Many on the left are raising a stink about the US Department of Education’s insistence on having states give their annual tests. Critics say it’s unfair because most students haven’t been in physical schools for about a year.  These critics maintain that it’s unnecessarily stressful to test students now. However, their hysterical objections only serve to demonstrate that they fail to understand that standardized testing is one of the main drivers of the US economy.

Please consider these economic consequences of cancelling machine-scored tests.  (I am certain that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen could enumerate others.)

1. Cancelling standardized tests will endanger the health of students and teachers.  Both test-prep and testing are natural environments for social distancing; students who are required to stay at their desks all day long are not at risk of either passing on or catching COVID.  That’s a win-win that would be a loss if tests were cancelled.
2. Not testing will unsettle students, endangering their already shaky mental health. The rhythm of test-prep and testing is well-known and familiar to students.  What could be better for students who have been trapped on Zoom for months than to have the familiar Zen-like peace-and-quiet of test prep and testing?  
3. The companies that create, administer and process these tests are a vital cog in our national economy, employing thousands of men and women, who then spend their earnings in their communities, thus seeding local economies.  Suppose our 13,000+ school districts were to cancel the (often) multi-million dollar contracts? That would devastate those companies and the lives of their employees. 
4. Vital educational research will be jeopardized.  The 400+ full-bore studies of “Learning Loss” would be useless without the results of this year’s mandated standardized tests.  Although it’s a foregone conclusion that these studies will demonstrate the reality of “The Achievement Gap,” those headlines will enable us to continue the practice of not having to capitalize either opportunity and expectations gaps, meaning that we can continue to pretend they are not real.  
5. Cancelling testing will overturn lives.  Somewhere between 175 and 3500 doctoral students are close to finishing their dissertations on “Learning Loss.”  Without data from this spring’s state tests, they will be unable to complete their theses, unable to sit for their oral exams, and unable to qualify for their doctoral degrees.  This will mean an additional year of graduate school tuition and hardship for the struggling families of the graduate students, who may also have to postpone child-bearing for another year.  Heartbreak and even divorce loom on the horizon for many of these families….if state testing is cancelled.
6. Cancelling testing will endanger the health of universities.  Pre-COVID, the focus on test prep and testing guaranteed that every year at least 100,000 teachers would get fed up and leave the profession for some other line of work. This created a perpetual ‘teacher shortage’ that university schools of education could rely on as they prepared their budgets. That is, they knew that school districts would have jobs for their graduates, and so they could aggressively recruit students and train them for classroom work.  Cancelling testing will mean that teachers will actually be able to do what drew them into the field–help students learn and grow.  This means that fewer teachers will give up on teaching, districts won’t have teacher shortages, university education programs will shrink, education faculty will lose their jobs, and lives will wither.  All because we cancelled state standardized testing.

I will admit that some students (perhaps even all of them) would benefit from returning to a pressure-free school environment so they can get reacquainted with their peers. And I also acknowledge that some teachers (perhaps even all of them) should not have their worth determined by unreliable test scores. 

However, those are necessary sacrifices and small prices for students and teachers to pay because cancelling testing will endanger our national economy.

SAVE THE AMERICAN ECONOMY! KEEP THE TESTS!!

Imagine for a moment that you are an excellent tennis player who regularly ranks in the Top Ten in your age group and in your state.  You have an excellent first serve that you can place with pinpoint accuracy, a reliable second serve, a devastating two-hand backhand, and a well-disguised drop shot that befuddles opponents.  What’s more, you cover the court with surprising speed and agility and have developed an impressive deep topspin lob.  You invariably bring home some silver in local tournaments, and in state tournaments you are a good bet to reach–at minimum– the quarterfinals.

Then came the pandemic. You haven’t been able to play tennis since March, 2020, because all the courts and public clubs were shut down.  Some of your wealthy competitors have their own courts or have been able to play on private courts belonging to friends.  Not you…..

Now the ban has been lifted, and you and your coach have just begun to work on all aspects of your game–your first serve, second serve, drop shot, two-hand backhand, and topspin lob–because a weakness in any one aspect of your game will invariably mean defeat.  At this level, opponents are quick to sniff out deficiencies and take advantage of them. 

However, on the very day that you and your coach begin working in earnest, a directive comes from from the state office that coordinates tournaments and–critically–determines rankings. It says that, out of concern for “Tennis Loss” and in the absence of tournament results, rankings will be determined by a performance test that will be administered state-wide in one month. Players wishing to be ranked must send a time-stamped videotape that shows the player delivering 50 first serves.  The state will then evaluate the tapes based on accuracy, placement, and speed, and the results will determine everyone’s ranking for the following year.

Only first serves!  No other aspect of one’s game matters, which means that, if you care about where you are ranked, you will not work on the rest of your game, just your first serve.

You could opt out of the test, of course, but that would mean, come tournament time, you would have to hope the directors will cut you some slack.  Maybe they will give you a wild card entry, although wild card entries are little more than opening round sacrificial lambs for the top-ranked players.

It’s a classic lose-lose situation: If you ignore the other aspects of your game and just work on your first serve, you may end up with a good ranking but a crummy all-around game. But if you opt out of the test and instead develop your complete game, you won’t be ranked and probably won’t get into tournaments.

If you’ve read this far, you know that I am actually writing about the Biden Administration’s recent decision to plunge ahead with the mandated standardized bubble tests, despite then-candidate Biden’s public promise to the contrary at a gathering in Pittsburgh. I was there and heard him make the promise.   Why is he going back on that promise? Perhaps he’s been so busy with the pandemic, climate change, Iran, Russia, China, et cetera that this idiotic announcement slipped through unnoticed.

Let’s make him aware of what is being done in his name!

Consider public education’s current circumstances: The pandemic closed down physical school for well over half of students last Spring.  ‘Virtual school’ was a mixed bag across the country, a struggle for teachers, and an abyss for children in families without access to high-speed internet or space at home for them to work without interruption.

Like my hypothetical tennis player, what American students need now is the opportunity to work on all aspects of their game, and that includes relearning how to work with other kids after months and months of isolation.  It means lots of free play, games with other children. It means interesting team projects, preferably ones that involve both classmates and peers from other schools, other towns, other states (and maybe even other countries).  It means opportunities for young people to talk and write about their experiences over recent months.

Doing these things would give trained professionals the time and opportunity to assess the needs of their students.  And by ‘needs,’ I mean educational, physical, emotional, nutritional, et alia.

But because the powers-that-be have blathered on about “Learning Loss,” they have decided that one standardized, machine-scored bubble test will be all-powerful, even though it may be given on-line to some students and under wildly different conditions for other students.  

(A reminder: the term ‘standardized test’ means that the test is given under standard conditions—everybody follows the same rules.)

Because of the Biden Administration’s decision (made, incidentally, before the new Secretary of Education was confirmed), many public schools will focus on test-prep, and on the narrow subjects the test will cover.  Say goodbye (again) to art, music, physical education, extra-curricular activities, and recess.  Just get back to doing what we’ve done since at least 2001 and “No Child Left Behind.”   And the results are completely predictable: students in the wealthy suburbs will do well, and some politicians and so-called ‘reformers’ will spew their usual nonsense about “The Achievement Gap,” and nothing will change.

Ask yourself who benefits besides the established order.  Maybe follow the money??

For a clearer look at how ridiculous and harmful the Biden Administration decision is, read this. 

You, my hypothetical tennis player, do have one other option: Band together with other ranked tennis players in your state and simply refuse to cooperate.  If enough of you take a stand, the authorities will eventually have to give in because they will have no way of creating rankings.

And students, their families, teachers, local school boards, and state education agencies also have that option.  It’s your serve, people!

