Month: July 2014

Looking Back (Part 1)

John Merrow 2014 Blogs, Looking Back

Although I spend most of my waking hours working on or thinking about the stories we’re trying to tell, I have also been retracing the paths that have led to the perch I now occupy, 40 years later.  What follows is a trip down memory lane.

I got my first reporting job in the fall of 1961 with the Salina (KS) Journal. Less than five weeks later I was fired.  Here’s how that happened. Because I accomplished very little my first two years of college and had a declining GPA as evidence, I concluded that I would be wasting my time and my parents’ money if I stayed in college. With their reluctant blessing, I dropped out of Dartmouth. In my own mind, I would be Jack Kerouac, “On the Road” in search of an identity.

Because I had worked for my high school and college newspapers, I decided to spend my year away from college working for a newspaper. And I would do it ‘out west,’ which, to this Connecticut Yankee, began on the other side of the Mississippi River. Once I crossed that mighty river, I would begin my new career.

My job search started with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where I confidently approached the personnel office.  They politely laughed me out of the room, and the city.  It couldn’t have helped my cause that I had spent the previous night sleeping in my car at a nearby private golf course, although I had brazenly walked in and showered in the men’s clubhouse. (I didn’t need to shave in those days.)

For the next few weeks I went from town to town, applying at the local weekly (which–hard to believe today–most towns had in 1961).  Each time I would introduce myself to the owner/editor-in-chief, “I’m John Merrow, I’m taking a year off from college, and I would like to write for you.” Each time I was sent on my way.

At newspaper number 16 or 17, The Salina (KS) Journal, I made the decision to lie. “Hi, I’m John Merrow,” I said to Glenn Williams, the managing editor. “I just graduated from Dartmouth College, and I would like to be a reporter on your fine paper.”

He hired me.

Of course, I knew it was dishonest, but I rationalized thusly: “Once I get my first big scoop, I will go into the Mr. Williams’ office and tell him the truth. He will be so impressed that he won’t object, probably will give me a raise.”  That’s what I told myself….

Unfortunately, Mr. Williams figured out that I was a callow youth long before I came close to a scoop, and he fired me. Properly suspicious, he called one of my references, “Professor David Barker,” actually my college roommate. In those days, the only phones were in the hall, so I had given my boss the number for the 4th floor of my dormitory,Gile Hall. I can only imagine the conversation when Mr. Williams asked to speak to “Professor Barker.” {{1}}

Game over….

He did, however, get me a job with another paper, The Leavenworth (KS) Times.  Leavenworth was (and probably still is) a murky, depressing town whose economy revolved around crime. It’s the home of four prisons, not just the Federal Penitentiary made famous by Hollywood. Just outside Leavenworth are the state men’s and women’s prisons, and nearby Fort Leavenworth is the home of the United States Disciplinary Barracks, the toughest Army prison of all. I had the prison beat, a dream.

Before long I got fired again, although this time it was a badge of honor. It was an open secret that Leavenworth’s police chief was on the take.  He had to be: he lived in a very expensive home and drove a brand new Cadillac.  Another reporter who was older and wiser and I agreed that was an outrage, and so we decided to expose him. First, we figured out how the scam worked.  The chief’s brother-in-law had a garbage collection company, which–conveniently–collected trash only from the town’s bars and similar establishments.  Those bars were notorious for serving underage soldiers from the Fort.  Prostitution was a thriving business too, and the pimps and whores were probably paying protection to the chief as well.

It was heady stuff. Byron (last name lost to memory) and I staked out the bars, followed the garbage trucks, took pictures and schemed about how we could get evidence on tape.  Byron was the brains and guts of our effort, and so when the powers-that-be got wind of what we were up to, they came down hard, and he took the brunt. One night all four tires of his car were slashed, someone threw a brick through his apartment window, and tough guys threatened his wife and children.  I got some nasty phone calls and occasional jostling on the street, but that was all.

I wish I could say that the good guys won and that the chief was exposed, but it didn’t happen that way.  Byron and I were fired and sent on our way. (I remember that Byron’s wife was relieved.)  The police chief probably died rich and happy, and as crooked as ever.

