say’ approach?  

Back to that classroom:  “OK, now let’s see what happens if we move the letters around.”

She holds up this sign:   

“Same four letters.  Let’s try to read it by sounding out each letter. Start with the first one, where I put the S at the end.  What sound does T make?”

The children are delighted when she brings out four more versions of the familiar sign:   

For the next ten or fifteen minutes, the children take those words apart, then put the sounds together, eventually reading all the words.  OPTS is the most challenging because the children don’t know the word, leading to a discussion about OPTIONS, a noun, and OPT, a verb.  The teacher doesn’t move on until she’s sure everyone understands. Perhaps she challenges her students to use those words in conversation during the day, or at  home that night.

The supporters of Whole Language caricature Phonics, the method this teacher is using, as an endless series of “cat-hat-rat-sat-bat” drills, a cold and boring approach that drives children away from literature, while extolling Whole Language and its clone, Balanced Literacy, as warm, humanistic, and child-friendly.  

As its most prominent gurus, Kenneth Goodman and Yetta Goodman, argued in 1991, “Whole Language classrooms liberate pupils to try new things, to invent spellings, to experiment with new genres, to guess at meanings in their readings, to read and write imperfectly.”  

True believers in the Phonics camp point to ‘invented spellings’ and guessing at meanings as proof that Whole Language is a romantic fantasy that fails to give children the skills they will need as adults–while at the same time lying to them by telling them that they can read.  

Whole Language advocates are quick to emphasize the limitations of Phonics. English, they point out, is more idiosyncratic than most languages.  And they are correct: Just say these three words aloud: anger, ranger, and hanger. According to the rules of Phonics, they should rhyme, but they don’t. Likewise, good and mood should rhyme, but do not. Even Horace Mann, the founder of American public education, was anti-Phonics because of English’s irregularities. 

Irregularities aside, however, reading does not ‘come naturally,’ as many Whole Language devotees assume. It must be taught. For this, the research is clear:  Phonics and Phonemic Awareness are the bedrock of learning to read.  That is, they are the engine, and Whole Language is the chassis. In sum, both approaches are necessary, but the engine–Phonics–is first among equals.  And good teachers know this…

Back in the classroom, the teacher holds up another image: 

“Who knows what this sign says?  Can anyone use it in a sentence? (Many hands go up.)  That’s good.”

After sounding out the two letters and putting the word together, the teacher asks the children, “What happens to GO if we replace the G with S or N?”

She writes SO and NO on the blackboard, next to GO, which the children figure out almost immediately.  

“But letters can be tricky things, children. What sound does ‘O’ make in STOP? Keep that in mind.” 

She replaces the G with the letter T.  Some students automatically rhyme it with GO and SO, pronouncing it ‘TOE.’  Now she explains that in this new word, TO, the letter O has a different sound.  

“So we see that the letter O can make different sounds. English is tricky, but we will learn all the tricks.  Read this sentence: ‘SO I said NO, you must GO TO the STORE.’”

“Which letter isn’t following the rules?”

They all seem to understand that TO is the exception. She explains that they will have to learn to recognize words like TO if they want to be good readers.

“I warned you that letters were tricky!  But there are ways to figure out most letters, rules that work most of the time.  But not all the time, because English breaks a lot of its own rules.  I promise you we will have fun figuring all this out…”

The current Reading Wars escalated in 1955 when Rudolf Flesch published “Why Johnny Can’t Read,” an all-out attack on ‘Whole Language.’  The world of education ignored him. In 1969 Harvard professor Jeanne Chall’s “Learning to Read: The Great Debate” presented compelling data demonstrating the importance of Phonics, but once again the system shrugged.  

Inevitably, the crusade to dominate reading instruction became politicized.  Those who supported Phonics were most likely Republicans, conservatives, and perhaps evangelical Christians as well. Television pastor Pat Robertson made teaching Phonics central to his platform when he ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988, and political activist Phyllis Schlafly pushed as hard for Phonics-based instruction as she did against the Equal Rights Amendment.  “Through the late 1980s and into the 1990s, religious right organizations such as Schlafly’s Eagle Forum and Robertson’s Christian Coalition pushed legislators in Tennessee and elsewhere to enact Phonics instruction in public schools. By the early 1990s, Sing, Spell, Read and Write — the Phonics-based reading program, published by Pearson and promoted by Pat Robertson — was approved for use in a dozen states, including Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi,” David Waters notes in an analysis for The Institute for Public Service in Memphis. 

