Three questions: Who makes the rules for classroom behavior?  How much should 5-, 6-, 7-, and 8-year-olds get to decide, or should the teacher just lay down the rules? And does it make any difference in the long run?

In my 41 years of reporting, I must have visited thousands of elementary school classrooms, and I would be willing to bet that virtually every one of them displayed–usually near the door–a poster listing the rules for student behavior.

Often the posters were store-bought, glossy and laminated, and perhaps distributed by the school district.  No editing possible, and no thought required. Just follow orders!  Here’s an example:

I can imagine teachers reading the rules aloud to the children on the first day of class and only referring to them whenever things got loud or rowdy.

“Now, children, remember Rule 4.  No calling out unless I call on you.”

There are other variations on canned classroom rules, available for purchase.  This one uses a variety of flashy graphics to make the poster visually appealing, but the rules are being imposed from on high, which makes me think there’s little reason for children to adopt them.

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 pretty much the same set of reasonable rules: Listen, Be Respectful, Raise Your Hand, and so forth.  But there’s a difference, because these are their rules.

This poster is my personal favorite. It’s from a classroom in Hampstead Hill Academy, a public elementary school in Baltimore, Maryland (and shared by Principal Matthew Hornbeck).  You’ll have to zoom in to see the details, which include what to do when working in groups: ‘Best Foot Forward,’ ‘Hands on Desk,’ and ‘Sit Big.’ And there are some things not to do, such as ‘Slouch‘ and ‘Touch Others.’

Another homemade one, entitled ‘Rules of the Jungle,’ makes me chuckle. I can picture the teacher and the children poking fun at themselves while creating a structure to insure that their classroom really does not become a jungle.

The words–Kind, Safe, Respectful–can be found in the store-bought posters; however, the children created the art work and made the poster.  It’s theirs; they own it.

The flip side, the draconian opposite that gives children no say in the process, can be found in charter schools that subscribe to the ‘no excuses’ approach.  The poster child is Eva Moskowitz and her Success Academies, a chain of charter schools in New York City.  A few years ago on my blog I published Success Academies’ draconian list of offenses that can lead to suspension, about 65 of them in all.   Here are three that can get a child as young as five a suspension that can last as long as five days: “Slouching/failing to be in ‘Ready to Succeed’ position” more than once,  “Getting out of one’s seat without permission at any point during the school day,” and “Making noise in the hallways, in the auditorium, or any general building space without permission.”   Her code includes a catch-all, vague offense that all of us are guilty of at times, “Being off-task.”   You can find the entire list here.

(Side note: the federal penitentiary that I taught in had fewer rules.)

Does being able to help decide, when you are young, the rules that govern you determine what sort of person you become?  Schools are famously undemocratic, so could a little bit of democracy make a difference?  Too many schools, school districts, and states treat children as objects–usually scores on some state test–and children absorb that lesson.

Fast forward to adulthood: Why do many adults just fall in line and do pretty much what they are told to do? I am convinced that undemocratic schools–that quench curiosity and punish skepticism–are partially responsible for the mess we are in, with millions of American adults accepting without skepticism or questioning the lies and distortions of Donald Trump, Fox News, Alex Jones, Briebart, and some wild-eyed lefties as well.

Because I agree with Aristotle that “We are what we repeatedly do,” I’m convinced that what happens in elementary school makes a huge difference in personality formation and character development.

Students should have more control (‘agency’ is the popular term) over what they are learning, and inviting them to help make their classroom’s rules is both a good idea and a good start.

As always, your comments and reactions are welcome.

“The Lives They Lived” is an annual end-of-the-year issue of The New York Times Sunday Magazine that tells the stories of people–some famous, some not at all–who died during the previous year.  When it appears, my wife and I read it from cover to cover, as perhaps you do.

Many more interesting men and women who lived lives of significance are not included, naturally, and so here’s my addendum, a tribute to five people who led lives of consequence:  Peter Kaufman,  Gerald Huff,  Bernice ‘Bunny’ Sandler, and two former colleagues, Brian Dowley and Mike Bowler

Peter Kaufman, a brilliant university teacher and co-author of Teaching with Compassion , was only 51 when he died in November of lung cancer. I never met Peter; his parents, Tobey and Barry, are friends and neighbors in our Manhattan apartment building, but you have only to read what his students have to say about him to understand that he led a life of consequence.  If you do nothing else today, please, please read Peter’s powerful reflection on death and dying: (here’s how it starts):

I’m dying. I don’t mean this figuratively—like I’m dying of thirst or dying to visit Hawaii. I mean it quite literally. I have incurable, stage IV lung cancer.

I was diagnosed in June 2017, a few months after my fiftieth birthday. My only symptom was a nagging, dry cough, but by the time the disease was detected the cancer had metastasized throughout my body. Since then I have had numerous treatments and interventions. Some of these worked quite well, allowing me to resume most of my normal activities; others were not as effective, resulting in adverse side effects, extreme discomfort, and, in one instance, a week-long stay in the hospital. My current treatment plan showed great initial promise but now, after just a few weeks, the tumors started growing again.      