The giant lumbering beast known as the US Economy–akin to a conveyor belt with countless moving parts–wants public schools to reopen.  The beast needs workers, but right now too many adults are at home, supervising their children’s ‘remote learning.’  Open the schools, and the adults can go to work: it’s that simple….

But of course it isn’t simple.  Putting kids back in schools will allow adults to work, and that’s important, but it is what happens inside schools that matters more.  

A quick history lesson: We’ve always sent our children to school for three reasons: 1) Acquisition of knowledge, 2) Socialization, and 3) Custodial care.  The internet has turned that upside down because it puts infinite information at everyone’s fingertips wherever they happen to be and because thousands of apps allow for ‘socialization’ with anyone and everyone.  That left only custodial care as a vital school function, until the pandemic made even that impossible. 

However, students swimming in a sea of infinite information need guidance, because ‘information’ is not knowledge.  It takes a certain skill set to distinguish between wheat and chaff, and a certain value system to choose the wheat over the chaff.  Skilled teachers make that happen.

Socializing via apps, though convenient, is fraught with peril, because that person you believe to be your age and your gender might be an adult with evil intentions. Skilled teachers help students learn to discern. And skilled teachers see that students use this all-powerful technology for useful purposes.

But perhaps the major lesson of remote learning is that young people want and need to be with their peers.  Apps don’t cut it…and the kids are not alright.

The mental health consequences of prolonged isolation are becoming clearer by the day.  “Students are struggling across the board,” said Jennifer Rothman, senior manager for youth and young adult services at the nonprofit National Alliance on Mental Illness, to The Washington Post in January.  “It’s the social isolation, the loneliness, the changes in their routines.  Students who might never have had a symptom of a mental health condition before the pandemic now have symptoms.” 

If you read my blog last week, you were shocked by one reader’s response:  “John, I’m wondering if we could have a conversation sometime. I am passionate about this subject. Our 13-year old grandchild just committed suicide after returning one single morning to virtual schooling. It was Monday, Jan. 4, first day back, after the holidays. They broke for lunch, Donovan wrote a note…. went outside, and shot himself.”

So when schools reopen, attention must be paid, not to catching up with the curriculum but to the needs of young people.

Now to the present: President Joe Biden has pledged to reopen schools by the end of his first 100 days, a monumental challenge.  Reopening schools is a complex issue, but–sadly and predictably–opportunistic politicians and some in the media are framing the issue as a conflict between the needs of students and the selfish wishes of teachers and, naturally, their unions.  

This false narrative hurts both groups.

Let’s consider where we are right now.  Schooling at home isn’t working for many children for four reasons:  

1. The yawning technology gap–the Digital Divide–between rich and poor and white and non-white;

2. Lack of training.  Few teachers have been trained for on-line instruction, and many–perhaps most–aren’t good at it;  

3. Unimaginative school systems. Most have simply told their teachers to do on line what they normally would be doing in classrooms; and

4. The aforementioned consequences of prolonged isolation. 

Pre-pandemic, Trump’s Secretary of Education spent most of her time and energy subverting public education, favoring vouchers and private religious education above all.  When the Trump Administration suddenly called for reopening schools, Betsy DeVos did an immediate 180 turn–but never once reached out to public educators to ask how the federal government might be of assistance.  She was, in short, happy to see the enterprise flounder.  

It’s not just DeVos and Trump.  Politicians–including school board members–all across the nation have had more than a year to plan for reopening public schools.  They knew vaccines were coming and could have insisted that teachers be seen as “front-line workers” and therefore entitled to getting vaccinated in the first round.  Very few took that basic step, one that would have shown respect for teachers and concern for children.

What have school boards been doing?  Not much. The San Francisco School Board has spent months arguing whether to rename schools for people more admirable than Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, instead of preparing for reopening or pushing to make sure teachers would be vaccinated.  While that’s pathetically politically correct, the behavior of some school boards was borderline criminal, in at least one case allowing their family members to jump the vaccination line ahead of teachers!

And so, today, not even half of states have prioritized the vaccination of teachers and others who work with children in schools.  That’s an absolute disgrace.  As one teacher noted on Twitter, “…for us it’s been about the lack of care and preparedness of the school district, how they’ve treated the teachers and staff, the lack of communication, and the moving goalposts for how and when to reopen.”

And what do we know about the physical condition of schools that our Economy wants reopened?  A 2014 government report concluded that “53 percent of public schools needed to spend money on repairs, renovations, and modernizations to put the school’s onsite buildings in good overall condition. The total amount needed was estimated to be approximately $197 billion, and the average dollar amount for schools needing to spend money was about $4.5 million per school.”

I spent a lot of time in classrooms over the years, and I would say that many of them were poorly ventilated–hot when it was hot, and cold when it was cold. Most were crowded.  A friend who retired from teaching–in a fairly wealthy community–just a few years ago sent me this note:

My last classroom at (XXX) school was an unhealthy environment in the best of times: the sink backed up on a regular basis with smelly toilet water as the pipes were set in concrete and difficult to access when they clogged.  I taped large pieces of styrofoam over the sink to keep the children out of it and to keep the smell down.  One wall of the classroom backed up to the furnace room which spewed toxic fumes. I kept the door open to the hall.  There was NO air ventilation!   It’s going to be an expensive proposition  to properly ventilate old buildings. That’s a reality that needs to be dealt with!

So, yes, schools should reopen as fast as possible–but only after teachers have been vaccinated, classrooms have been provided with adequate ventilation and PPE, and schools have developed safety protocols. In some instances, this will require immediate attention to the physical condition of buildings, because there are public schools in America without hot running water!  

Experts have voiced concerns about what they call ‘Learning Loss,” which they tend to measure in months and sometimes years.  I hope that others find it offensive to define learning in terms of quantity rather than quality, but let’s save that for another day.  That said, it’s absolutely essential that adults stop obsessing about ‘learning loss.’  Cancel the damn standardized tests.  Meet the children where they are.  

Our giant lumbering economy wants schools reopened for another reason: It needs what our schools produce, high school graduates.  After all, America’s education system has been a reliable conveyor belt, moving students along for 12 years before dumping them out into society.  Higher education has come to depend on a fresh supply of close to 2 million freshmen each fall.  Branches of the military need recruits, and so on.

COVID has stopped the conveyor belt entirely in some places, and slowed it down considerably elsewhere, but I believe that many who are demanding that the conveyor belt be restarted are not thinking about either students or teachers. They want to get back to ‘normal.’

That ain’t happening, and we must embrace that reality.  This school year is unlike any other. For those students who have been able to stay on track, congratulations and Godspeed.  But for those whose lives have been turned upside down, they have not failed!  They shouldn’t have to go to summer school, have their ‘learning loss’ measured and published, or be held back.  

They should get a mulligan, a blame-free, no fault do-over.   

And finally, let’s acknowledge that the interests of teachers and students are aligned. They may not sync up with the interests of higher education, restaurants, bars et cetera, but students and teachers are in this together.

This short piece attempts to make two points. First, public education must stop trying to ‘get back to normal,’ because “normal” isn’t anywhere near good enough to justify continued large public investments of taxpayer dollars in public education. As widespread school reopenings draw closer, I believe that educators face decisions that will, at the end of the day, determine whether public education survives. And, if they mess it up, Jeff Bezos is lurking in the wings!

A second point: The young people who will be returning to classrooms have endured (and are still living through) an unprecedented time of crises–not just COVID-caused isolation but also economic hardship, political turmoil, and often severe stress in their homes, including (perhaps) abuse. For those reasons, simply trying to “get back to normal” in classrooms is a terrible idea. It’s time to step up for our children, meet them where they are, and do what’s right. Stop blathering about ‘learning loss’ and ‘closing the achievement gap’ and other diversions!