If, on the other hand, you believed in Whole Language, you were certainly a liberal, probably a Democrat, and perhaps even an atheist or an agnostic. 

Calling these two camps religious cults is not a stretch, because both approaches inspire devotion bordering on fanaticism….and have complete disdain for the other.  

That First Grade teacher often takes pages out of the Whole Language playbook to talk about words that don’t follow the rules of Phonics.  

One day she writes these sentences on the blackboard: COME HERE!  WHERE ARE THE MACHINES?

“OK, kids. On your toes now, because only one of these words follows the rules.”

She asks them to pronounce each word according to the rules they have learned. They do, pronouncing COME with a long O, WHERE with a long E, ARE with a long A, and MACHINES with a long I.  Then she pronounces them correctly, cracking up the children.

“I told you English was tricky and sneaky, but we won’t let it beat us!”

To finish the lesson, she writes HERE on the blackboard and asks the children to sound it out, which they do with ease.  Then she puts a W in front of HERE and challenges them to sound it out.  They rhyme it with HERE.  She replaces the W with T, making THERE, and again asks her students to sound it out.  WHERE and THERE, she explains, break the rules. They will have to learn to recognize them. 

Reading politics reached the Oval Office when George W. Bush became President. In 1999 Congress had appointed a National Reading Panel to study the issue, but the Bush Administration controlled the publication of the results. The panel of scholars issued a 449-page report promoting a balanced reading program that included but should not be dominated by  systematic instruction in Phonics. “Phonics should not become the dominant component in a reading program, neither in the amount of time devoted to it nor in the significance attached,” the report concluded.  

However, Bush’s political operatives took charge of the Report’s summary–arguably the only section anyone reads.  Their summary sent a very different message: Phonics rules!  As Waters noted, “the report’s 32-page summary, widely reported by the media and mailed to every school district in the country, focused on Phonics. It used the word ‘Phonics’ 89 times, and the word ‘balanced’ only once.”

The politicization of reading continued in President Bush’s signature legislation, the “No Child Left Behind Act of 2000.” It called for an emphasis on Phonics and ‘scientifically based reading research’ (a term found in the law and accompanying regulations more than 110 times). NCLB spawned “Reading First,” a pro-Phonics federal program that collapsed amidst financial scandals, although, predictably, the Phonics Republicans and the Whole Language Democrats differed as to who was at fault.

At some point our teacher creates a list of other rule-breaking words to learn.These so-called ‘sight words’ include who, to, are, been, because, machine, and police.  The list will grow throughout the year.

Then she opens another door. She invites the children to tell the class some words that they want to be able to read, perhaps words they have heard at home or on the street.  Words they are curious  about.  By meeting them where they are and encouraging their curiosity, she’s empowering them.  That’s a powerful motivation for young children, a strong sense of mastery.

(That teacher isn’t one person but a mashup of dozens of marvelous teachers I encountered as a reporter, all but one of them women. The man was Johnny Brinson, a First Grade teacher in Washington, DC. Among the women was my own First Grade teacher, Mrs. Peterson, whom I spent a day with when I was in my late 30’s and working for NPR.)

By all rights, teaching all First Graders to read with understanding ought to be a national priority.  Set the bar there and then devote whatever resources are necessary to help children get where they want to be.  

Sadly, we have not done that. Instead, even though 5-, 6-, and 7-year-old children are ready to learn and eager to be challenged, we have lowered the bar.  For the past 20 years or so, our stated national goal has been to have children reading at “Grade Level” when they finish Third Grade. That’s a 2-year lowering of expectations. 

So, instead of harnessing the incredible curiosity and energy of our 6-year-olds, we said to them and their teachers, “No rush. Take your time.”   That goal was set during the Administration of George W. Bush, and—surprise!!–lowering expectations has not worked.  Reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) have flatlined: Fourth Graders in 1992 scored 217 on NAEP’s 0-500 scale, and in 2020, the Fourth Graders’ score was 215.  But rather than questioning the wisdom of the ‘low expectations’ policy, many politicians and policymakers have chosen to blame the victims–by requiring them to repeat Third Grade. Currently, 18 states and the District of Columbia require retention for students reading below proficiency by the time they complete 3rd grade. Another 10 states, including Texas, New Jersey and Maryland, allow retention but do not require it. 