For me to have lung cancer—indeed any form of cancer—is the epitome of a tragic irony. I have never smoked or tried illegal drugs, and I’ve never even been drunk. I’ve pursued clean living, good nutrition, and regular exercise in part to avoid the sort of medical misfortune that I am now experiencing. As a kid I played sports all day long. At sixteen I swore off junk food. At eighteen I became a vegetarian. In my twenties I ran marathons and did triathlons, and, in my thirties and forties when my aching knees no longer let me run, I swam or biked most days. About six months before my diagnosis I completed a one-day workout that simulated two-thirds of an Ironman triathlon, swimming 2.4 miles, then biking 120 miles (with 5,000 feet of climbing). A few weeks later I recorded my fastest one-mile swim time ever. I was incredibly healthy . . . until I wasn’t.

Peter Kaufman did not ‘go gently into that good night,’ but neither did he ‘rage against the dying of the light.’ Instead, he looked death in the face, turned it every which way, and thought deeply about its–and life’s–significance.

I predict that you will also find Peter’s Twitter Feed intriguing and moving.   I urge you to share these links widely

Cancer also took Gerald Huff, the author of Crisis 2038.  Gerald was only 54 when he died in November, just seven weeks after his diagnosis.  Like Peter Kaufman, Gerald Huff led a life of consequence, and–with our help–his legacy will continue.  I met Gerald only once, and then just to shake hands and exchange pleasantries.  His mother, Gisele, was and is a good friend; through Gisele I learned of her son’s accomplishments and concerns.

A libertarian who came to believe that Americans should be provided with an adequate living income as a floor to build on, Gerald was consumed by questions we all would do well to ponder: “Will society change fast enough in response to the rise of AI, automation, and robots?  If it does not, what will happen as more and more jobs disappear?”   He did more than write, of course.  He was a principal software engineer at Tesla, where he was the technical lead for the software that manages the flow of thousands of Model 3 parts throughout the factory. Before joining Tesla, Gerald was director of the Technology Innovation Group at Intuit, exploring the application of emerging technologies to solve problems in the consumer and small-business space.

After his death, his family published Crisis 2038, his thrilling novel about the impact of technology on society in 20 years.  The story forces readers think about the society our children and our children’s children will live in—and how we can shape it. The novel–reminiscent of Kurt Vonnegut’s best work–is the culmination of a 5-year journey, and its publication was the focus of his final days. Gerald is survived by his wife, Judy, and his two children, Paul and Jane.  You can buy the book here.

When Bernice Sandler was a schoolgirl in the 1930s and ’40s, she was annoyed that she was not allowed to do things that boys could do, like be a crossing guard, fill the inkwells or operate the slide projector.  That’s the lead sentence of Dr. Sandler’s obituary in The New York Times.

Bernice “Bunny” Sandler is widely acknowledged to have been the driving force behind Title IX of the Higher Education Amendments of 1972, sometimes called ‘that damned sports law’ by people opposed to equal rights and opportunities for women.  To be completely forthright, I remember that I created as many opportunities as I could to interview Bunny for my weekly NPR radio program, ‘Options in Education,’ which ran from 1974 to 1982.  She was always engaging, honest, relevant, challenging, and provocative; at the time I had two infant daughters, and Bunny was teaching me what their futures could and should be.

(Bunny passed away at the age of 90 early in January of this year, and so her story technically belongs in next year’s New York Times Sunday Magazine, but I am not willing  to wait till then to celebrate her life of consequence.)

The Times obituary continues:  When she was older, teaching part-time at the University of Maryland, she was told that she wasn’t being hired for a full-time job because “you come on too strong for a woman.” Another interviewer complained that women stayed home when their children were sick. Another rejected her by saying that she was “just a housewife who went back to school.”

By that time, which was 1969, Dr. Sandler was more than annoyed. She was good and mad. And that led her to become the driving force behind the creation of Title IX, the sweeping civil rights law of 1972 that barred sex discrimination by educational institutions that received federal funding.

Bunny’s obit ends this way:  In a 2007 article, she concluded that Title IX had precipitated a social revolution comparable to the Industrial Revolution. Women and men, she said, “are far closer to equal than they have ever been in the history of the world.”

But, Dr. Sandler added, “We have only taken the very first steps of what will be a very long journey.”

Brian Dowley was one of the best cameramen I ever worked with in my 33 years in television.  He was hard-working, intelligent, focused, and positive. Television is a team sport, and Brian was the ultimate team player.  Even though he was taking the video, Brian knew that sound was at least as important as his pictures;  some call TV ‘sound with pictures,’ and that’s not far from the truth.  So Brian always listened carefully to what was being recorded and took care to capture images and events that worked with the sound.  Some cameramen think they’re driving the train, and they pull the sound recordist away from what he or she is focusing on. Brian never did that, and, as a result, we often came away with riveting material.