I was upset about leaving the girl I had met but otherwise excited about whatever was coming next. I sold my car and hitchhiked around the country for the next four or five months, stopping to work whenever I ran low on funds. I went to spring training in Florida, spent nights in college fraternities, church-run missions and even a jail, got propositioned by women and men quite often, turned down a chance to ‘work’ as a gigolo in New Orleans, went to opening day at the Seattle World’s Fair, and crisscrossed the country, using only my thumb.

As I had promised my parents, I returned to Dartmouth in the fall and graduated in the spring of 1964, one year behind my classmates.

*****

After graduating from Dartmouth, I taught high school English on Long Island for two years, earned my MA in American Studies at Indiana University, taught at a Black college in Virginia for two years, earned a doctorate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, lived on Nantucket Island for nearly two years, and then, in 1974, took a job with an education ‘think tank’ in Washington, DC.  I figured out pretty quickly that I was not temperamentally (or intellectually!) suited for sitting around thinking.  That realization led me to National Public Radio.

I knocked on the door of the headquarters of NPR, then at 20th and M in Northwest Washington, sometime early in 1974. The only thing I remember about the meeting is the reaction to my announcing that my boss had given me a budget of $10,000 to “get the word out about education.”  I was all but embraced.

NPR was largely unknown at the time. I know I had never even heard of it when I moved my family to Washington, but, then again, we had been living on an island where most of the world’s news went unremarked.  But it turns out, most people in Washington and everywhere else were also unaware of its existence.  It was necessary, I learned, to explain to people that NPR was ‘like PBS, only without pictures.’

NPR had gone on the air in the spring of 1971. When I showed up, it had a flagship news program, “All Things Considered,” and a couple of strong music programs, “Jazz Alive” and “Voices in the Wind.”  It also had a catchall daily series, “Options,” where it stuck all sorts of programs, and that’s where NPR sent me.

I ended up recording an interview with two school finance experts, who explained—at great length and in too much detail–how the system worked.  The producers who had been assigned to help me decided to make the conversation into–I still cannot believe this–two 1-hour programs, which they called “Where the Money Comes from” and “Where the Money Goes.”  Even then I realized the interview was boring, but NPR needed material to fill the hungry maw, and so I made my national debut in what must be one of the dullest programs ever recorded.

Luckily for me, NPR encouraged me to make another program. As I remember it, this time we decided I would go ‘in the field’ with a tape recorder.  Pell Grants were in the news, so I called the office of Senator Claiborne Pell (D, RI) and asked for an interview.  “Sure,” his press guy said, “Just send over the questions you’re going to ask.”  I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t know enough to tell him to take a hike.  Instead, I wrote up some questions and sent them over.  A few days later I dutifully showed up at the Senator’s office, introduced myself, set up my tape recorder, and asked my first question.

Senator Pell never even looked up.  He just read the answer off a piece of paper he was holding.  Question two, same thing.  And so on.  I remember being bewildered. Only later did I get angry, probably to cover my embarrassment.

I learned my lesson: never again would I submit questions in advance.  And, if I could help it, I wouldn’t interview career politicians. {{2}}

And so I went on the road, carrying only a small reel-to-reel tape recorder (which, I later learned, was the same model that President Nixon was using in the oval office to secretly record his conversations).  My first trip was to Kanawha County, West Virginia, where angry parents were burning textbooks in an effort to keep their children from learning about evolution and other ‘leftist’ ideas.  I can still see and hear them belting out John Denver’s “Country Roads,” their theme song.  Rather than mock them for their ‘backward’ views, I sat in their kitchens and listened to (and recorded) what they had to say. (Listen to that program here.)

It was a great learning experience for me: most people have stories to tell, but rarely do those in power deign to listen.  All I had to do was turn on the tape recorder and every once in a while say, “Please tell me more,” and I would end up with audio gold.