The deep thinkers who decided to delay things also came up with a slogan: “In the first three grades, children learn to read; from then on, they read to learn.”  Treating reading as an end, instead of a means to an end, is dangerous nonsense!  Children learn to read so they can learn more about the world around them. Both at the same time!  Imagine if those same deep thinkers were put in charge of teaching children to walk.  They’d have kids walking in place for a year or two (learning to walk), after which they could walk around (walking to get somewhere). 

Today’s politicians and policymakers are wildly enthusiastic about what is being called ‘the Science of Reading,’ and there’s a real danger that the pendulum is swinging back to Phonics. As I read the situation, some people see the Science of Reading as a way to make money selling schools stuff that’s ‘guaranteed’ to teach children to read. This is dangerous nonsense. Reading is as much art as science, and phonics is necessary but not sufficient. Rather than spending money on packaged curriculua, states and school districts ought to devote resources to retraining elementary teachers in how to teach reading, because most teacher training institutions ignored phonics, favoring instead a word recognition approach known as Whole Language.

When the year is nearly over,  the First Grade teacher asks her children a question: ‘Who are the three or four fastest runners in the class?’   The children call out five or six different names.  ‘OK, now who are the three or four best singers in the class?’ Again names are called out.  ‘And one more question. Who are the three or four tallest kids in our class?’  More names.

‘I want to tell you why I asked those questions.’  The children look at her expectantly.  ‘Some of  you are taller than others, some of you can run faster, and some of you can sing better, but that’s just how things are turning out. It’s not because you are better. You’re just different.  The same thing is true with reading. All of you are readers, good readers, but some of you can read better than others….because you got lucky at birth, not because you are a better person.”  

(She is correct.  About 40% of children are ‘born readers,’ able to absorb the basics of Phonics and able to decode and comprehend with ease.  Everyone has to learn to read because reading is not a natural act, but some learn faster and more easily than others.)

“All of you are readers now,  all of you. And nobody can take that away from you….ever.  So please keep on reading, and writing, and thinking, and asking questions.” 


Give children a couple of years with teachers like her, and they will be ready for almost anything, because she understands that, to become effective readers, her students need to understand that letters have sounds associated with them, and that most, but clearly not all, words follow certain rules. For her, and for good teachers of reading everywhere, decoding and higher test scores are not the goal; the goals are comprehension, confidence, and enjoyment. 

18 Ways to Improve Public Schools

John Merrow Uncategorized , ,

A few days ago in this space I listed the 14 ways to improve public schools that I’ve been blogging about for the past six months or so. However, reactions from thoughtful readers convinced me that I had stopped making suggestions too soon, so here’s a better list, EIGHTEEN simple steps to make our public schools more interesting, more challenging, and–yes–more productive.

1) Looping, which I expanded upon a short time later in Looping (revisited).  Looping means a teacher moving up with her or his students.  It’s quite common in other countries because it’s been shown to improve both student learning and behavior, for openers.  

2)Play. Simply put, kids need to be kids.  And for those who are concerned about learning, stop worrying because free play contributes to improved learning.

3) Practice Democracy. If we want children to function well in a democratic society as adults, they need practice.  Right now, schools are essentially undemocratic–by design. That’s the worst possible preparation for adulthood.  And giving young people more ‘agency’ over their own learning actually works!  

4) Business Cards for Teachers.  If you are a professional, you carry business cards, which you give out to people you want to stay in contact with. Teachers are professionals!  Treat them as such.  

5) Involve Outsiders. The vast majority of households do not have children in public schools,  and schools need public support.  The best advertisement for public education is the kids.  Let them strut their stuff!  

6) Multiple ‘Talent Nights.’  This is an easy way to make parents feel at home in school.  Education is a team sport, and educators need to welcome parents, not treat them as extraneous (or worse).

7) Extended Homeroom. Right now most homeroom periods are short, really just a way for administrators to take attendance.   After Covid, kids need more down time.  Extending homeroom into a full period provides that.