Brian was only 67 when he died of leukemia this past August on Martha’s Vineyard, the island where he had grown up.  I visited Brian a few months earlier in Cambridge, where he and his wife, Mimi Michaelson, were living.  He had been battling the disease for years and was living in as sterile an environment as humanly possible.  I donned a mask and all sorts of other sterile clothing and sat as far away from Brian as possible.  Sick as he was, Brian was positive and upbeat, and he and I laughed about memorable shoots we had been on, including several remarkable days in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Here’s more about this wonderful man, from his obituary in The Boston Globe:

Brian was well known in Boston film circles as a Director of Photography for over 35 years working on dozens of documentaries and narratives films for NOVA, American Experience, Frontline as well as independent documentaries. He was a life long hockey player and a highly respected coach for Cambridge Youth Hockey where a scholarship for young hockey players was established in his name: www.gofundme.com/brian-dowley-youth-hockey-fund. Brian graduated from the Darrow School and received his BFA and MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. 

And finally, Michael H. Bowler, another good friend from education reporting.  Mike was 77 when he died–also of cancer.

He spent most of his career at The Baltimore Sun, which reported his death.  After leaving reporting to become an editor, Mike served on his local school board.  He was a true fan and supporter of public education.  Here’s one graf from the obit:

Freeman A. Hrabowski III, who has been president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County since 1992, also was a friend for decades.  “When I think of Mike Bowler, I think of the best of journalism and humanity. The man cared so much about education, people, teachers and children,” Dr. Hrabowski said. “He taught us to tell the truth on all occasions and to live authentically. I think of his great sense of humor, smile and laughter, and we will never forget that which reflected a very serious and generous spirit.”

Dr. Hrabowski got it right.  Mike’s big and boisterous–and ever-present–laugh made everyone around him feel better, and I have no doubt that his genuine good humor and positivity also helped even the most cantankerous people work for the common good.

Dr. Hrabowski delivered the eulogy at Mike’s memorial service, which was–fittingly–held in a public school and was–also fittingly–packed with friends and admirers from education, politics, journalism, and his church.  I worked closely with Mike for many years, and it was he who provided the driving energy that saved the Education Writers Association when it came close to folding nearly 40 years ago.  Although I knew Mike for well over 40 years, I only learned about his fascinating back story when I visited him last summer–including this:  His father, Clyde Hendrix Phillips, who was a newspaperman on the Helena Daily Independent, died of leukemia when his wife, Edeen Elizabeth Carlson, a homemaker and musician, was pregnant with their son.  His father’s newsroom colleague, Duane Wilson “Doc” Bowler, later married his friend’s widow and adopted Mr. Bowler. 

So, there you have it.  My version of “The Lives They Lived,” five stories of people I know made the world around them a better place.   Please remember Peter Kaufman, Gerald Huff, Bunny Sandler, Brian Dowley, and Mike Bowler, and perhaps write your own version of “The Lives They Lived” about others The New York Times missed…and share it with others.  Above all, let’s resolve to live lives of consequence.

I’m old enough to remember when Sesame Street first appeared on public television in late 1969.  After its wildly popular first season, some critics complained that the program’s appealing structure–fast-paced short segments–would eventually destroy children’s ability to remain focused; they would grow up accustomed to receiving new stimuli every minute or so and would eventually become unable to learn any other way.  Any activity that required more than a few minutes of concentration would become beyond their reach, and their teachers would have to be, above all, entertainers.

As far as I know, that particular doomsday did not occur–not in the 70’s, 80’s, or 90’s, and not in the first 15 years of this century.

However, I fear that doomsday is upon us now, in the age of Twitter.   Twitter co-founders Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, Evan Williams, and Noah Glass were born in the 1970’s, which means they were in the program’s target audience during its golden years and probably grew up watching Sesame Street.  In creating Twitter, they have fulfilled the prophecies of the program’s fiercest critics. They invented the tool that has turned us into exactly what Sesame Street‘s critics predicted: a populace unable to concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes (unless we are in actual danger).

Exhibit A would be Donald Trump (known in another context as “Individual A”).  Trump bounces from pillar to post, and Twitter is his favorite means of communication.

I’m afraid that I might be Exhibit B, because I have become addicted to Twitter.  At least 10 or 20 times a day I check the posts of the 1,578 people I follow.  I often retweet items to my 10,200 followers. During the day, I unspool the threads of Trump’s fiercest critics like Seth Abramson  (@sethabramson) and Scott Dworkin (@funder), and I delight in the snark of The Hoarse Whisperer (@horsewisperer).

But my addiction is worse because I also follow my old employer, The PBS NewsHour (@Newshour), CNN (@CNN), Jake Tapper of CNN (@jaketapper), Maggie Haberman of the New York Times (@maggieNYT), Jane Mayer (@janemayernyer), Joy Reid of MSNBC (@JoyAnnReid), the AP (@AP), investigative reporter Jack Gillum (@jackgillum), The National Review (@NRO), neo-conservative and Never-Trumper Bill Kristol (@BillKristol), reliable liberal David Axelrod (@Davidaxelrod), Soledad O’Brien (@soledadobrien), Axios (@axios), and others who tweet about politics.  I also follow a few actual politicians like Senator Tim Kaine (@timkaine), Representative Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff), and Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi).