(to be continued)

—

[[1]] 1. Not only did I get fired, but Mr. Williams was sitting on the throne when he flushed me.  It was the end of the day, and I went to the men’s room to wash up before heading out.  As I was washing my hands, I heard Mr. Williams call from behind a door, “I need to talk to you, John. I called Professor Barker today.”  [[1]]

[[2]]2. Luckily I did not take a vow to never interview politicians, because over the years I have spent some time with thoughtful men and women in politics.  Former New Jersey Governor Tom Kean and Representatives George Miller and Al Quie come immediately to mind.

Cabinet appointees are also political creatures, whatever else they may be.  I have managed to interview every sitting Secretary of Education, beginning with Shirley Hufstedler, who gave up a lifetime appointment to the Federal bench to become the first Secretary, under Jimmy Carter.

My own particular favorite among Secretaries is former South Carolina Governor Richard Riley, a gentleman with a steel backbone.  Like the late Fred Rogers of Mister Rogers Neighborhood, Governor Riley made you feel valued.

Years ago my Dad taught me to watch the way people treat waiters, clerks and others they perceive to be their underlings. If they treat them disrespectfully, he warned, you might be next.  I say all this because I wanted to admire Bill Bennett, Ronald Reagan’s tough-talking Secretary of Education.  After all, he had dated Janis Joplin, knew the names of Buddy Holly’s backup singers and other rock and roll trivia, and was willing to speak truth to power about self-indulgent college students.  But he also displayed two faces, two personalities.  When the lights were on and the camera was rolling, Secretary Bennett was the picture of civility.  Once the the lights and recording equipment were off, however, I saw him behave rudely to the crew that had just made him look good.  That taught me a valuable lesson, a twist on the adage about the measure of character being how one behaves when no one is looking. In this day and age, it’s how one behaves when he’s not on camera. [[2]]

Michelle Rhee’s High-Priced PR

John Merrow 2014 Blogs, Michelle Rhee

In just one year{{1}} Michelle Rhee spent about $2 million to buy the public relations services of Anita Dunn {{2}} and SKDKnickerbocker.  It’s a continuing relationship that goes back to early in Rhee’s Chancellorship in Washington, and it’s probably the best money Rhee has ever spent (especially because it was contributed by her supporters).

Just consider the challenge facing the PR team: The former Chancellor of the Washington, DC public schools ignored clear evidence {{3}} of cheating by adults {{4}} on the District’s standardized exams, as Linda Mathews, Jay Mathews, Jack Gillum, Michael Joseloff and I documented in “Michelle Rhee’s Reign of Error.”

But Rhee went beyond covering up the misdeeds. Instead of making a sincere effort to root out the cheaters, Rhee stage-managed four ‘investigations’ so that they cleared her.  All the while, a feckless Mayor and the local newspaper averted their eyes, in sharp contrast to the vigorous investigation of a comparable cheating scandal in Atlanta. 

With her test-based accountability schemes discredited and her reputation as a fearless, tough-minded leader severely damaged, Ms. Rhee might have been expected to disappear from the scene.  However, that has not happened. Instead, she remains in the public eye, writing op-eds {{5}} and offering analysis of educational developments.  This fall she will be a presenter in the annual “Schools of Tomorrow” education symposium sponsored by The New York Times–even though the subject is higher education.

Even more surprising (to this observer anyway) was the omission of the District of Columbia from the list of cities with school cheating scandals in Rachel Aviv’s otherwise solid reporting about Atlanta. {{6}}

This can only be the result of a smooth PR campaign.

Another tribute to Dunn’s prowess is the fact that Michelle Rhee is still considered a Democrat, even though the organization she created after leaving Washington in 2010, StudentsFirst, has been spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, largely in support of conservative candidates and organizations. {{7}}

Politico’s Morning Education newsletter reported on July 3rd that “Rhee, who earns nearly $350,000 a year, also spent heavily on political activism in the year covered by the tax forms. StudentsFirst gave $500,000 to a business-backed committee in Michigan that successfully worked to defeat a union effort to enshrine collective bargaining rights in the state constitution. It also spent $250,000 to support a charter-school campaign in Georgia. StudentsFirst gives to candidates and committees from both parties but many of its biggest political donations went to Republican caucuses and conservative alliances in states including Florida, Maine, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

StudentsFirst gave $10,000 each to Republican Gov. Bill Haslam in Tennessee and Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon in Missouri. The group also donated to scores of state legislative candidates, including some tea party members who have worked against the Common Core – which Rhee supports – but who back other elements of the StudentsFirst agenda, such as vouchers or charter schools.”