8) Ask the Right Question.  I’ve been pushing this for a long time, but it’s worth repeating: The most important question to ask about all children is ‘How Are They Smart?’ and not ‘How Smart Are They?’ because every child has skills, abilities, and interests that can be tapped into and developed.  

9) “Education Grand Rounds.”  Teachers need opportunities to watch each other at work so they can improve their own practice.

10) “Making Stuff”.  There’s nothing more satisfying than creating something useful.  Bring back wood shop!   

11) Make the School Safe. Schools need to be physically, emotionally, and intellectually safe.  Stop focusing only on physical safety. In intellectually safe schools, it’s cool to be curious, and it’s OK to admit ‘I don’t understand.’  In emotionally safe schools, bullying is not tolerated…and adults and student leaders step up to prevent it. 

12) Serve Your Community  This is NOT the same as ‘Community Service.’ The distinction makes all the difference.

13) Ban Cell Phones. Completely!  That’s right, ban them completely! This is a giant step toward making schools emotionally safe.

14) Acknowledge the “Opportunity Gap”.  Most school districts and policy makers focus their attention on ‘The Achievement Gap,’ but, if we close the “Opportunity Gap” (and its companion, the “Expectations Gap”), outcomes will improve across the board.  One way to do this is to adopt a proven curriculum like Core Knowledge, EL Education, or the Comer School Development Program. Another option to explore: become a Community School.

15) Change the school day’s opening time for adolescents, who need more sleep and aren’t getting it.  This important piece by Dr. Mary Carskadon and Lynne Lamberg (a reader of this blog) is both comprehensive and persuasive.  And here’s more on the issue.

16) Improve school food because better nutrition is a cost-effective way of improving students’ life chances, and because, sadly, for many kids their school meals are the only healthy ones they get. Changing the cafeteria is a good opportunity to Practice Democracy (suggestion #3).

17) Teach reading effectively by avoiding the extremes. Don’t let the ‘Reading Science’ craze push schools into going mad for phonics. Phonics is necessary but not sufficient, because our English language is complex and contradictory. (eg, why don’t ‘anger,’ ‘danger,’ and ‘hanger’ rhyme?) Here’s how to teach reading.

18) Involve classroom teachers in curriculum choices and curriculum design. But ‘involve’ does not mean that individual teachers should unilaterally decide what to teach, just that they shouldn’t be treated as cogs in a machine, told by their districts what to teach, and when to teach it.  David Steiner of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy, told Education Week that “Designing curriculum and teaching curriculum are both very, very demanding skill sets.” He went on: “When Meryl Streep decides whether she’s going to act in a movie, she doesn’t say, ‘No way, I didn’t write the script. She says, ‘Give me the best possible script so that my acting abilities can really shine.’” 

What happens next to these 18 proposals? I hope some of you will work with your local school boards to implement these changes. When candidates for school board start ranting about “DEI” or “Critical Race Theory,” I hope you will confront them, because those aren’t real issues; what matters are specific changes that can make schools more interesting, challenging, and effective.  Perhaps some of you might even run for your local school board!  

With that in mind, I have one final suggestion: Consider adopting as your guiding principle the wisdom of Aristotle: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”  Applying that to schools and education suggests to me that:

   *Because we want children to be able to write well, they need to write often in their classes.  

  *Because we want them to be comfortable speaking in public, they need to practice that in school. 

  *Because we want them to work well with others as adults, they ought to be working together on projects, teams, plays, bands, et cetera, in school. 

  *Because we want them to be successful as adults in a rapidly changing world, they ought to learn at least two languages in school. 

*And so forth….

Other changes, especially reducing class size and repairing or replacing dangerously dilapidated facilities, are also called for, but these will cost real money and will require sustained political effort. None of the 18 changes I am suggesting will cost school districts big bucks, but some do involve changes in habits and schedules, which often makes adults uncomfortable.  That is, these changes are simple, but that does not mean they will be easy. I believe, however, that they are the path forward, toward schools that are effective and challenging places that children will want to be.

Improving Public Schools: A Final Thought

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

Back in August I began using this space to suggest simple changes that would, I believe, improve public schools significantly.  Five months and fourteen suggestions later, it’s now time to wrap this up, not because I’ve run out of ideas but because I’m hoping some readers will take this list of ideas and run with it. Perhaps some of you will work with your local school boards to implement these changes. I hope that, if candidates for school board start ranting about “DEI” or “Critical Race Theory,” you will confront them, because those aren’t real issues; what matters are specific changes that can make schools more interesting, challenging, and effective.  Perhaps some of you might even run for your local school board!  