Naturally, I am following a bunch of education sites: The Hechinger Report (@hechingerreport),  Education Week (@educationweek), Chalkbeat (@chalkbeat), the 74 (@the74), The Network for Public Education, (@Network4pubEd), Diane Ravitch (@DianeRavitch), Randi Weingarten of the AFT (@rweingarten), Lily Eskelsen Garcia of the NEA (Lily_NEA), conservative Democrat Whitney Tilson (@whitneytilson), and former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (@arneduncan).

There’s a real downside to our national obsession with Twitter and other forms of instant gratification: We are inundated to the point of exhaustion with news, trivial news, and fake news.  In my view (and in the opinion of many others), any one of a dozen of Trump’s actions could (should?) have led to–at the very least–his censure by Congress, but the full out fire hose of incidents and lies seem to have overwhelmed our capacity for outrage and public action about any one action.

With our heads and brains in a constant spin, we are paralyzed.  Can we break the addiction and take back our country?

If you have suggestions for ways for me to kick the habit, my Twitter handle is @John_Merrow.

Ironically and sadly, the only sure way to get my attention is via Tweet.

The news that Netflix has pulled one of its programs at the ‘request’ of the Saudi dictatorship in order to prevent Saudi citizens from seeing it is causing  concern among defenders of free speech, who say Netflix is putting profits above principle. For its part, the giant company defends its action as normal business practices; it’s just following a country’s laws. In a prepared statement, Netflix said, “We strongly support artistic freedom worldwide and only removed this episode in Saudi Arabia after we had received a valid legal request – and to comply with local law.”  In other words, this was Pragmatism, nothing more.

Maybe so, but it’s also precedent-setting…and a slippery slope.  How long before other dictators and populist strong men demand that Netflix remove episodes of this or that from Netflix Poland, Netflix Turkey, Netflix Hungary, Netflix Philippines, and so on?  If all it takes is a local law, well, that’s hardly a challenge for a dictator.

As a (retired) reporter, I regard Netflix’s action as deplorable.  It is yet another crack in freedom’s wall.  Presented with the opportunity to support freedom of expression, Netflix failed to do so.  I find its ‘pragmatic’ behavior upsetting.

However, as someone who has had a modest relationship with Netflix founder Reed Hastings, the company’s ‘pragmatism’ is not surprising. I’ve experienced it first-hand.

Here’s the backstory:  I meet Reed around 2004, when we were working on a documentary about California public education, the film “First to Worst.”  I hadn’t considered interviewing him for our history, and in fact I met him only because he came to our home in Palo Alto for a screening of the film as the guest of John Doerr, the venture capitalist who organized the screening.  Reed actively participated in the subsequent conversation.  I found him to be smart, articulate, personable, and willing to challenge conventional wisdom–a very impressive thinker.

Hastings had been Chair of the California State Board of Education, a position he was bounced from at the insistence of the powerful teachers union, the CTA.  A freethinker, he had become convinced that public education needed the challenge of competition, which meant that he supported charter schools and efforts to hold the system accountable.  The union was not happy with either of his positions.

We met again a few years later.  Because the Education Writers Association was in danger of going out of business, I arranged a meeting between Reed and EWA’s executive director.  At some point, she asked for a contribution.  If memory serves, he said he believed in education reporting and wrote a check for $25,000 on the spot.

Now fast forward to 2009.  Davis Guggenheim, who won an Academy Award for “An Inconvenient Truth,” was producing “Waiting for ‘Superman’” and wanted to use our footage of Michelle Rhee firing a principal on camera.  Davis called me and asked to buy the rights to the footage.  While we had never sold any footage, my non-profit company was in tough straits, and so I told Davis that, for the right price, we would sign a deal.  

A week or so later, he offered a few hundred dollars, an insulting amount–which we rejected.  Then, just before he screened the film at Sundance, he had one of his assistants call to issue an ultimatum: accept their offer because he was using the footage anyway. 

I was furious. Our lawyer wrote letters to Paramount, and I started calling influential people, including Reed Hastings, to ask for their advice.   Reed reacted, well, pragmatically.  He told me that fighting back was pointless, because Guggenheim had big money and a major studio (Paramount) behind him, and we were a struggling non-profit.  I remember Reed’s saying that some battles were not worth fighting. He mentioned ‘taking one for the team’ and joked about ‘rolling over and enjoying it.’  I told him that we weren’t willing to do that.

Guggenheim may have expected us to cave, but we didn’t.  Instead, we leaked the story to the Washington Post, Variety, and some other outlets. Some reporters wrote it as a “David versus Goliath” story.

In the end, Guggenheim’s backers, embarrassed by the negative publicity, paid us a decent amount.  “Waiting for ‘Superman‘” was a big favorite among conservatives; from my perspective, it is shallow, slickly-made propaganda that is, unfortunately, quite convincing.

(Guggenheim made Rhee a hero of his film. I’ve often wondered whether he considered changing the film when the epidemic of cheating by adults on her watch was exposed, and Rhee herself emerged as the epitomé of the flawed ‘school reform’ known as data-driven decision making.)

The kerfluffle didn’t seem to matter to Reed, if he was even aware of it.   His foundation was one of the funders of my 2013 film about New Orleans public schools after Katrina, and Netflix aired the film for three years.

