In 40 years of reporting about education for PBS and NPR, I figure that I have watched somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 teachers at work. I have seen{{1}} an awful lot of really good teaching.

Every once in a while someone asks me, “Who’s the very best teacher you’ve ever met?”  In fact, a retired AT&T executive-turned-teacher asked me that just a few nights ago over dinner, which prompts this Valentine to great teachers everywhere.

I shouldn’t even try to create a list because I know I will leave out dozens {{2}}.  But, throwing caution to the winds, here goes.  On my list, and in no particular order are:

The late Ted Sizer. He taught adults and children, and his influence is still being felt  and ;

Two wonderful teachers, Nancy Welsh and Gary Wieland, at a Department of Defense elementary school on Fort Bragg, North Carolina;

Janis Huira, a teacher in Los Angeles who created SOS, “Society of Students”;

Doug Wood, an inspiring teacher in South Carolina who was light years ahead of everyone when it came to embracing technology; alas, he is no longer in the classroom;

Maria Eby, a first grade teacher in Raleigh, NC. You can watch her at work;

A good friend from graduate school, Larry Aaronson, who devoted his life to teaching young people, most of them working class, how to survive and excel, at a public alternative school in Cambridge.  Among his students were Matt Damon and Ben Affleck;

Kady Amundson, a Teach for America corps member from New Orleans now in her fifth year on the job. You can watch her at work in “Rebirth,” on Netflix;

Bob Gibson, a teacher at Community College of Denver;

John Holt, the writer and teacher (and rebel);

Esther Wojcicki, a high school journalism teacher in Palo Alto whose students work their tails off for her because she trusts them to aspire to the highest standards of journalism; {{3}}

Anthony Cody, a teacher in Oakland who now works with classroom teachers and blogs frequently about the excesses of the ‘Education Deform’ movement.

Johnny Brinson, a veteran teacher in Washington, DC.  All first graders learned to read with comprehension;

The fiery Diana Porter of Woodward High School in Cincinnati;

Fred D’Ignazio, who spent years teaching teachers who were afraid of technology how to embrace it (and to let go of their need to control everything);

A wonderful preschool teacher in France, a long drink of water who brought learning to life for the 3- and 4-year-olds in his program in a poor section of Paris;  and;

A teacher and a librarian in South Orange, NJ, whose names I am withholding because you will meet them on our air in the near future.

I could go on.

Oddly enough, however, my all-time favorite teacher is a man whose surname I no longer know, and whose school location I am not even sure of. In my view, George embodies the best in the business, not necessarily because of how he taught, but more because of what he stood for and how he stood his ground when the going got tough.  Here’s the story, as I remember it.

I met George at a public high school in Maine or New Hampshire in the late 70’s, when I was still at NPR. At the principal’s recommendation, I sat in on George’s ethics class, which I remember being lively and interesting.  Afterwards we had a cup of coffee at my request, because I wanted to hear his story. The Ethics class, he told me, was an elective, one of a bunch of courses that seniors could choose from for their final semester of high school. He had taught it for the first time one year ago.

George did not know that the principal had already told me the basics of the story. So I just said to George, ‘Tell me about the class.’   I set the bar high because it’s an ethics class, he said. I tell the students that I accept only A or B work. Anything else, they get a grade of ‘Incomplete.’  I make it crystal clear to them that they cannot flunk the class– or even pass with a D or a C.

He told me that he did this because he wanted them to approach their lives and careers that way.

How do the kids react, I asked?  They blow it off, of course, he told me, but I make them sign a letter of agreement up front. If they won’t sign, they can’t take the course.  And, he added, he cleared this approach with the principal, who agreed to support him.

Midway through the semester not even half of the kids were doing A or B work, and so he reminded them of the contract they’d signed.  He told me he could see their eyes roll.

And with a few weeks left, many were still well under the A/B bar.  And that’s when it got really interesting, he said. The guidance counselor spotted all those ‘Incomplete’ grades on the interim reports and called those students to his office. He told them their diplomas were in jeopardy because no one with an Incomplete on his/her report card was allowed to graduate.

Panic ensued, he told me.  The students came clamoring to his classroom. “Please just flunk me,” some kids begged.  They told him that they had enough credits to graduate, so an F wouldn’t hurt.  Remember the contract, he responded.  No grade of F, D or C allowed.  Go back and do the work, he advised.

Now, remember that George had obtained the principal’s approval in advance, probably because he anticipated some problems.  But he couldn’t have imagined what happened next. One student with an Incomplete went home and complained to his father, who just happened to be the Chair of the School Board. That gentleman made an appointment to see George.

He came in, George recalled, a mix of bluster and unctuousness.  I’m so proud of my son, George remembers him saying. My boy has been accepted at Colgate, he was voted “Most Likely to Succeed,” he’s interning this summer at the local bank, and he’s spending all his time working on his speech for graduation–he was chosen to be Class Speaker. He’s on track to graduate, so why don’t you just give him a D?  Or even an F, if that would make you feel better.

This is an ethics class, George says he told the father.  And are you certain that’s the ethical lesson you want me to teach your son: that contracts don’t matter, that his word doesn’t matter, and that all that really matters is ‘who you know’?

Chastened, the father went home.  The son did the work.

And, for me, George and his principal became models for the profession.  High standards and expectations; clear rules; choices for students; academic performance as the constant with time the variable; intellectual courage and foresight on George’s part; and solid leadership from the principal.  What’s not to admire?

If any of this this triggers memories of your favorite teachers, please consider honoring them by sharing your stories.    Thanks.