With that in mind, I have one final suggestion: Consider adopting as your guiding principle the wisdom of Aristotle: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”  Applying that to schools and education suggests to me that:

   *Because we want children to be able to write well, they need to write often in their classes.  

  *Because we want them to be comfortable speaking in public, they need to practice that in school. 

  *Because we want them to work well with others as adults, they ought to be working together on projects, teams, plays, bands, et cetera, in school. 

  *Because we want them to be successful as adults in a rapidly changing world, they ought to learn at least two languages in school. 

*And so forth….

Here, briefly, are the other suggestions: 1) Looping, which I expanded upon a short time later in Looping (revisited).  Looping means a teacher moving up with her or his students.  It’s quite common in other countries because it’s been shown to improve both student learning and behavior, for openers.  

2)Play. Simply put, kids need to be kids.  And for those who are concerned about learning, stop worrying because free play contributes to improved learning.

3) Practice Democracy. Apply Aristotle here: If we want children to function well in a democratic society, they need practice.  Right now, schools are essentially undemocratic–by design. That’s the worst possible preparation for adulthood.  And giving young people more ‘agency’ over their own learning actually works!  

4) Business Cards for Teachers.  If you are a professional, you carry business cards, which you give out to people you want to stay in contact with. Teachers are professionals!  Treat them as such.  

5) Involve Outsiders. The vast majority of households do not have children in public schools,  and schools need public support.  The best advertisement for public education is the kids.  Let them strut their stuff!  

6) Multiple ‘Talent Nights.’  This is an easy way to make parents feel at home in school.  Education is a team sport, and educators need to welcome parents, not treat them as extraneous (or worse).

7) Extended Homeroom. Right now most homeroom periods are short, really just a way for administrators to take attendance.   After Covid, kids need more down time.  Extending homeroom into a full period provides that.

8) Ask the Right Question.  I’ve been pushing this for a long time, but it’s worth repeating: The most important question to ask about all children is ‘How Are They Smart?’ and not ‘How Smart Are They?’ because every child has skills, abilities, and interests that can be tapped into and developed.  

9) “Education Grand Rounds.”  Teachers need opportunities to watch each other at work so they can improve their own practice.

10) “Making Stuff”.  There’s nothing more satisfying than creating something useful.  Bring back wood shop!   

11) Make the School Safe. Schools need to be physically, emotionally, and intellectually safe.  Stop focusing only on physical safety. In intellectually safe schools, it’s cool to be curious, and it’s OK to admit ‘I don’t understand.’  In emotionally safe schools, bullying is not tolerated…and adults and student leaders step up to prevent it. 

12) Serve Your Community  This is NOT the same as ‘Community Service.’ The distinction makes all the difference.

13) Ban Cell Phones. Completely!  That’s right, ban them completely!

14) Acknowledge the “Opportunity Gap”.  Most school districts and policy makers focus their attention on ‘The Achievement Gap,’ but, if we close the “Opportunity Gap” (and its companion, the “Expectations Gap”), outcomes will improve across the board.  One way to do this is to adopt a proven curriculum like Core Knowledge, EL Education, or the Comer School Development Program. Another option to explore: become a Community School.

Reactions from readers convinced me that I stopped making recommendations too soon, so here are three more: 

15) Change the opening time for adolescents, who need more sleep and aren’t getting it.  This important piece by Dr. Mary Carskadon and Lynne Lamberg (a reader of this blog) is both comprehensive and persuasive.  Here’s more on the issue.

16) Improve school food because better nutrition is a cost-effective way of improving students’ life chances, and because, sadly, for many kids their school meals are the only healthy ones they get. Changing the cafeteria is a good opportunity to Practice Democracy (suggestion #3).

17) Teach reading effectively by avoiding the extremes. Don’t let the ‘Reading Science’ craze push schools into going mad for phonics. Phonics is necessary but not sufficient, because our English language is complex and contradictory. (eg, why don’t ‘anger,’ ‘danger,’ and ‘hanger’ rhyme?)