Today Reed Hastings is an even more passionate advocate for charter schools. He has been supporting efforts in California to expand their number and to elect pro-charter school board members in Los Angeles and elsewhere. He’s on the progressive left’s list of betes noires, of course. He’s also a brilliant–and pragmatic–businessman whose model, Netflix, continues to upend the digital world.   

Whether his ‘pragmatic’ approach to self-censorship will prove harmful is anyone’s guess.  We’ll learn more when the next dictator demands that Netflix stop airing some programs.  Stay tuned.

(And I may be part of the problem, because we haven’t cancelled our subscription and are looking forward to bingeing on “Frankie and Grace.”)

Is Reed Hastings still a strong supporter of independent journalism and a vigorous free press?  I hope so, but, based on his Saudi Arabia decision, I don’t think the Education Writers Association should bother asking for support any time soon. 

Last week in this space I connected the dots between bullying and the suicides and attempted suicides by children and adolescents, pointing out the close correlation between them. This week, I want to surface an equally grim reality: school shootings are also closely correlated with bullying.

Fortunately, there are a number of simple steps that we can take to reduce bullying and, by extension, suicides, suicide attempts, and school shootings.

Let’s cut to the chase: Girls who are bullied beyond their breaking point are most likely to try to kill themselves, not others.  All too often they succeed. 

By contrast, boys who reach the breaking point are far more likely to try to kill others.  All too often, they are successful.

Girls rarely use guns.  Boys usually do.  And guns almost always function they way they are supposed to, meaning that people die.  And, sadly, guns are readily available in modern America.  (About 70% of school shooters got their weapons at home or from relatives, according to ABC News.)

“The modern era of school shootings” (an awful phrase) began on April 20, 1999 in Littleton, Colorado, when two white male teenagers who had been bullied excessively shot up their high school, Columbine High, killing 13 people and wounding at least 20 others before they turned their guns on themselves.  The ensuing 19+ years have seen close to 300 school shootings  including Sandy Hook in Newtown, Connecticut and Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, two that you no doubt remember.  By the way, at least 65 of the shooters who survived said they were ‘inspired’ by Columbine.

Perhaps you remember reading about the jock culture that dominated Columbine High School.  Male athletes, usually football players and wrestlers, were reported to have ‘routinely’ stuffed the two boys into trash cans, for example, while the adults looked the other way because, after all, ‘Boys will be boys.’

For more evidence of the role of bullying in these mass murders, see here and  here.   Or read the first few pages of Jesse Klein’s book, The Bully Society.

Five variables combine to produce school bullying, and each one of them needs to be proactively addressed if we want to reduce school shootings and adolescent/child suicide.  Here are my specific suggestions

1. “Vulnerable Kids”  The structure of school– segregating students by age and grade–actually exacerbates the vulnerability of children, because, inevitably, some older kids tease younger ones, and teasing can turn into bullying.  Even though I entered junior high school more than 60 years ago, I still vividly remember being harassed and teased by the older kids; perhaps many of you can recall similar painful experiences.   We can change that by creating cross-grade links.  At my high school, every freshman was assigned to one of three school-wide clubs (Alpha, Beta, or Gamma), immediately linking them with the 10th, 11th, and 12th graders in their club.  We lowly 9th graders could earn points for our club by making a freshman team, being on the monthly honor roll, participating in dramatics, the newspaper, band, choral groups, and so forth.  The club with the most points earned the school’s highly coveted trophy.  The club structure meant that the older students had incentives to support lowly 9th graders in their club, not harass them.

School leaders need to create incentives like that for older students to help and work with younger kids, and this has to be intentionally built into the bones of the institution. I suggest enlisting student leaders in the upper grades to help solve the problem.

Being ‘anti-bullying’ may be a first baby step, but it ain’t even close to being enough  Social services that identify and provide support for troubled kids are necessary, but not sufficient.  If that’s all schools do, nothing will change….

1. “Bored Kids”  The sad truth is the high school is boring for most kids most of the time, because the sorting system that is public education has long since decided which group each kid belongs to: some are college-bound ‘winners,’ but most are relegated to a lesser group of (never stated explicitly) ‘losers’ who aren’t challenged academically.  Inevitably these bored kids are going to find some ways to fill up their time because “idle minds to the devil’s work.”  I write about this at length in Addicted to Reform and cannot do justice to this issue here, but suffice it to say that students who are doing real work rarely get bored.  Real work is just that: assignments that lead to new knowledge instead of the ‘regurgitation education’ that most high school students endure.

Here’s a quick example: Juniors in a public high school science class were tasked with developing an age-appropriate toy for three-year-olds that would facilitate their brain development…and also create a marketing plan for their product. Working in teams, they had to learn about brain development and the physical abilities of that age group. Using CAD programs, they designed their toys, taking into consideration size, color, and ‘feel.’ Then they had to draw up plans for advertising their new toy to young mothers and fathers, or perhaps to pediatricians and grandparents.  There were no obviously right answers to this challenge, although there clearly could be wrong ones (toy too small or too large, and so forth).   Believe me, those kids were not bored!

Schools need to ask a different question about every young person: “How is this child intelligent?”  Stop asking ‘How smart is this kid?”  Then build on those strengths!