Point One: As schools prepare for reopening, traditional public schools and the men and women running them are facing serious choices.  Ironically, this week, January 24-30, happens to be “School Choice Week,” a gimmick created ten years ago by conservatives to advance the charter school and voucher movements.  I.E., “School Choice Week” exists to undermine traditional public education.

(SIDEBAR: In case you are curious, the ‘School Choice Week’ website does not list its funders, but, as Valerie Strauss reported in the Washington Post,  “According to the Center for Media and Democracy, the National School Choice Week website listed the American Federation for Children, the Walton Family Fund, ALEC, SPN, the Freedom Foundation, FreedomWorks, Cato Institute, Reason Foundation, the Heritage Foundation, the James Madison Institute, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as education partners in 2016. Using the Wayback Machine, you will also find so-called progressive organizations such as Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), KIPP and Education Reform Now on the partners’ list that year.”

For the past four years, the school choice movement was aligned, and sometimes supportive of, the harshly anti-public school policies of Betsy DeVos, but the end of the Trump era has put Choice advocates in a tough spot, as this fascinating article by Avi Wolfman-Arent from WHYY details.)

The hostility of the right is not the greatest threat to a healthy public school system, however.  More dangerous is the continued acceptance of test-based accountability, the notion that true learning (and teacher quality) can be measured by standardized, machine-scored bubble tests.  The Presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama gave us “No Child Left Behind” and “Race to the Top,” 16 years of heartless policies that drove out art, music, physical education, recess, and anything else that made schools interesting and vital places for children and adults.  Those policies also produced flat-line scores on our national test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, by the way.

For public education to survive, Arthur Camins, until recently as Director of the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education at Stevens Institute of Technology, says it’s time for a divorce.  He writes: 

“It is time for Democrats to file for a divorce from a four-decade bipartisan education policy marriage.  The case is clearer now than ever. There are irreconcilable differences. A marriage with one partner committed to competition as an improvement driver and the other to equity and democracy is an inevitable failure. A partnership in which one party prioritizes tax cuts and deregulation for the wealthy and the other quality education for everyone results in abuse of the least powerful partner.”

But divorce alone won’t do it, and neither will abandoning test-based accountability.  Public schools must stand for something. 

Why? Because Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has his eye on taking over public education!  Don’t laugh! 

“Jeff Bezos’ $2 billion investment to establish a Montessori-inspired network of preschools may be shrugged off by many as the world’s richest man dabbling in another playground. Instead, we should see it for what it is: the early days of Amazon’s foray into public education.”

And later in the same article, these chilling sentences:  “Public education offers Amazon access to a unique resource—the consumers, and employees, of the future, along with their user behavior, preferences and countless other data points. It’s easy to imagine why Amazon, a company famous for its powerful recommendation engines that personalize, and optimize, each user’s experience, would do anything to be able to collect years’ worth of data on a student by the time she graduated from high school and into adulthood. Future profits from owning that data would all but guarantee the return on Amazon’s investment, even if the company were to provide its educational services at a steeply discounted rate that made it hard for anyone else to compete.”

I urge you to read Dominik Dresel’s full piece in EdSurge. It’s alarming, as Diane Ravitch pointed out in her blog, dianeravitch.net.

So, what to do?  How can public education 1) turn aside the potential threat from Jeff Bezos and the genuine challenge of the right wing charter/voucher movement, 2) strengthen its position with the public, and 3) meet the critical needs of today’s children?   

To repeat an important point, it is not sufficient to be AGAINST something.  So what must public education be FOR in order to fight off external threats AND help children grow to their fullest potential?

For starters, here’s some thoughtful advice from Teresa Thayer Snyder, former superintendent of the Voorheesville district in upstate New York. She wrote on her Facebook page. 

When the children return to school, they will have returned with a new history that we will need to help them identify and make sense of. When the children return to school, we will need to listen to them. Let their stories be told. They have endured a year that has no parallel in modern times. There is no assessment that applies to who they are or what they have learned. Remember, their brains did not go into hibernation during this year. Their brains may not have been focused on traditional school material, but they did not stop either. Their brains may have been focused on where their next meal is coming from, or how to care for a younger sibling, or how to deal with missing grandma, or how it feels to have to surrender a beloved pet, or how to deal with death. Our job is to welcome them back and help them write that history.

Bear in mind that she wrote this before the January 6 insurrection at our Nation’s Capital. (I’m happy to report that her words have gone viral, largely due to praise from Diane Ravitch in her blog.)

But it’s also essential to begin making schools less autocratic and more democratic, because as Deborah Meier and others have noted, democracy requires practice, and, as we all know from experience, schools are intensely autocratic: line up, raise your hand, be quiet, and on and on.  

What better place to start practicing democracy than in classrooms?  Teachers can make the classrooms more democratic by letting students develop the rules for classroom behavior–I.E. for their own behavior.  

As I wrote back in March, 2019:  “I am partial to teachers and classrooms where the children spend some time deciding what the rules should be, figuring out what sort of classroom they want to spend their year in. I watched that process more than a few times. First, the teacher asks her students for help.

Children, let’s make some rules for our classroom.  What do you think is important? 

Or she might lead the conversation in certain directions:

What if someone knows the answer to a question?  Should they just yell it out, or should they raise their hand and wait to be called on?

Or: If one of you has to use the bathroom, should you just get up and walk out of class? Or should we have a signal?  And what sort of signal should we use?

It should not surprise you to learn that, in the end, the kids come up with reasonable rules: Listen, Be Respectful, Raise Your Hand Be Kind, and so forth.  But there’s a difference, because these are their rules.”

Those words–Kind, Safe, Respectful–are found in store-bought laminated posters, but when students create the rules, they own them and are therefore more likely to adhere to them.

That’s just a beginning. And, while making schools behave democratically does not mean that the kids take up, it does mean making certain that education is both child-centric and personalized, because the goal is to move toward a public system that gives young people more agency over their own learning. The adults must ask an essential question about each child “How is she smart?” instead of “How smart is she?” They must listen to the answers and then open doors that allow students to follow their interests and develop their talents.  

Eventually, this will mean students of different ages in different states (or even different countries!) working together on projects.  In these schools, students are no longer the product; instead, they are workers, producing knowledge.

For education leaders at this critical moment, imagination and courage are essential, along with the willingness to take risks.

Some other suggestions:

1. Give kids time and space to get accustomed to being with peers, even socially distanced, for the first time in many months, while recognizing that social and emotional learning (SEL) may matter more than book-learning for these first weeks and months, because we don’t know the effects of isolation. 

2. Make time for lots of free play.  Schools need to be happy places

3. Suspend high stakes testing for the foreseeable future–and perhaps permanently–while also calling a halt to hand wringing conversations  about ‘remediation’ or ‘learning loss,’ because that’s blaming the victim, big time.  Some states, including New York, are calling on the US Department of Education to suspend its requirements, something that then-candidate Biden pledged to do at a Presidential Candidates Forum in Pittsburgh in December, 2019. I was there and heard him with my own ears. Let’s push him and his choice for Secretary of Education to follow through!

While these steps are simple, they won’t be easy. However, our children’s futures are at stake. Not only that, children who practice democracy in school are more likely to be small-d democrats as adults and less likely to fall for the snake oil of demagogues like you-know-who.

And if positive motivation isn’t enough to spur educators to do the right things, remind them that Jeff Bezos is lurking in the wings!!!

COVID-19  was responsible for the deaths of hundreds and hundreds of teachers in 2020, enough alone to make the year an ‘annus horribilis,’ to borrow Queen Elizabeth II’s phrase.  But the world of education also lost Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Lewis, Sir Ken Robinson, Jim Lehrer and Les Crystal of the PBS NewsHour,  the Reverend Darius L. Swann, David K. Cohen, Arnold Packer, and (on the island of Martha’s Vineyard) Nelson Bryant, Lee Fierro, and Dr. Susan Whiting Shanock.