However, on its 990 IRS tax form, however, StudentsFirst says it did not engage in political activities and declined to answer a question about lobbying activities. {{8}}

When she created the organization, she said she would raise $1 billion; she has fallen far short of that big number, but she has raised over $60 million, tax records reveal. However, she does not identify donors or list all donations.  Students First is reported to have 110 employees, up from 75 in 2012.

The most important of these has to be Anita Dunn.

On this I have some personal experience. While we were actively investigating Rhee’s response to the erasures for a Frontline documentary, I found myself the victim of a carefully targeted smear campaign. A 10-page letter dated January 24, 2012 and sent to Frontline, the NewsHour, PBS, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, accuses me:

  • of “demonstrable and material misrepresentations of fact.”
  • of soliciting funds from “a wide swath of leaders in the education community including opponents of education reform and vocal critics of Michelle Rhee.”
  • of actively seeking “dirt” about Rhee and of hanging up on someone who praised Rhee.
  • of making “false allegations” about Rhee’s response to the widespread erasures.

The letter, signed by a StudentsFirst Vice President, urges PBS not to broadcast my reporting and closes by noting that “we are discussing our options with our attorneys.”

According to reliable sources inside StudentsFirst, Anita Dunn organized the carefully targeted smear campaign. Hoping to learn more about her work for Rhee and StudentsFirst, I have called Dunn’s office at least four times but have not been able to interview her. {{9}}

Every one of the accusations in the StudentsFirst letter is false, as I painstakingly demonstrated to Frontline, the NewsHour, PBS and CPB. However, ‘The Big Lie’ technique is effective, as others before Dunn have proven, because I spent three weeks marshalling the evidence to refute the charges, three weeks that I could not spend investigating Rhee’s behavior in regards to the erasures.

It is possible that I lost more than three weeks, because, even with the proof I supplied, I cannot say with certainty that none of the mud stuck. Is it possible that some who received the missive still have lingering doubts about my integrity? I hope not, of course, but I have no way of looking inside the minds of the letter’s recipients.

The smear campaign was hung on a slender thread, a personal email I sent to one possible supporter.  Apparently the recipient shared it, and eventually it made its way to StudentsFirst.  Here’s what I wrote: “We are editing a powerful documentary about Michelle Rhee, the controversial educator who has become a national figure. After she left Washington, strong evidence of widespread cheating on standardized tests in roughly two-thirds of her schools emerged, along with a paper trail that indicates that the Chancellor declined to investigate the situation, despite being urged to do so by the official in charge of testing.  When test security was eventually tightened–after three years–scores declined precipitously. In fact, at half of the schools with the highest erasure rates, where scores had jumped as much as 50%, achievement scores are now below where they were when the Chancellor took office.”

Every word {{10}} of that email is true.

I wrote that paragraph BEFORE I obtained a copy of Dr. Sandy Sanford’s devastating memo, the one that warned Rhee that some of her principals were probably responsible for the erasures.  The memo confirms that Rhee knew the truth, and we know that she looked the other way. In this, she had the support of right-leaning foundations and individuals, as well as opinion leaders who desperately want to believe that ‘getting tough on teachers’ will improve schools.

Rhee’s PR offensive hasn’t always gone smoothly. In the fall of 2013, she launched an effort to cast herself as a ‘healer,’ scheduling a series of “Town Meetings” that, she promised, would bring teachers and teacher union leaders together for a dialogue.  The not-so-subtle subtext of Rhee’s effort was that union leaders were on one side–the wrong one–of issues, regular teachers another. She criticized the polarized atmosphere, with no acknowledgment of her own role in its creation:  “Teachers’ voices are vital to the conversation about how to improve our national education system,” Rhee wrote to supporters. “Unfortunately, the dialogue around public education has become too often polarized, with extreme rhetoric and personal attacks overshadowing what’s important: getting all of our country’s kids into great schools with great teachers.”