1. “Free Time” We are paying the price for cutting art, music, drama, journalism, intramural sports, because those ‘extra curricular’ activities are what matter most to most young people.  Years of so-called “Education Reform” and our disastrous obsession with standardized testing, expressed specifically through  “No Child Left Behind” and “Race to the Top,” are the means by which we did this to ourselves.  The replacement legislation, the Every Student Succeeds Act, is not much of an improvement, unfortunately.

(And most of the men and women who make those disastrous policy decisions do not send their children and grandchildren to bare-bones schools!   If the cooks don’t eat at their own restaurants, we shouldn’t either.)

1. “Anonymous Social Media” Technology is inescapable, and school leaders must acknowledge that.  Too many adults throw up their hands and say, “Oh, kids today are digital natives, and we are just tourists, alien visitors.”  That’s just plain lame. Yes, they are natives, but it’s our job and our duty to teach them to be digital citizens!   That means harnessing technology for good, as in the example above.   Productive kids are less likely to have the time to hound other students.  (Addicted to Reform has lots of useful examples.)

At the same time, adults must make students aware of the dangers inherent in anonymous social media. Examples pop up every week:

“LONDON — The 26-year-old man pretended to be a teenage girl to meet boys and young men on online chat forums.  He called himself “Sandra” or “Henriette,” met boys from Norway, Sweden and Denmark, and asked them to send explicit images and videos, prosecutors say.  When they complied, he threatened to publish the footage on YouTube if they did not keep the images coming. He talked a few into meeting in person. Then, officials said, he raped some of them.”  That’s from this week’s New York Times!

1. “Lack of Effective Adult Leadership”  Being loving, caring, empathetic, or concerned is not enough. Adults must lead by example.  I cited the willingness of some adults at Columbine High School to dismiss widespread bullying because, after all, “Boys will be boys” as one factor in the massacre that followed. Imagine for a moment that those adults had intervened when those two boys were being tossed around and stuffed into trash cans. Suppose they had said, “Hey, we don’t do that here! We are better than that.”  What if the bullies had been called out and shamed for their behavior?  Perhaps those two boys would not have shot up their school, and our history would have been different.

But adult leaders have to do more than just stop looking the other way.

1. They also can restructure school (as in #1 above) to minimize age/grade segregation;

2.  They can enable teachers to support real work instead of ‘regurgitation education,’ as in #2 above;

3.  They can encourage limiting the number of standardized tests their students must take, and they can work to restore extracurricular activities, as in #3; and

4.  They can reward teachers who harness technology for the creation of knowledge, while they also work to educate students–and their parents–about the dangers of anonymous social media, as in #4.

Perhaps real gun control is not immediately achievable, but real changes in the way our children go to school–those we can work on today and begin to see real results almost immediately.

If you agree, please circulate this post to others who share your concern.

Please share this, and please intervene wherever you have influence.

These seniors have had 12 or 13 years of test-centric education, and the kids coming up behind them have also endured what the ‘school reformers’ designed.  How much more evidence do we need of the folly of “No Child Left Behind” and Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s “Race to the Top” before we take back our schools?

People who have consistently been ‘half right’ have been in charge of public education for too long.  Now some are changing their tune (“Perhaps we have been testing too much,” they say) and asking for another chance.  Others, however, are doubling down, calling for more charter schools, vouchers and other aid for private schools, and more anti-union initiatives.  I say a plague on both their houses.

It’s past time for progressives to speak loudly in support of strong public education….as well as other social initiatives that will address homelessness, hunger, and lack of health care.  Schools don’t function in isolation, not when–for example–about 10 percent of New York City’s public school students are homeless.

My suggestions for a clear path forward can be found in “Addicted to Reform: A 12-Step Program to Rescue Public Education.”  You might also want to pick up Dan Koretz’s “The Testing Charade: Pretending to Make Schools Better;” “These Schools Belong to You and Me,” by Debbie Meier and Emily Gasol; and Ted Dintersmith’s “What Schools Could Be.” 

Can we agree that the charter school ‘movement’ is in big trouble?  Scandals emerge daily, or so it seems.   “Are Charter Schools the New Enron?”, one reputable study asks, for example.  Here’s one awful scandal.   Here’s another.  This is not just smoke; it’s a raging fire that threatens all charter schools, it seems to me.

Everyone knows that charter schools are publicly funded but privately run, supposedly bound by a ‘charter’ that spells out what the school will accomplish.  These licenses, typically for three or five years, are not supposed to be renewed if the school does not deliver. That does happen occasionally, but most often charters are renewed unless and until some awful scandal–usually financial–emerges.  And most charter schools are not financially transparent, meaning that it’s probable that more skullduggery goes unnoticed than is exposed.  That means that public funds–possibly billions of dollars–have been going into private pockets. I write about this at some length in “Addicted to Reform: A 12-Step Program to Rescue Public Education” (which is available at good bookstores and on Amazon).

Charter schools were supposed to allow educators to innovate and improve student learning, and the best of them have done so.  However, academically, the overall results are mixed at best, and in some instances have led to more segregation by race and class. 

Those interested in the history of the movement should turn to Ember Reichgott Junge’s book, Zero Chance of Passage, a compelling read.  For critical analysis of the book and the charter story in Minnesota, go here.