Other changes, especially reducing class size and repairing or replacing dangerously dilapidated facilities, are also called for, but these will cost real money. None of the 17 changes I am suggesting will cost school districts big bucks, but some do involve changes in habits and schedules, which often makes adults uncomfortable.  That is, these changes are simple, but that does not mean they will be easy. I believe, however, that they are the path forward, toward schools that are effective and challenging, places that children will want to be.

Improving Public Schools (#15): Acknowledge the Opportunity Gap

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

Do I mean “Acknowledge the Achievement Gap,” you may be wondering?  No, that’s not a misprint.  The Opportunity Gap in public education is real, and growing. Making a commitment to closing that gap would, in time, close the Achievement Gap that so many policymakers obsess over.

The Achievement Gap is real, but it is primarily the result of gaps in both Opportunity and Expectations.  Start with Opportunities: The playing field in American public education isn’t even close to being level. Black students are twice as likely to go to high-poverty schools as their white peers, and these schools are likely to be in poor physical condition-–think peeling paint, poor ventilation, water fountains that don’t work, etc etc.  High poverty schools are harder to staff, meaning high turnover and lots of rookie teachers.  Non-white school districts get a lot less money than majority-white districts, generally more than $1500 below the national average, which translates into fewer dollars for school repairs, instructional materials, and staff salaries. Compounding this, students in high-poverty schools are more likely to have behavioral issues and educational needs that are expensive to address.  

Unsurprisingly, many in those under-resourced and decrepit schools–faculty, staff, and students– have low expectations…often a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Give students less, and then expect very little of them: that’s the reality for millions of American public school students. No wonder we have an Achievement Gap!

Educators shouldn’t be trying to close the Achievement Gap by coaching, tutoring, and testing. Those so-called ‘strategies’ are counter-productive, because they drive failing students away.  We cannot drill our way out of this situation.  

American public schools cannot provide adequate housing and health care for their students. Nor can they improve the educational background and income of their students’ parents. But public schools can–and must—attempt to close the gaps in Opportunities and Expectations. 

I believe an essential step is adopting a challenging and interesting curriculum, a program that kids will look forward to and that parents will approve of.   Three personal favorites are Core Knowledge, an extensive curriculum created by the brilliant E.D. Hirsch Jr; EL Education (formerly known as Expeditionary Learning); and the Comer School Development Program,started by another hero in the world of education and child development , Dr. James Comer of Yale.   I urge you to click those hot links to learn more.

(Over the years, a few programs prospered for a while and then faded, such as the Accelerated Schools program pioneered by the great Henry Levin of Teachers College, Columbia.)

School Boards committed to doing the right thing might also consider giving their schools the option to join the Community School movement.  They won’t be alone: close to 10,000 schools, nearly 10% of all public schools, have joined this important effort.

You are probably aware that millions of students are skipping school regularly.  Many school districts seem to be embracing ‘get tough’ truancy policies.  I suggest holding off on harsh or even gentle enforcement tactics and instead asking the kids two simple questions: “Why aren’t you coming to school?” And “What would induce you to return?”

I’m willing to wager that genuine opportunities to learn in positive and welcoming environments will bring kids back.  Commit to closing the Opportunity Gap, if you care about all children and the country’s future.

Winning the War on Public Education

John Merrow Uncategorized

Before signing off for 2023, I have a short message: Our public schools are under attack, but they are stronger and more resilient than their enemies assume…and more effective than you are being told.  

THE CRUSADE AGAINST PUBLIC EDUCATION: Unfortunately, the right-wing anti-public education crusade has been effective, as witnessed by a recent Gallup poll showing that just 36% of the general public report being ‘satisfied’ with public schools.  However, those who know the schools best–the parents–give their own children’s schools and their teachers high marks: 76% say they are “completely or somewhat satisfied” with their oldest child’s education. That’s similar to pre-pandemic poll results.  The crusaders appear to be reaching more Republicans than Democrats or independents, because Gallup reports a particularly steep decline in satisfaction among the GOP: it fell from 49% in 2020 to only 25% this year.