Although they weren’t educators per se, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and U.S. Representative John Lewis contributed mightily to the cause of public education: Justice Ginsburg by the cases she brought as an attorney and the cases she decided while on the Supreme Court, and Mr. Lewis by his work as a student leader and his leadership in the struggle for civil rights as a protestor and as a member of Congress.  Barriers against women, in education and in the workplace, fell because of RBG. John Lewis nearly lost his life on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, but it was that savage beating that led directly to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

I probably should have placed my tribute to Sir Ken Robinson at the end of this post, because I am going to ask that those who haven’t seen his TED talk, the most widely viewed in TED’s history, to please do so.  Viewed by an estimated 380,000,000 people, the short talk is profound. Its message, which is as relevant today as when he spoke, demonstrates how much the world lost when Sir Ken died in August at age 70 after a short battle with cancer.  Knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003 for his service to the arts, Sir Ken was “named as one of Time/Fortune/CNN’s ‘Principal Voices’; acclaimed by Fast Company magazine as one of ‘the world’s elite thinkers on creativity and innovation’ and ranked in the Thinkers50 list of the world’s top business thinkers,” quoting from an obituary. 

Technically, PBS NewsHour co-founder Jim Lehrer and long-time Executive Producer Les Crystal were not teachers.  However, Jim and Les (with Robin MacNeil and Deputy Executive Producer Linda Winslow) built what began as The MacNeil/Lehrer Report in 1975 into the nation’s most trusted source of news.  While Jim and Les taught me a great deal, more importantly their PBS program educated millions of Americans five nights a week for many, many years….and continues to do so today.

A quick story about the kind of man Jim was: Sometime in 2006 while wandering around Bangkok, I came across a peddler selling tiny vehicles fashioned out of soda cans. At first I saw only replicas of taxi-like vehicles, but under the pile I spotted a bus. I immediately thought of Jim, whose bus collection was legendary.  His office was full of bus memorabilia, some no doubt from the work sites of his father, a bus dispatcher in Oklahoma and elsewhere. What’s more, the basement of the Lehrer home in DC was a carefully arranged display of bus memorabilia that Jim enjoyed showing to visitors.  Even though I spent lots of time in Jim’s office and had toured his basement, I nevertheless bought the tacky, tinny, tiny bus home and later presented it to Jim.  He could not have been more gracious; his words and his smile implied that this piece was the one item he had been searching for, in vain, the world over, and for years!  Odds are, of course, that Jim had been given this particular thing more than a few times….and had been as gracious to the other gift-givers as he was to me. (If you’re not familiar with Billy Collins’ poem, The Lanyard, please click this link.)

The Reverend Darius L. Swann, who died at 96, also contributed to the struggle for equality in education. Although I never interviewed him, I knew his name because his 1964 lawsuit led directly to the 1971 Supreme Court decision known as Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg that upheld busing as a legal means of desegregation.  

The Associated Press reported it this way:  “On Sept. 2, 1964, Swann wrote a letter to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board, asking that his son James be allowed to attend Seversville School, two blocks from his home, rather than the all-black Biddleville School, which was more than twice as far away. He was allowed to argue his case at a subsequent meeting of the school board, which suggested that the Swanns enroll James in Biddleville, then request a transfer.

The Swanns said no thanks. “We figured that the system was really protecting segregation,” Swann told The Associated Press in an interview in 2000. “What they wanted to do was decide things on a case-by-case basis, when what they needed to do was change the whole system; there was a systemic problem.”

Enlisting the support of local activist Reginald Hawkins and civil rights attorney Julius Chambers, Swann sued the school system in January 1965. While they pursued their legal fight, the Swanns enrolled James and his younger sister, Edith, in a private Lutheran school. After one year there, the Swanns moved their children to Eastover, a public school in the affluent, predominantly white Myers Park neighborhood.

Chambers continued the lawsuit even after the Swanns moved to New York, where Swann and his wife worked at Columbia University, and later to Hawaii before moving to India, where he researched Asian theater.    …

In 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld court-ordered busing in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district, clearing the way for the use of busing as a means of desegregation. Swann learned of the decision while he was in a mountain village in India and read about it in an English-language newspaper.”

Finally, David K. Cohen and Arnold Packer, two men who contributed mightily to the education of others–and who also shaped my own professional life as much as anyone.   If you are at all wonkish about education, you are familiar with “The Shopping Mall High School,” which David, Arthur K. Powell, and Eleanor Farrar wrote in 1999.   Subtitled “Winners and Losers in the Educational MarketPlace,” the book was reviewed by Albert Shanker, a giant in the world of education.  He called it “A sobering analysis of current conditions in our secondary schools and how they got that way.”

A gifted writer, David was an even better teacher.  (Irony of ironies, David was also my wife’s favorite teacher when she attended the Harvard Graduate School of Education eleven years later.)  David was my doctoral thesis advisor, and a friend for many years thereafter.  He inspired thousands of other students to dig deeper and to ask questions. Moreover, he convinced self-doubting students–like me–that they could swim in a bigger pond, in deeper water.  

Dr. Arnold Packer, known everywhere as Arnie, was an economist, not an educator, and that was part of his appeal.  Plain-spoken and direct, Arnie had little patience for the love of jargon that seems to afflict the majority of educators.  “What does that mean, actually?” he would ask when some cloud of verbiage was filling a room.  He had serious credentials in the world of education because he was the principal architect of what were known as the SCANS skills.

If I may, another quick trip down memory lane: Sometime around 2002, Arnie and I created an interactive curriculum to teach math and writing to HS students. This unlikely partnership between an economist and a reporter came about because he and I sat together at an education conference, an experience that activated the BS detector mentioned above, big time. When the meeting ended, we went to a bar, and–after two or three beers–decided that we could do a much better job than the educators.

And we actually created a plan, first scribbled on napkins at the bar, then in prose, and then in a proposal to the US Department of Education, which was funding innovation in curriculum using technology.  We partnered with Baltimore City Schools and–wonder of wonders–got a multi-million dollar grant (most of it went to the school system).   

The high school English and Math curriculum we created was interactive and computer-based. Working in teams, students had to become merchants who were selling something in a mall. Big decisions about rent, store frontage, what to sell, staffing, loans, etc. That meant lots of math. They also had to write and present their business plan—to real business men and women–meaning writing and public speaking. 

Some English and math teachers teamed, and others did not, meaning we had a natural experiment. It worked, producing statistically significant differences in both subjects, plus improved attendance.  Arnie and I were over the moon, until the system killed it because it was logistically difficult to arrange schedules, or some crap like that. 

The trio—Arnie, John, and beer—cannot share credit equally, because Arnie was the driving force.  Later we worked together to create what Arnie called the “Verified Resumé,” an electronic portfolio that could be updated to reflect newly acquired skills, much more than college credits.  Again Arnie was the driving force, and I was his eager wingman.

Finally, here on Martha’s Vineyard, where I’ve been living since March, we lost Nelson Bryant, the venerable New York Times columnist who educated millions of readers about the intricate charms and essential value of the outdoors and Lee Fierro, a high school drama teacher who found fame as the actor who slapped Roy Scheider in “Jaws.”  Bryant, who parachuted into occupied France during World War II, was 96.  Fierro, who was 91, died of coronavirus complications, And finally, Dr. Susan Whiting Shanok, who although she was an international mediator who taught nations how to get along, is best remembered on the island for an incident that occurred many summers ago.  A teenager, Susan was working as a waitress, and one day she spilled an entire bowl of hot soup on the ‘Tough Guy’ actor and summer resident Jimmy Cagney.  Her immediate response: “Don’t worry, Mr. Cagney, I’ll get you another bowl of soup.”