I’ve been interested in this story since I moderated the founding meeting at the headwaters of the Mississippi River in 1988, thirty years ago this October, and I’ve reported on charter schools in Arizona, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, New Orleans, Minnesota, and elsewhere.  Since the first charter school opened in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1992, thousands more have been started, and some bizarre things happened:  1) Entrepreneurs and hustlers saw an opening for money-making; 2) some ideologues saw charter schools as an opportunity to bust teacher unions and maybe get school vouchers too; and 3) some elitists of varying political stripes decided they could open a charter school that would, in effect, be their children’s private school (at public expense).

But it was not all bad, not by a long shot, because lots of decent, idealistic men and women jumped at the opportunity to provide transformative educational experiences for children.

While in theory there are non-profit charter schools and for-profit ones, that’s a distinction without a real difference, because some of the supposed non-profit ones are laughing all the way to the bank.  That said, for-profit schools (usually run by an Education Management Organization, EMO) are, as far as I can tell, almost uniformly bad.  Here’s some good news: Just today California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law legislation banning for-profit charter schools across the state.  Let’s hope more states follow that example!

What’s more, all non-profit charter schools must be required to as financially transparent as their traditional public schools!

Plus we need strong oversight of on-line charter schools, a major scam in too many places.

The best-known charter schools like KIPP, Uncommon Schools, Achievement First are large networks; these are known as Charter Management Organizations, shortened to CMO’s.  If you are in New York City, you must know about Eva Moskowitz and her CMO/network of Success Academies. Those schools are controversial because of their harsh tactics that cull their classes of students, usually ones who aren’t likely to do well on standardized tests, often using ‘out of school suspensions’ for very young children.  I’ve reported on this for the PBS NewsHour, as has Kate Taylor of The New York Times.  And you can read Eva’s draconian list of 65 offenses for which a child can be suspended here.  (Some fans of Benito Mussolini were upset when I compared the two.)

What you may not know is that most  of the roughly 5,500 charter schools are one-off, independent institutions, sometimes called ‘Mom and Pop’ charter schools.  Within this universe is a wide range of institutions, many of them focused on children and run by idealistic and public-spirited men and women.

But not all!  Some skirt or cross the line.  Two years ago I became curious about the salaries of charter school operators. How much were they paying themselves, on a per-pupil basis?  The winner of my faux award for “Does Least, Earns Most” was the operator of one of those independent charter schools!  

So where are we today? As I argue in “Addicted,” the term charter school today is virtually meaningless. It’s akin to saying ‘restaurant,’ a term that tells you nothing about the type, quality, or cost of the food being served.   That should have the supporters of quality charter schools up in arms….but it doesn’t.

I began by asking whether the charter school movement can be saved.  Well, the supposed ‘good guys’ of the movement don’t seem to be lifting a finger.  The major group, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, is conspicuously silent about the burgeoning scandals, as are the major Charter Management Organizations like KIPP, Uncommon Schools, and Achievement First.

The only positive step I am aware of has been taken by a small group of independent charter school operators, led by a human dynamo named Steve Zimmerman.  The group is committed to financial transparency, multiple measures of learning, no admissions tests for students, and local, site-based decision making about everything that goes on in the schools.  I have gotten involved in the start-up process and co-moderated a virtual teleconference of independent charter school operators just last week.   Co-host Chris Norwood of Florida and I had a good time bouncing from coast to coast, talking with students and administrators at independent charter schools in Los Angeles; Queens, NY; Rhode Island; North Carolina; Oregon; St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota; Livingston, Alabama; Lake Wales, Florida; Denver, Colorado; Maine; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Orange County, California over the course of 2 1/2 hours. Legendary educator Debbie Meier stopped by in person.  You can watch all or parts of the event here.

The new organization has a name: the Coalition of Public Independent Charter Schools.  Please take a look at what this organization stands for.  So far a few hundred independent charter schools have taken the pledge.  Stay tuned for the next six or eight months to see how many are willing to stand up and be counted, because this group might well be the charter school movement’s best chance for surviving.

Now that public schools have reopened, school safety is receiving a lot of attention…and promises of money (here and here and here)…..and, while that’s a good thing, what’s not good are the exceptionally narrow parameters of the discussion of the issue of safety–i.e., how those dollars are being spent.

If we want our kids to be safe at school, those schools must be emotionally, intellectually and physically safe.  Three related components, all essential, discussed in some detail below.

However, from what I have learned from news reports, beefing up school security is priority #1, with more (armed) guards and security police and more metal detectors.  Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is on record as approving the spending of federal funds to buy weapons for teachers, perhaps the most idiotic suggestion ever made by a United States Secretary of Education.

Politicians who are enthusiastic about enhanced security measures don’t seem to be willing to address a root cause of school violence, the easy availability of guns.  Doing the latter would upset the NRA, something most politicians won’t do.

Of course, the prospect of more money has attracted a crowd.  Eager tech-savvy capitalists have created programs which, for a fee, will spy on student postings on Facebook and elsewhere and then alert school authorities about any comments that their algorithms find upsetting. (more here.)   (That most kids don’t use Facebook these days is just one of the problems with this approach.)