The effort drew intense criticism when Rhee attempted to hold her Alabama meeting in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, just a few days from the 50th anniversary {{11}} of the bombing that killed four little girls who were in the church basement at the time. After strong protests, the meeting was relocated.

One could argue that her “Town Meetings” were a success even though they produced no discernible ‘healing,’ because she garnered headlines and some favorable newspaper columns, including this piece {{12}} in the Financial Times.  And Rhee seems to crave attention.

To some, Rhee is simply a well-compensated mouthpiece for those with an ideological interest in tearing down public education, an analysis suggesting she doesn’t believe what she is saying.  I do not think she can be dismissed as a mere opportunist, although she certainly does know how to seize opportunities. She has–brilliantly–made the issue of “Last Hired, First Fired” her own, and the LIFO issue has legs.  It makes absolutely no sense, in a skill-based profession, to adhere to LIFO blindly and inflexibly. Those who cling to LIFO guarantee that Rhee will find a sympathetic audience.

Interestingly, Rhee may have become a pariah within the right-leaning community of democrats who favor a certain brand of education reform, at least according to a highly-placed source within Democrats for Education Reform (DFER).  She has, my source tells me, consistently bad-mouthed others who are nominal allies, in an effort to muscle them aside and claim grant money for her own organization.  “We’ve learned not to trust her,” my source says.

Michelle Rhee is smart, talented, hard-working, charismatic and ambitious, but, in the public education arena, she is a fraud. That this truth is not widely acknowledged is a tribute to the PR skills of Anita Dunn of SKDKnickerbocker.

—-

[[1]]1. http://www.scribd.com/doc/98216272/StudentsFirst-501c4-Form-990-Final-NO-Sch-B-1-Nz [[1]]

[[2]]2. http://www.skdknick.com/staff/anita-dunn/ Ms Dunn was brought on while Rhee was Chancellor, ostensibly to keep her from inviting other camera crews to film her firing principals, and stuff like that. The money to hire Dunn was provided, sources tell me, by a well-meaning education reformer, Katherine Bradley, who also played a major role in selecting Kaya Henderson to succeed Rhee.  (Ms. Bradley also hosted a screening in Washington of our film about New Orleans, “Rebirth.”)  When Rhee left DC and started StudentsFirst, she retained Dunn’s services.  Careful readers of Dunn’s webpage will note that it does not mention her work for Rhee and StudentsFirst.[[2]]

[[3]]3. Rhee left Washington in November 2010.  USA Today broke the suspicious erasure story in March, 2011. The brilliant exposé was reported by Jack Gillum and Marisol Bello and edited by Linda Mathews. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-03-28-1Aschooltesting28_CV_N.htm [[3]]

[[4]]4. Principals changing answers to make test results look better is deplorable. In other places administrators have pushed low-achieving students out of school. Walt Haney documents instances in Texas, Florida, Alabama and New York in “Evidence on Education under NCLB (and How Florida Boosted NAEP Scores and Reduced the Race Gap),” In G.L Sunderman, (Ed.) Holding NCLB Accountable: Achieving Accountability, Equity and School Reform. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, 2008, pp. 91-102).[[4]]

[[5]]5. Albeit for the Washington Post, her cheerleader, and the Wall Street Journal, an ideological soulmate.[[5]]

[[6]]6. July 21, 2014 issue. Aviv lists Philadelphia, Toledo, El Paso, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Houston and St. Louis but omits Washington, DC.  As USA Today reported in 2011, the magnitude of unexplained ‘wrong to right’ erasures in most Washington schools boggled the mind and defied the odds.  One has a better chance of winning at Powerball than of these erasures occurring by chance, it reported. [[6]]

[[7]]7. Rhee’s critics have applauded the news that StudentsFirst has ‘retrenched,’ pulling out of Florida, Maine, Minnesota, Indiana and Iowa, but the cheering might be premature because Rhee could be husbanding resources for specific campaigns in support of ending tenure, opening charter schools and creating voucher programs. “As an advocacy organization fighting for better education for kids all across the country, we frequently shift and reallocate resources around where they’ll have the most impact,” Francisco Castillo, the group’s national spokesman, said, explaining the changes.[[7]]