Thanks to all of you, and may you rest in peace……

Because I’ve reached the age and stage where memories blend, fade away, or are exaggerated beyond recognition, I cannot recall whether the insight, “If my students aren’t learning, then I am not teaching,” was uttered by a veteran colleague from my 4-year teaching stint, whether it came from one of the thousands of teachers I interviewed over 41 years of reporting, or whether I read it somewhere.  I know I didn’t come up with it.  But it really doesn’t matter.  What matters is that, even though many other factors–such as health, nutrition, inadequate shelter, and abuse–can and do interfere with learning, good teachers always take it personally when their students aren’t succeeding.

That’s why it’s truly depressing to read that, in some school districts, about half of the students are receiving failing grades.  The reliable Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post is on the story.   

Here are a few site-specific stories you might want to peruse:  Maryland. Iowa City, Iowa.  Tucson, Arizona.  Houston, Texas.  Northern California. 

When the pandemic struck this spring, most school districts shifted to on-line schooling, and grading became ‘pass/fail.’  That approach to grading has been abandoned, even though on-line learning is ubiquitous, because, as Ed Week’s Stephen Sawchuck noted,  

“…as the crisis continued and school began in the fall, most districts reverted to their old grading systems, in part because of the infrastructure that depends on those grades: Senior transcripts need to be prepared for college admissions. Grades determine access to specialized middle school programs, magnet schools, and sports scholarships.”

Stop and think about what this means.  First of all, giving out failing grades essentially puts the blame squarely on the students, who must live with the consequences of an unimpressive transcript. Some critics of public education also want to blame teachers for those failing grades, but the venerable truth I began this essay with no longer holds true.  

What’s true in this age of pandemic schooling is this: “When most students are not learning, then the system itself is broken and must be examined from the ground up.”  

Apparently school boards and some educators have been working overtime to ‘get back to normal.’  That’s a huge mistake, because ‘normal’ wasn’t all that great for most students.

I wrote about this at some length in “Addicted to Reform: A 12-Step Program to Rescue Public Education” and won’t attempt to reprise everything here.  But this point is worth emphasizing: schools should be using assessments to help improve both learning and teaching.  In shorthand, “Assess to Improve. Don’t Test to Punish!” 

High-stakes testing should be a thing of the past for this school year.  Beyond that, we should debate the costs and benefits before embracing the policies of the Bush and Obama Administrations.  Outgoing Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has suspended the annual National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP, which tests only a small sample of students in a few grades.  At the same time, she and others seem to be supporting end-of-year tests for all students.  This is, to be blunt, just plain stupid!  Keep the NAEP testing, and drop the high-stakes end-of-year tests.

Maybe this school year should be thought of as a game of golf among friends.  If you hit a good shot, great. If your shot goes awry for whatever reason, take a mulligan.  Some students will ask for letter grades, and that’s fine.  Others should have the opportunity to take different paths without fear of punishment.

My essay about this earlier this year included these words: 

With school buildings shuttered, students do not have to ‘attend’ anything.  They can log on to classes to get credit for ‘being there,’ but there’s no way for the teachers to know who’s paying attention and who’s FaceTiming friends.  More than 25% of students in Los Angeles, for example, aren’t even bothering to log on, and even parents who are monitoring their children’s efforts cannot be certain that they’re paying attention.  

So the parents and teachers might consider asking questions, instead of simply giving assignments: 

          What would make this material appealing to you? 

          What would persuade you to invest your energies in this subject? 

          What else are you interested in?  

For example, perhaps focusing on one subject at a time might be more appealing than trying to study five subjects every day.  The block schedule of 50-minute periods may work inside school buildings, but that doesn’t mean it can transfer to the home.  What if we compressed the semester of American history or American Literature into the month of May? Would a series of deep dives be more engaging?  For openers, try asking the students.

However, students shouldn’t get to make all the decisions about what they’re studying.  After all, a central purpose of the early years of school is the transmission of knowledge, and so the basics are also part of the deal.  Children need to learn spelling rules (“I before E, except after C”), the multiplication tables, how to divide and carry, and other basics. They need to know that letters have sounds associated with them (i.e., Phonics and Phonemic Awareness).  Someone has to teach them that, if you put an E at the end of words like ‘ton,’ the O sound changes from ‘short’ to ‘long.’ While that may seem like heavy lifting for parents who haven’t trained to teach, they can relax.  Free resources like the Khan Academy, ReadWorks, and Zearn are available to help children and parents with basic skills. Resources are plentiful: PBS is making all of Ken Burns’ documentaries available for screening, and former first lady Michelle Obama is on line, reading stories to young children, to cite just two examples.

Young people must be deeply involved in setting the learning goals and in figuring out how results will be measured.  It makes no sense to wait for bubble test results.  Teachers, parents, and students should assess progress frequently, take a clear-headed look at the results, and adapt accordingly. That also means that leadership must abandon the all-too-prevalent “Gotcha” attitude toward teachers. The new thinking has to be “Assess to improve,” and not “Test to punish.”

Plan teaching with that in mind. Don’t take it personally when the student/your child doesn’t get it the first time, or the fifth. Explore the reasoning behind the error, but not punitively. Celebrate wherever possible.  Parents can teach their children valuable skills through family activities like cooking, playing board games, and planting a spring garden.  Above all, parents should recognize that they are learners too, because that makes it perfectly OK to say, “I don’t know, so let’s find out together.”   And leave plenty of time for play……

“Plenty of time for play” cannot be stressed enough. Unfortunately, it’s not part of an otherwise admirable report from the Learning Policy Institute about the importance of reimagining and redesigning public education during and after Covid.

Erika Christakis covers this territory in an engaging and provocative essay in The Atlantic.  “School Wasn’t So Great Before COVID, Either” is her catchy title.  Please take the time to consider her arguments.

COVID-19 vaccines will be given to health care workers and other front-line workers in the very near future.  In most states, it’s all but certain that teachers will be among the first to get vaccinated, meaning that most schools will reopen.  But, please please please, do not try to ‘get back to normal.’ 

My suggestions: 

    1. Make the institution more (small d) democratic. 

2. Give students more agency over their own learning. 

3. Give kids time and space to get accustomed to being with peers, even socially distanced, for the first time in many months.  

4. Social and emotional learning may matter more than book-learning for these first weeks and months, because we don’t know the effects of isolation. 

5. Lots of free play. 

6. And maybe this is (finally) the time to move away from age segregation and group children instead according to the interests and their level of accomplishment.  

7. Finally, NO hand-wringing about ‘remediation’ or ‘learning loss,’ because that’s blaming the victim, big time.

What do you think we should do for all our children?

I know that I interviewed hundreds of future Trump supporters during my 41 years of reporting on public education for PBS and NPR. I’m also pretty sure that I taught some of them in high school 55 years ago.  Joey L. is a case in point.  Joey was a junior back in 1966 when he was in my English class, so he would be about 70 years old today.  Back then most public schools (including his, Paul D. Schreiber High School in Port Washington, NY) tracked students into groups.  Joey had been placed in the third level in its 1-5 system of tracking, and Level 3 was certainly not a winner’s track.

I was a rookie teacher, assigned to teach only 3’s and 4’s, and Joey was in my class. I knew nothing about tracking–and therefore nothing about how the Administration viewed my students. I didn’t see them as ‘losers’ or even as ‘others.’ They were my students, and I wanted and expected them to work hard, think, and write and rewrite.

“MacBeth” was part of the curriculum, and because I suspected that Shakespeare might be tough sledding, I got the Caedmon recording of the tragedy and played it in class. My students (including Joey) understood it and began arguing in class about MacBeth’s and Lady MacBeth’s guilt. Out of that came the notion of putting the two of them on trial for first degree murder.

Which we did.