The Crusade is multi-faceted and highly charged, with anti-transgender, anti-’woke,’ and anti-Critical Race Theory language spewing from every Crusader’s mouth. As Politics NYU noted recently, “With newer, more progressive ideas about race, gender, sexuality, and overall societal dynamics becoming more prevalent in the academic space, conservative sects of society, including the GOP, feel attacked. The symbolic figurehead of the modern Republican party, Donald Trump, put it quite succinctly when he stated in Iowa this past March that he would, “prohibit the teaching of ‘critical race theory’, ‘transgender insanity’ and ‘any other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content.’”  Previous Republican presidents focused on educational outcomes, choice, and ‘bureaucracy,’ but not today.

THE CRUSADERS:  So how large is the army of Crusaders?  Not so big, it turns out.  Earlier this year the Washington Post analyzed the data regarding attempts to ban books and found that just 11 (eleven!!) ‘hyperactive adults’ were responsible for the majority of the challenges.  “Each of these people brought 10 or more challenges against books in their school district; one man filed 92 challenges. Together, these serial filers constituted 6 percent of all book challengers — but were responsible for 60 percent of all filings.”  

There’s more than a whiff of hypocrisy here. Most of the books being challenged dealt with all aspects of human sexuality, and many of the challengers were associated with Moms for Liberty, whose co-founder was just outed for her participation in a 3-way sexual affair with her husband and another woman.

It’s actually a rag-tag army marching under many different banners.  Some Crusaders are motivated by a desire for dollars.  The US spends close to $800 billion a year on preK-12 public education, money that’s available to those running for-profit charter schools, expensive tutoring programs, and private schools in states with voucher programs, to name only three of the ways to turn a buck.

Some Crusaders are motivated by libertarian ideology–nothing that is ‘public’ makes sense to them.  Others believe that children ‘belong to their parents,’ who may not want them vaccinated, tested, or exposed to any ideas and beliefs counter to their own.  And some–most of them politicians– are opportunists.  For instance, the Covid pandemic shutdowns, prolonged in some places, brought out the naysayers in full force; the failure of ‘virtual learning’ in many places created a tidal wave of our teaching force.  

There are two ways to defeat this rag-tag but highly motivated ‘army’ of Crusaders: 1) shout from the rooftops the good news about public schools; and 2) work even harder to make them better.

Let’s start with the good news about our schools: David Wallace-Wells, writing in the New York Times, recently wrote a thoughtful analysis of American public education. He did a deep dive into the results of the Programme in International Assessment (PISA) test, pre- and post-Covid, testing 15-year-olds around the globe. Because the essay is behind a paywall, I will quote from it at some length here.

“(W)hat it shows is quite eye-opening. American students improved their standing among their international peers in all three areas during the pandemic, the data says. Some countries did better than the United States, and the American results do show some areas of concern. But U.S. school policies do not seem to have pushed American kids into their own academic black hole. In fact, Americans did better in relation to their peers in the aftermath of school closures than they did before the pandemic.

The performance looks even stronger once you get into the weeds a bit. In reading, the average U.S. score dropped just one point from 505 in 2018 to just 504 in 2022. Across the rest of the O.E.C.D., the average loss was 11 times as large. In Germany, which looked early in the pandemic to have mounted an enviable good-government response, the average reading score fell 18 points; in Britain, the country most often compared with the United States, it fell 10 points. In Iceland, which had, by many metrics, the best pandemic performance in Europe, it fell 38 points. In Sweden, the darling of mitigation skeptics, it fell 19 points.”

Tell this to the Crusaders and anyone else who seems inclined to believe them!

Elsewhere in his essay, Wallace-Wells makes two telling points about absenteeism and mental health: “Chronic absenteeism, for instance, is up significantly since before the pandemic and may prove a far more lasting and concerning legacy of school closure than learning loss. And the American Academy of Pediatrics declared a national mental health emergency — language that has been echoed by the American Medical Association.”  

One conclusion: If you are serious about improving public schools, find out why so many kids skip school regularly–and do something about it.  Hint: absenteeism and mental health are directly connected, the through line being bullying, cyberbully, and cellphones.

2) Making schools better: I’ve been writing throughout the fall about ways to improve public schools.  You can find those suggestions on my blog, TheMerrowReport.com.  I learned only recently that the American Federation of Teachers has been at this throughout 2023, in an impressive campaign called “Real Solutions for Real Kids and Communities.”  Some of our ideas overlap, and some of what they have already suggested are on my drawing board. I urge you to take a deep dive, because it’s good stuff.