Other profit-seekers are hyping their ‘bullet proof backpacks’ and such.   Lord only knows what damage these approaches are doing to impressionable young children!

In July I was privileged to spend two days at the annual meeting of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and the men and women I spoke with or heard from were very concerned about security.  To a person, their preferred approach was more counseling, not metal detectors, police, or armed teachers. They said that they need Preventive services to identity and provide help for troubled kids.

If we truly want safe schools, we need to focus on the needs of children of all ages.  We need to recognize that, where schools are concerned, “safety” has three components: physical, emotional, and intellectual.  As noted above, today’s focus is just on physical safety, even though the other two are, arguably, more important.

An emotionally safe school in one in which every student is known to at least one caring adult, preferably more than one.  That old cliché, “Students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care,” is spot on.  Emotionally safe schools are staffed with adults who are trained to deal with the ups and downs that are part of every child’s life. These schools have structures that allow kids to be open, such as extended homeroom periods that create a positive ‘home-like’ atmosphere.  In emotionally safe schools, the adult leaders encourage older students to model positive behavior and to intervene in bullying, saying, in effect, “We don’t do that here.”  (I devote quite a few pages to this important subject in “Addicted to Reform: A 12-Step Program to Rescue Public Education,” and hope you will take a look.)

Next, an intellectually safe school is one in which it’s OK to display your ignorance, to admit “I don’t understand,” and to ask questions.  Intellectually safe schools encourage curiosity, crayoning outside the lines, and other expressions of individuality, and teachers are quick to support the kids who are willing to stick out their necks.  When other kids laugh or mock these students, teachers respond by showing their disapproval of the mockery and their support for the courageous students.

Teachers can model this behavior in order to set the tone.  So, for example, at the end of a presentation the teacher should ask, “What questions do you have?” because that phrasing expects and encourages questions.   Teachers should NOT ask, “Does anyone have any questions?” because that phrasing subtly discourages questions.

Intellectually safe schools challenge kids. They employ technology to create knowledge, not just to compile data on student attendance and achievement.  Students who are challenged are less likely to use technology to harass and bully weaker and younger kids, which makes schools safer.  (I also address this in “Addicted to Reform.”)

Schools that are both intellectually and emotionally safe are staffed with adults who look at each child and ask NOT “How smart is this kid?” but “How is this young person smart?”  Asking that question–and acting on the answer–makes all the difference.

When schools are emotionally and intellectually safe, it’s easier for them to be physically safe. However, it’s not automatic, because unacceptable conditions may actually create unsafe schools, most of which are, in my experience,  overcrowded and understaffed.  If we want physically safe schools, we have to provide the resources to hire enough qualified teachers, and we have to attend to the physical condition of the buildings.  Many of America’s public schools are in deplorable condition.)  It should go without saying that physically safe schools have clear rules and procedures for dealing with physical bullying and other violence.

Simply spending more money won’t make our children safe.  Spending it wisely, and spending most of it on human resources–not metal detectors, monitoring programs, armed guards, or guns for teachers–is our best chance to keep children safe.

What questions do you have?

The United States Senate is preparing to do its constitutional duty regarding the current vacancy on the Supreme Court.  It will consider and then vote on Donald Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh for a lifetime appointment to the nation’s highest court. Those who oppose him need to get involved, or double down on their current efforts.

Here are just three of many reasons to oppose Kavanaugh: his anti-labor & pro-business track record, the continued secrecy regarding his role in the George W. Bush administration, and the high probability that he will vote to reverse or severely undercut Roe v. Wade.

There’s also the issue of the legitimacy of the 2016 Presidential election.  Should Donald Trump have the privilege of appointing a second Supreme Court justice when we do not know the extent of his campaign’s collusion with Russia?

But what can liberals, progressives, Democrats, and concerned Republican DO, given the GOP majority in the Senate and the possibility that at least two Democratic senators in Trump-heavy states who are up for re-election may feel that they have to support Kavanaugh?

Here’s a suggestion: Let’s urge certain Senators to vote ‘PRESENT’ when asked to vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination.  They don’t have to vote against him, merely abstain.

Who might do that?  Begin with outgoing Republicans who have expressed their strong concerns about Trump.  Specifically Bob Corker of Tennessee (202-224-3344) and Jeff Flake of Arizona (202-224-4521).  They have done a lot of talking; here’s where they can walk the walk….

At least two Republican Senators, Susan Collins of Maine (202-224-2523) and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska (202-224-6665) are on record as being worried about more restrictions on a woman’s right to choose.  Urge them to vote “PRESENT.”

Ben Sasse of Nebraska (202-224-4224) has shown willingness to challenge Trump on ethical issues.  Perhaps he could be persuaded to vote to leave that Court seat vacant until Robert Mueller finishes his investigation of the 2016 election.  He could do that by voting “PRESENT.”

Are there others?  Call or write them now….  (When I called, I spoke to two live human beings who promised to convey the message to their boss and three answering machines.)

Please urge your concerned friends to get involved.

Here is a link for the contact information for all United States Senators:  https://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Now’s a good time to start!!!!