[[8]]8. The specific question is “Did the organization engage in direct or indirect political campaign activities on behalf of or in opposition to candidates for political office?”  Whoever filled it out checked the NO box and did not answer the following question about lobbying (“Did the organization engage in lobbying activities or have a Section 501(h) election in effect during the tax year?”).  Michelle Rhee signed the form. [[8]]

[[9]]9. On July 22nd I spoke with her briefly; she said she was too busy to talk then but would call back at 3 that afternoon.  At exactly 3PM her assistant called to say she was still too busy to talk then but would try at a later time. She has not called. I have continued to call her office, to no avail.[[9]]

[[10]]10. I wish it weren’t, because I wanted Rhee to succeed when she burst on the scene in 2007. My own children went to DC public schools, and so I knew first-hand that many were ineffective, an embarrassment to the Nation’s Capital.[[10]]

[[11]]11. Rhee scheduled her event for September 12th, a Thursday. The bombing occurred on Sunday, September 15th, 50 years earlier.[[11]]

[[12]]12.  To my annoyance, the columnist credits Davis Guggenheim’s film for the footage of Rhee firing that principal.  How much else he got wrong, I don’t know.[[12]]

Assets or Liabilities?

John Merrow 2014 Blogs

If you ask professional educators in a public forum whether they view parents as assets or liabilities, the answers will vary only in decibel level: “Assets,” “Our greatest asset,” “invaluable partners,” and so forth.  But what if you caught them off guard, late at night after a few drinks, say?

Or, better yet, what if you simply examined how most schools treat parents?

In my experience, most administrators and many teachers hold parents in low regard, and their behavior and policies reflect that.

Perhaps that’s an inevitable consequence of attempting to elevate education to a high-status profession.  “After all, you wouldn’t expect a heart surgeon to consult with a child’s parents before replacing a ruptured valve and saving the child’s life,” the thinking goes, as if the work of educating a child were the equivalent of complex surgery.

It seems to me that most schools push parents away in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.  There’s the once-a-year “Back to School Night” and perhaps a “Parent Involvement Committee’ or a “Parent Advisory Board” that meets occasionally with the Principal.  Many schools expect parents to hold bake sales, auctions and fundraising drives (which can be a large chunk of a school’s budget these days) but that doesn’t treat parents as partners in their children’s education.

Unfortunately, it’s the rare educator who says “We cannot do a good job of educating your child without you,” actually means it–and then proves it by his or her actions.

Why this negative attitude toward parents?  Some educators feel that low income parents do not have the time or energy to get deeply involved in their children’s schooling.  But even if their dismissal of parents is rooted in empathy or sympathy, it adds up to the same thing: the exclusion of parents.  Unfortunately, however, plenty of administrators and teachers are genuinely disdainful of parents and apt to dismiss them as uncaring, uninvolved or ignorant.  “Just leave the education to us” is how I would characterize their attitude.

As evidence of parental detachment, these administrators and teachers often cite the low turnout at ‘Back to School Night,’ concluding from the large number of no-show parents that they don’t care.  But I suggest we look carefully at how ‘Back to School Night’ is structured: a quick series of show-and-tell presentations by teachers, one-off lectures that make parents feel like visitors or strangers who happened by. The educators will tell the parents to make sure their kids do their homework assignments and don’t watch much TV.  Why would most parents bother to attend more than once?  What’s inviting about being talked down to?

The problem of ‘summer learning loss,’ sometimes called ‘summer slide,’ offers an insight into what might be labeled the professional arrogance of educators.  Summer slide is a real and significant phenomenon that is more pronounced among lower income children whose parents do not take them on big trips or provide a wide range of stimulating experiences in the summer.   When school begins again in the fall, poor kids tend to have regressed, while middle- and upper-income kids have either gained or not lost ground.  The cumulative effect of many summers of sliding is a significant achievement gap.

Cure ‘summer slide,’ and graduation rates would improve, et cetera, et cetera.  But what to do?