Some students were lawyers, others were the defendants or witnesses for the defense and prosecution. In order to testify, they had to know the play backwards and forwards, of course. We had a jury of students and persuaded the Principal to be the presiding judge. I also required everyone to write up each day’s proceedings as if they were reporters. It was a whirlwind couple of weeks.

But what I remember most clearly was a letter from Joey’s mother that arrived a week or two later. Written on lined paper in simple language and penmanship that reminded me of a child’s, the letter thanked me for keeping Joey in school. Joey’s Mom said that her son had gotten so frustrated with being talked down to and looked down on that he had given up on school. She wrote that she had to fight with him every day just to get him out of bed in the morning, but that now he couldn’t wait to get to school.

I had no idea what she was talking about, because Joey wasn’t indifferent or detached in my English class. He was an eager student, fun to teach. Why was she thanking me?

Of course, I cherished the letter because it made me feel great. Only much much later did I begin to think about the system that Joey and I were part of: Here was a bright kid from a working class family who had been relegated to Level 3. He was being forced into the drudgery of a high school curriculum in which he had no interest and which promised him nothing in the way of a promising future.  A teacher came along who expected more and who respected his intelligence, and Joey responded.

Actually, almost all kids respond to how adults treat them. They live up or down to their teachers’ expectations, which is why sorting young children is a bad idea.

However, this process of sorting is by design.  Some students are placed in a course of study leading to elite colleges, prominence, and financial success.  These kids get the most experienced teachers, varied and challenging curricula, and interesting field trips.

Today overt tracking is morally repugnant and even illegal, but still schools manage to group students, treating some as ‘winners,’ the rest as, well, ‘not winners.’   While test scores–themselves subject to class bias–are taken into account, grouping seems to be based not on innate ability but on parental education, family income, race, and class. By third or fourth grade most kids know, deep down, whether the system sees them as ‘winners’ bound for college or ‘losers’ headed somewhere else.  

And while young people like Joey aren’t labeled ‘losers’ per se, they are told that college is the only path to adult success but are largely left to struggle on their own. That experience leaves many angry, frustrated and resentful, not to mention largely unprepared for life in a complex, rapidly changing society.   Why would they become active participants in a political process that is directed and dominated by the now grown up ‘winners’ from their school days? 

Most of them stayed away–non-voters–until one day a candidate who seemed to understand their resentment came along.

Because I left Schreiber High School after two years, I don’t know what happened to Joey. However, because the system rarely bumped students out of their designated track, it’s likely that Joey stayed in Track 3, along with the rest of ‘the others.’  While I hope the young man caught a break, it’s easy to imagine him growing frustrated, putting in the seat time necessary to get his diploma. Hanging out with his buddies, getting into trouble from time to time. Maybe community college, maybe the armed services, and maybe pulling the lever for Trump in 2016 and 2020.

Recent ‘education reforms’ actually made matters worse for kids like Joey. Test-based accountability punished schools if most of their students failed to achieve a minimum test score. George Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” and Barack Obama’s “Race to the Top” led to a narrow curriculum without art, music, and even science; lots of time spent practicing how to take tests; no more recess; and what I call ‘regurgitation education’–especially for the 75-80% of students who hadn’t been sorted into the top tier. ‘Regurgitation education’ rewards parroting back answers, while devaluing intellectual curiosity, cooperative learning, projects, field trips, the arts, physical education, and citizenship. 

This fundamentally anti-intellectual approach also failed to produce results.  Scores on our National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) have largely remained flat and in some instances have gone down. What’s more, students aren’t even retaining what we are demanding they regurgitate.  For example, a survey in 2016 revealed that one-third of Americans cannot name any of the three branches of our government, and half do not know the number of US Senators.

(Apparently our elected officials aren’t much better:  Senator-elect Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, a public school graduate and a Republican, recently incorrectly identified the three branches of our government as the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives.)

Reducing kids to test scores has produced generations of graduates whose teachers and curriculum did not help them develop the habit of asking questions, digging deep, or discovering and following their passion. Because of how they were treated in school, many Americans have not grown into curious, socially conscious adults.

While Donald Trump embraced those he called ‘the poorly educated,’ that’s the incorrect term. These men and women are not ‘poorly educated,’ ‘undereducated,’ or ‘uneducated.’ They have been miseducated, an important distinction. For the most part, their schools have treated them as objects, as empty vessels to pour information into so it can be regurgitated back on tests.

The sorting process also produces elitists who feel superior to the largely invisible ‘losers’ from their school days.  Arguably, those chickens came home to roost in the 2016 Presidential election.  Candidate Clinton calling Trump supporters ‘A Bucket of Deplorables‘ probably cost her the Presidency in 2016.  But in all likelihood she was speaking her personal truth, because, after all, her public school had identified her as a ‘winner,‘ one of the elite. It’s perfectly understandable that she had trouble identifying with people who had been energized by Donald Trump.

Sorting is inevitable, because students try out for teams and plays, apply to colleges, and eventually seek employment, but let’s postpone sorting for as long as possible. A new approach to schooling must ask a different question about each young child. Let’s stop asking, “How intelligent are you?”  Let’s ask instead, “How are you intelligent?”   Every child has interests, and those can be tapped and nurtured in schools designed to provide opportunities for children to succeed as they pursue paths of their own choosing. Giving children agency over their education—with appropriate guidance and supervision—will produce graduates better equipped to cope with today’s changing world, and a larger supply of informed voters.

Reimagining public education is a long-term challenge.  The new Biden administration must also chart a course that will win over a significant number of voters who pulled the lever for Donald J. Trump in 2016 and 2020.

To change the minds of some of the 73 million adults who voted for Trump, the Biden Administration has to persuade them that their government works for them. Because actions speak louder than words, a call for ‘healing’ won’t cut it. Instead, we need drastic action, a modern-day GI Bill that includes action on at least these four fronts:

1) A National Service program that employs people to help distribute COVID vaccines and perform contact tracing, in addition to rebuilding parks and national forests and working in difficult jobs in remote places. These jobs must pay a living wage and provide for college/vocational training thereafter. Too many of these activities have been relying on volunteer workers, who have all but disappeared because of the pandemic, as the New York Times reported recently. (The full report is here.)

2) A serious federal program to rebuild our aging infrastructure of roads and bridges and build out broadband across the nation. This would create millions of well-paying jobs. One plan can be found here.

3) Grants to states to support free or low-cost vocational training in community colleges and vocational schools for those seeking career change or promotion. This is vital because the Democratic Party is becoming (or has become) the Party of the college-educated, which is not a compliment.  

Even those who can drive a nail and rewire a lamp with some degree of confidence ought to be in awe of the highly competent mechanics who repair, install, and calibrate HVAC systems, which requires skilled carpentry, electrical wiring, and placement, installation, and soldering of ducts and plumbing.  Or the well-trained people who keep your car in tune. These men and women have something to show for their work at the end of the day.

Unfortunately, too many Democrats behave as if workers aren’t worthy. The words of the great John W. Gardner ought to be prominently displayed in every political office, and taken to heart by every political leader:

“The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.“

4) A concerted effort to relieve student loan debt that is crippling so many young adults. The Biden Administration can act on its own in small ways (and candidate Biden pledged to forgive $10,000 of federal debt per student), but Congressional action is needed for anything major. Certainly those who successfully perform National Service for an agreed-upon time should have some portion of their student loan debt forgiven.

John F. Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country,” but this is not a Kennedy-like appeal to idealism. Nor is it a disguised form of charity, “make-work” programs for those who can’t find jobs. Rather, this is purely transactional: The United States needs you, and you need the United States.

Call it “US Needs US.” Done right, this will be a better deal for everyone…..And, since Joe Biden’s favorite expression is ‘Here’s the deal,” maybe he will decide to call it “A Better Deal!“

To end where I began, we must begin now to fundamentally change our schools so they don’t keep on producing adults who are disconnected, disaffected, resentful, xenophobic, and sometimes scared of the future. Many are an easy mark for a candidate who promises easy solutions and a return to what they like to believe was a far better world. IE, Trump voters in 2016 and 2020.