Happy Holidays, and keep the faith.

Personalized Gifts Can Be Dangerous

John Merrow Uncategorized

(Because gift-giving season is when many grandparents shower their grandchildren with stuff, I am reposting this warning about the harm that well-intentioned “personalized” gifts represent. Please share it.)

The adult and child walking in front of me were complete strangers. The man, who looked to be in his early 30’s, was casually dressed. He was holding the hand of a young girl, probably about five years old. Perhaps the girl, Sophie, was his daughter and they were on their way home from school or a music lesson.

If you’re reading carefully, you may be thinking, “Hold on a minute!  You said they were complete strangers, but you knew her name?  That doesn’t compute, buddy.  You’ve lost your credibility….big time.”

I did what I have done on other occasions.  I called out, “Excuse me, sir,” and the man stopped and turned around.  “Hi, Sophie,” I said, and the man looked at me sideways, probably wondering why an old man with white hair was striking up a conversation.

“Do I know you,” he asked, somewhat suspiciously?  

“No,” I said.  “We have never met, but I know your daughter’s name is Sophie.  I probably shouldn’t know it, but I do–and so does everyone else who sees her backpack.”

He seemed uncertain as to how to respond to my blunt, even rude, comment, and so I continued talking.

“I reported on children’s issues for 41 years on public television and radio,” I said. “And a story I did on child predators back in the 1980’s has stayed with me.  I spent a day with cops searching for a suspected pedophile, and at one point they hauled in a man who was lingering outside an elementary school.  He hadn’t done anything, so they couldn’t charge him, and he denied being a predator.  But he did tell them—and me, the reporter–how pedophiles are successful in persuading children to go off with them.”

The father was now paying close attention.

“The biggest gift,” this (probable) predator said, “is clothing or a backpack with the child’s name printed on it.”  All he had to do to win their trust, he told me, was call the child by name.  The 5-year-old won’t recognize or remember him, but children see many adults throughout their day and this man did know her name, so she’d assume that she must have met him. He went on, “Of course, most parents teach their children not to talk to strangers, but because I know her name, she lets down her guard.”  

I have not been able to erase from my memory his next words: “Game over.”

Unfortunately (from my point of view), personalized backpacks like the one Sophie was wearing are big business. A Google search turns up 43,100,000 hits.  That’s 43 MILLION!   A search for personalized lunch boxes– another gift to predators–produces 10,000,000 hits.  Disney will gladly sell you all sorts of stuff with your child’s name emblazoned on it, as will hundreds of other large companies.  

(Ironically, searching for the combination of ‘personalized backpacks’ and ‘predator’ produces references to the movie, “Predator.”  And there’s even a pedophile brand of backpack!

Perhaps I should be embarrassed to break into people’s conversations, but I am not, not any more.  It seems that old age reduces inhibitions, and so when I see parents walking with young children wearing their personalized backpacks or carrying personalized lunch boxes, I speak up. So far, anyway, nobody has punched me out or cursed me, and quite a few parents have expressed their gratitude.

That chilling interview with that (probable) predator took place in the 1980’s, long before Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.  Today those Apps are a gift to those who are attracted to children. And again it’s the adults who are creating the problem, because many parents post photos, with names, of their children on their Facebook page, and those pages are often open to anyone surfing the web.  I know parents who do this almost daily,  and it seems to me that this amounts to an invitation to men with evil intentions.  Too many photos allow strangers to display deep familiarity with children they decide to target.  There’s no better example of TMI–Too Much Information–than splashing one’s family life all over Facebook.

I am not alone in my concerns about endangering children.  The website Bella Online has a clear warning. Here’s another.  But, unfortunately, most advice–even good advice like this and this– does not include warnings against personalized clothing or information sharing on Facebook.

Because the data reveals that only about 10% of child abuse is committed by strangers, all children must also be taught about the sanctity of their bodies; they must be taught to be wary of overly friendly family members who want them to keep secrets.  But 10% of the millions of children who will be sexually abused before the age of 18 is a big number…..

So why not cut back on posting on Facebook or Instagram about everything your children and grandchildren do? Gift-giving season is here, so please do not give your grandchildren or children personalized clothing, backpacks, et cetera.  

Let’s all stay safe…..and help keep our children and grandchildren safe.