Educators, naturally, see ‘more education’ as the solution to ‘summer slide,’ and so they propose to extend the day, extend the year, send kids to summer school–or all of the above.  After all, when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail….

But suppose the achievement gap is the symptom of something else, the result of a different problem?  If educators are misdiagnosing the problem, then their solution (‘more school’) is not likely to be effective in the long term.

We’re editing a story for the PBS NewsHour about a young man, a first grade teacher, who–probably because he’s not a professional educator–looked at summer learning loss very differently.

Perhaps summer slide happens, he hypothesized, because parents (who spend far more time with their children than do teachers) are not involved in the nitty-gritty of their kids’ schooling.  What if parents were taught the skills to help their kids become better readers and treated as partners in the education process?  No lectures, no ‘parent involvement committees,’ no window-dressing, but a genuine partnership that required openness and commitment from everyone?

Suppose the root problem is education’s failure to recognize that parents want their children to succeed but may not know how to contribute?  Suppose the real problem is education’s failure to treat parents as assets?

But could parents be treated as valuable assets?  Would teachers–long accustomed to holding parents at arm’s length–learn humility and acknowledge that parents were essential?  And would parents accept this responsibility (because, after all, many have become accustomed to educators saying ‘leave the education to us.’)?

He’s had some success in Philadelphia over the past couple of summers, and it’s intriguing to speculate about what might happen: could this radical idea—parents matter–spread to regular (September-June) school? What would that look like?  How much change would be required, and by whom?

You may learn more about this young teacher, Alejandro Gac-Artigas, and Springboard, the promising program he established in Philadelphia, at springboardcollaborative.org.  Or wait a few weeks and watch our report on the NewsHour.  Or weigh in with your insights here…which might help us with our reporting.

Our National Anthem’s Two Questions

John Merrow 2014 Blogs

As we celebrate our nation’s independence, it might be worth recalling that the first stanza {{1}} of our National Anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” poses two questions but answers only the first, leaving the second for each generation to wrestle with.

Some of you may now be singing the song to yourselves, figuring out just what the anthem poses. Let me save you the trouble. The first question is presented in the song’s opening lines:

O, say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?”

In other words, did our flag survive the bombardment of Fort McHenry in what is known as the Battle of Baltimore in 1814? It was still flying, the lyrics assure us:

And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.

However, Francis Scott Key poses a second question–which he does not answer–in the last two lines of the first stanza:

Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

I suspect that most of us do not think of it as a question. We sing it, loudly and proudly, telling the world that we are the land of the free and the home of the brave. But Key wrote it as a question, not an exclamation. So let’s ask Key’s question–about the America we live in now.

Can we describe America as ‘the land of the free’ when one quarter of our children are growing up in poverty, when the richest one-tenth of one percent of our population controls more wealth than the bottom half, when politicians in dozens of states are maneuvering to keep groups of people from voting, and when millions of college graduates are in debt and millions more leave college without a diploma but with a heavy debt burden? {{2}}

Can we call America ‘the land of the brave’ when we no longer call on our young people to serve but rely instead on a professional military–which our leaders send, over and over and over, to serve tours of duty in hostile environments and then fail to provide for when they return home?

This Independence Day we might want to think about how easily we can lose what we prize. We might ask if the America envisioned in ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ is slipping away because we lack the lift of a driving dream and because we ask almost nothing of our young people…and very little of ourselves.

Could it be time to revive the idea of national service and reinstitute the military draft? What if all young people were obligated to give two years of their lives in service to our country? Serving in the military could be one choice, but it should be just one of a menu of options that we could come up with. In return, we taxpayers would commit to paying for two years of post-secondary education or training for young people after they serve..

Living in the land of the free should not be a free ride, nor should patriotism be an empty word.

What is your answer to Francis Scott Key’s second question?

—-

[[1]]1. Who knew that Francis Scott Key wrote four stanzas? I did not. http://www.usa-flag-site.org/song-lyrics/star-spangled-banner.shtml[[1]]

[[2]]2. Each of these issues can be addressed (and is being addressed by good and earnest people), but I think this is akin to repairing lifeboats at a time when the ship of state may be off course.  We need to debate bigger changes.[[2]]