While a clear majority of voters preferred Joe Biden over Trump, we aren’t out of the woods. The COVID crisis is also an opportunity to reimagine public education. Let’s not spend valuable energy trying to “get back to normal” in education, because, unless we create schools that respect and nurture our children, we run the risk of once again electing a quasi-fascist demagogue. That, I fear, would be the end of the American experiment.

Three Big Questions: 1) How many of the nearly 73 million Americans who voted for President Donald J. Trump can be persuaded to support President Joe Biden? 2) How can Democrats connect with them? 3) Can we (not just Democrats) fix our schools so they don’t keep turning out angry and disaffected graduates who eagerly support demagogues?

I suspect that the hard core racists, the white nationalists, the anti-semites, the misogynists, Islamaphobes, and other close-minded bigots who voted for Trump aren’t persuadable, nor are greedy, selfish voters who care only about their finances.

But, as I see it, that leaves many millions of Trump voters who might be open to change. Let’s not scorn or mock them but rather try to understand their position.

To change the minds of adults who voted for Trump, we have to persuade them that their government works for them. Because actions speak louder than words, a call for ‘healing’ won’t cut it. Instead, we need drastic action, a modern-day GI Bill that includes action on at least these four fronts:

1) A National Service program that employs people to help distribute COVID vaccines and perform contact tracing, in addition to rebuilding parks and national forests and working in difficult jobs in remote places. These jobs must pay a living wage and provide for college/vocational training thereafter. Too many of these activities have been relying on volunteer workers, who have all but disappeared because of the pandemic, as the New York Times reported recently. (The full report is here.)

2) A serious federal program to rebuild our aging infrastructure of roads and bridges and build out broadband across the nation. This would create millions of well-paying jobs. One plan can be found here.

3) Grants to states to support free or low-cost vocational training in community colleges and vocational schools for those seeking career change or promotion. This is vital because the Democratic Party is becoming (or has become) the Party of the college-educated, which is not a compliment. Too many Democrats behave as if workers aren’t worthy. The words of the great John W. Gardner ought to be prominently displayed in every political office, and taken to heart by every political leader:

“The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.“

4) A concerted effort to relieve student loan debt that is crippling so many young adults. The Biden Administration can act on its own in small ways (and candidate Biden pledged to forgive $10,000 of federal debt per student), but Congressional action is needed for anything major. Certainly those who successfully perform National Service for an agreed-upon time should have some portion of their student loan debt forgiven.

John F. Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country,” but this is not a Kennedy-like appeal to idealism. Nor is it a disguised form of charity, “make-work” programs for those who can’t find jobs. Rather, this is purely transactional: The United States needs you, and you need the United States.

Call it “US Needs US.” Done right, this will be a better deal for everyone…..And, since Joe Biden’s favorite expression is ‘Here’s the deal,” maybe he will decide to call it “A Better Deal!“

At the same time we must fundamentally change our schools so they don’t keep on producing adults who will follow candidates like Donald Trump!

I taught some Trump voters in a New York public high school in the mid-1960’s. Since then I’ve been with them in thousands of classrooms during my 41 years as a reporter. I’ve seen up close how our public school system sorts students into ‘winners’ and ‘others’ by design. This creates adults who are disconnected, disaffected, resentful, xenophobic, and sometimes scared of the future. Many are an easy mark for a candidate who promises easy solutions and a return to what they like to believe was a far better world. IE, Trump voters in 2016 and 2020.

Joey Levy was either a sophomore or a junior back in 1965 or 1966 when I was his English teacher, so he would be about 70 years old today. His high school in Port Washington, New York, had placed him in the third level in its 1-5 system of tracking, and Level 3 was certainly not a winner’s track.

I was a rookie teacher, assigned to teach only 3’s and 4’s, and Joey was in my class. I knew nothing about tracking–and therefore nothing about how the Administration viewed my students. I didn’t see them as ‘losers’ or even as ‘others.’ They were my students, and I wanted and expected them to work hard, think, and write and rewrite.

“MacBeth” was part of the curriculum, and because I suspected that Shakespeare might be tough sledding, I got the Caedmon recording of the tragedy and played it in class. My students (including Joey) understood it and began arguing in class about MacBeth’s and Lady MacBeth’s guilt. Out of that came the notion of putting the two of them on trial for first degree murder.

Which we did.

Some students were lawyers, others were the defendants or witnesses for the defense and prosecution. They had to know the play backwards and forwards, of course. We had a jury of students and persuaded the Principal to be the presiding judge. I think I required everyone to write up each day’s proceedings as if they were reporters. It was a whirlwind week.

But what I remember most clearly was a letter from Joey’s mother that arrived a week or two later. Written on lined paper in simple language and penmanship that reminded me of a child’s, the letter thanked me for keeping Joey in school. Joey’s Mom said that her son had gotten so frustrated with being talked down to and looked down on that he had given up on school. She wrote that she had to fight with him every day just to get him out of bed in the morning, but that now he couldn’t wait to get to school.

I had no idea what she was talking about, because Joey wasn’t indifferent or detached in my English class. He was an eager student, fun to teach. Why was she thanking me?

Of course, I cherished the letter because it made me feel great. Only much much later did I begin think about the system that Joey and I were part of: Here was a bright kid from a working class family who had been relegated to Level 3. A teacher came along who expected more and who respected his intelligence, and Joey responded.

Most kids respond. They live up or down to their teachers’ expectations, which is why sorting young children is a bad idea.

Make no mistake: This process of sorting is by design. Most public schools sort young children in two basic groups:  The minority, designated as ‘winners,’ are placed on a track leading to elite colleges, prominence, and financial success.  These kids get the most experienced teachers, varied and challenging curricula, and interesting field trips.

Although formal tracking has fallen out of favor, nearly all schools still have subtle ways of designating winners and losers, often based as much on parental education and income, race, and class as innate ability. By third or fourth grade most kids know, deep down, whether the system sees them as ‘winners’ bound for college or ‘losers’ headed somewhere else.  

And while these young people aren’t labeled ‘losers’ per se, they are largely left to struggle on their own. That experience leaves many angry, frustrated and resentful, not to mention largely unprepared for life in a complex, rapidly changing society.   Why would they become active participants in a political process that is directed and dominated by the now grown up ‘winners’ from their school days? 

Most of them stayed away–non-voters–until one day a candidate who seemed to understand their resentment came along.

I left Schreiber High School after two years, and I don’t know what happened to Joey Levy. Because the system rarely bumped students out of their designated track, it’s likely that Joey stayed in Track 3, along with the rest of ‘the others.’ I hope the young man caught a break, but it’s easy to imagine him growing frustrated, putting in the seat time necessary to get his diploma. Hanging out with his buddies, getting into trouble from time to time. Maybe community college, maybe the armed services, and maybe pulling the lever for Trump in 2016 and 2020.

Recent ‘education reforms’ have actually made matters worse for kids like Joey. Test-based accountability punished schools if most of their students failed to achieve a minimum test score. George Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” and Barack Obama’s “Race to the Top” led to a narrow curriculum without art, music, and even science; lots of time spent practicing how to take tests; no more recess; and what I call ‘regurgitation education’–especially for the 75-80% of students who hadn’t been sorted into the top tier. ‘Regurgitation education’ rewards parroting back answers, while devaluing intellectual curiosity, cooperative learning, projects, field trips, the arts, physical education, and citizenship. 

This fundamentally anti-intellectual approach also failed to produce results.  Scores on our National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) have largely remained flat and in some instances have gone down. What’s more, students aren’t even retaining what we are demanding they regurgitate.  For example, a survey in 2016 revealed that one-third of Americans cannot name any of the three branches of our government, and half do not know the number of US Senators.

(Apparently our elected officials aren’t much better: newly-elected Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, a public school graduate and a Republican, recently incorrectly identified the three branches of our government as the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives.)

Reducing kids to test scores has produced generations of graduates whose teachers and curriculum did not help them develop the habit of asking questions, digging deep, or discovering and following their passion. Because of how they were treated in school, many Americans have not grown into curious, socially conscious adults.

While Donald Trump embraced those he called ‘the poorly educated,’ that’s the incorrect term. These men and women are not ‘poorly educated,’ ‘undereducated,’ or ‘uneducated.’ They have been miseducated, an important distinction. For the most part, their schools have treated them as objects, as empty vessels to pour information into so it can be regurgitated back on tests.

The sorting process also produces elitists who feel superior to the largely invisible ‘losers’ from their school days.  Arguably, those chickens came home to roost in the 2016 Presidential election.  Candidate Clinton’s calling Trump supporters ‘A Bucket of Deplorables‘ probably cost her the Presidency in 2016.  But in all likelihood she was speaking her personal truth, because, after all, her public school had identified her as a ‘winner,‘ one of the elite. It’s perfectly understandable that she had trouble identifying with people who had been energized by Donald Trump.

Sorting is inevitable, because students try out for teams and plays, apply to colleges, and eventually seek employment, but let’s postpone sorting for as long as possible. A new approach to schooling must ask a different question about each young child. Let’s stop asking, “How intelligent are you?”  Let’s ask instead, “How are you intelligent?”   Every child has interests, and those can be tapped and nurtured in schools designed to provide opportunities for children to succeed as they pursue paths of their own choosing. Giving children agency over their education—with appropriate guidance and supervision—will produce graduates better equipped to cope with today’s changing world.  And a larger supply of informed voters!

While a clear majority of voters preferred Joe Biden over Trump, we aren’t out of the woods. The COVID crisis is also an opportunity to reimagine public education. Let’s not spend valuable energy trying to “get back to normal” in education, because, unless we create schools that respect and nurture our children, we run the risk of once again electing a quasi-fascist demagogue. That, I fear, would be the end of the American experiment.

I imagine that almost everyone has at least a passing acquaintance with the Seven Deadly Sins, even if their names don’t roll easily off your tongue. For the record and to jog your memory, the Seven Deadly Sins are pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth.

If you’re like me, you have known most (maybe all) of them intimately, although hopefully only occasionally.

But my point is not to confess my own transgressions or to list how the current occupant of the White House seems to embody all Seven Sins.

Instead, I hope to convince you that, in this Elections Season, an 8th Deadly Sin is the greatest and most offensive of all. Let’s call this sin ‘Indifference,’ although it is often expressed in other terms, like ‘I’m So Tired of Politics,’ ‘Pandemic Fatigue,’ ‘I’m Sitting Out The Election,’ or even the absurd ‘Trump and Biden are Two Peas in a Pod so I say “A Plague on Both Their Houses.“‘

Indifference is a Cardinal Sin because this November the future of America is at stake. And, make no mistake, we have a clear choice:

between nascent fascism and our representative democracy;

between a narcissist who cares not a whit about anyone but himself and an honest politician whose loyalty to America is unquestioned;

between an ignorant egomaniac who knew but chose not to tell us that the Corona virus was both airborne and lethal and a leader who trusts that Americans can handle any crisis;

between a science-denier who rules by whim, passion, and his need for retribution and an educated man who learns from others and trusts science;

between a man who chose an ignorant ideologue to be Secretary of Education and a man who is happily married to a distinguished teacher;

between a man who has called our military ‘suckers’ and ‘losers’ and a man whose son Beau was a decorated veteran;

between a white supremacist and a decent, open-minded leader who will work for all of us, regardless of race, color, creed, age, or sexual orientation;

between greed/kleptocracy and socially-minded capitalism; and

between the end of America as we have known it and a brighter future for our children and grandchildren.

While this Bill of Particulars could easily exceed the 95 theses that Martin Luther nailed to a church door in Wittenberg in October, 1517, I hope the point is clear: Doing nothing is not an option, not this year.

Please donate to Act Blue or the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Or pick the Senate and House candidates you want to support and donate to them directly. Or make phone calls to registered but inactive Democrats in swing states like Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Texas and more.

But please, please, please do not commit the 8th Deadly Sin of Indifference.

In Steven Spielberg’s iconic 1975 horror film Jaws, a high school drama teacher named Lee Fierro plays the mother whose son was killed by the shark. In a memorable scene, she walks up to the local police chief and slaps him after learning he knew that a girl was killed after a shark attack. “You knew it was dangerous, but you let people go swimming anyway,” she told him while crying. “You knew all those things and still my boy is dead now, and there’s nothing you can do about it. My boy is dead. I wanted you to know that.”

It’s a powerful, even unforgettable scene, payback for the failure of leadership that led directly to death.

I now live in the town that represents Amity in Jaws (Edgartown, on Martha’s Vineyard, where Lee Fierro taught drama to high school students. Reminders of the film are everywhere: The Chappy Ferry, the “Amity Hardware” sign in the local hardware store are just two examples.

When I’m lucky, I also hear stories about the production that took place 46 years ago. Here’s one particularly relevant anecdote: That memorable slapping scene required 19 takes. That’s right, she slapped Amity Police Chief Brody, played by Roy Scheider, NINETEEN times before Director Steven Spielberg was satisfied.

But that was just one fictionalized death, and one slap across the face. How many people who have lost family to Covid-19 would line up to slap the face of Donald Trump, who knew in January that the virus was airborne and far more dangerous than the flu? How many of us would like to say, to his face, “You knew all those things and still my (parent, spouse, child) is dead now, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Make no mistake about it: Trump knowingly lied to us, time and again. Here’s one example from Los Angeles. The Washington Post compiled this helpful list of 34 different occasions. He never told the truth, and 207,000 Americans died.

And Trump wasn’t the only one who knew but failed to speak out. His national security team told him. Should they have resigned when he lied to the American people? They didn’t, and Americans died.

Bob Woodward knew that Trump knew because Trump admitted as much in a series of interviews, but he said nothing until the book was ready to be sold. If he had spoken out–released the transcripts–in May or June or July, that might have saved 100,000 American lives

When Lee Fierro died in April at age 91, Los Angeles Times Columnist Mary McNamara wrote the following powerful words:

Fierro’s turn as Mrs. Kintner remains one of the most powerful scenes in “Jaws.” She is there to remind the audience that each person who is lost leaves grief and desolation in his or her wake. And, more important, that this loss, grief and desolation must be laid at the feet of those officials who chose to ignore the facts, the experts and the obvious. Those mayors and safety inspectors and presidents who, because it was easier for them, chose to simply hope for the best.

We are all Mrs. Kintner now. …..

You knew, Mr. President. You knew there was a shark out there, you knew it was dangerous, you knew we were not prepared — and now our sons and daughters, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, friends and neighbors are dead.

Let’s go back to that scene and the 19 takes. Suppose, just suppose, that 207,000 grieving survivors got to slap Donald Trump in the face. And suppose it took each of them NINETEEN takes to get their slap right.

That’s close to FOUR MILLION slaps across the face on Donald J. Trump!

While it may make your day to imagine a massive ‘SLAP-ATHON,’ it’s not going to happen. Instead, you can figuratively slap Trump on November 3rd. Vote him out, along with all his enablers who hold elective office, people like Senators McConnell, Graham, Collins, McSally, Tillis, and Ernst. Urge others to register and vote, particularly if they live in swing states. Donate to candidates up and down the ballot.

Do everything you possibly can to hold Trump accountable–and to reclaim our country.