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[[1]]1. I have also been the beneficiary of great teaching, notably my high school English teachers, William Sullivan and Rowland MacKinley, at the Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut, Donald Gray at Indiana University, and David K. Cohen at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.[[1]]

[[2]]2. Ever since I began this list, I have been waking up in the middle of the night with new names to add to my list. I am publishing this now so I can get a good night’s sleep![[2]]

[[3]]3. Full Disclosure: Esther is now the Board Chair of Learning Matters, but she was on my list of ‘The Best’ long before we asked her to serve.[[3]]

I had planned to write about my 19-month (and counting) struggle to pry loose documents from Washington, DC, and the coverup of the cheating that went on there.

But then I began reading the galleys of Teaching with Heart.  It’s a collection of poems that inspire, motivate (or shore up) teachers as they go about their work.  Accompanying each poem is a paragraph or two by the teacher who submitted it.

I had agreed to write a blurb for the book but put off the reading until the last moment.  Up against the deadline, I began reading early this morning.  Hours–and a few tears–later, I emerged, feeling stronger personally–and more optimistic about education’s future.

Dozens of poems spoke to me, but none so much as “Purple,” by Alexis Rotella.

When I read “A Battle over School Reform: Michelle Rhee versus Diane Ravitch” two weeks ago, I felt as if I had entered a time warp.  This article couldn’t be new, I remember thinking that it must have been written a few years ago.  But no, it is dated January 2014, suggesting to me that the author, John Buntin, relied on old news, inaccurate data and a stack of clichés.  “Rhee vs. Ravitch” is his hook. Indeed, he writes:  “Reading Rhee (sic) and Ravitch’s books together is like watching two accomplished pugilists fight a 15-round bout…. Think of this as an attempt to score the fight.” In one corner, Buntin has Rhee representing ‘education reform.’ And in the other corner, Ravitch represents those who oppose reform–a semantic choice by the author that seems meaningful.  He ignores Washington’s erasure scandal that calls into question Rhee’s claims of academic success, and he fails to mention the current conditions of public schools in Washington, two points that readers have a right to know about.

Buntin hardly seems like an impartial fight judge. He writes of Rhee’s ‘most impressive accomplishments’ while she was in Washington; however, his tone when discussing Ravitch is markedly different.  She writes ‘with grim determination’ and ‘like General Sherman marching to the sea,’ he notes.

His real goal, we discover at the end of the piece, is not to referee a Rhee-Ravitch bout but to find a new heavyweight champ.  And so he urges us “….to step back from Rhee and Ravitch’s specific disagreements and consider the ingredients of educational excellence from a different perspective. That is precisely the strategy pursued by journalist Amanda Ripley in her new book, The Smartest Kids in the World (And How They Got That Way).”

Rhee and Ravitch are both wrong, he says, although–because Rhee believes that teacher quality matters (and Ravitch doesn’t?)–Rhee is apparently less wrong than Ravitch: “In the world described by Ripley, Ravitch’s complacency is misguided. But so is the reformers’ narrow focus on standardized testing. The best way forward is likely more nuanced, and more complicated. {{1}}

Upset by his factual errors and the central argument of the essay, I wrote Mr. Buntin, as follows:

Dear Mr. Buntin,

I have a couple of observations about your Rhee/Ravitch piece that I hope you don’t mind my sharing. The first is a minor quibble about the firing scene. We filmed that as part of my NewsHour coverage–we followed the young Chancellor for her entire three years in DC (12 NewsHour reports).  Only later did we include it in our film for Frontline.  I allowed Oprah to use the footage, and Davis Guggenheim appropriated it without our permission for “Waiting for ‘Superman,'” although he did eventually pay us for using it.
My second objection is substantial and has to do with Rhee’s record as Chancellor. Not long after she departed, USA Today broke the story of widespread erasures on the DC-CAS, the city’s standardized test, during Rhee’s first and second years.  We covered that in our Frontline film. However, AFTER the film I obtained a copy of a confidential memo that made it clear just how much she knew of the erasures and how she failed to act.  That is summarized here:  http://takingnote.learningmatters.tv/?p=6232
While “Rhee vs. Ravitch” is a compelling headline and a sexy feature, it’s a roadblock to understanding American education.  Ravitch is a passionate advocate who argues from facts.  In contrast, Rhee’s policies were tried, and they failed. By almost every conceivable measure, the DC schools are no better than before her tenure. In key areas of student attendance, graduation rates, and principal and teacher turnover, they are worse.  Central offices in abutting districts have shrunk, but DCPS’ has grown considerably. Even DC’s most recent gains on NAEP, which began 12-15 years BEFORE Rhee’s tenure, seem to have been fueled by an influx of better-educated families (gentrification) and quality pre-school. Here’s a summary: http://takingnote.learningmatters.tv/?p=6490
I urge you to revisit this story.  There is a titanic struggle going on in public education, one that is complex and deserving of coverage.  Using Michelle Rhee as symbolic of ‘one side’ is misleading, unfortunately.  Wendy Kopp and Teach for America might better represent one side and Ravitch another, although the issue has more than two sides.

Thanks for reading this,
John

He has not replied.

The magazine that published Mr. Burton’s article, GOVERNING {{2}}, describes itself as “the nation’s leading media platform covering politics, policy and management for state and local government leaders. Recognized as the most credible and authoritative voice in its field, GOVERNING provides nonpartisan news, insight and analysis on such issues as public finance, transportation, economic development, health, energy, the environment and technology.”

The magazine, which first appeared in 1987, says its core readers are “elected, appointed and career officials in state and local government, including governors, mayors, county executives, city and county council members, state legislators, executives of state and local agencies, and those holding professional government positions…”

Those men and women ought to have accurate information. Perhaps they get it when the magazine reports on transportation, public finance, energy and other key issues, but GOVERNING let its readers down when it published Buntin’s superficial piece about public education.

GOVERNING claims to have 85,000 readers. This blog does not always reach that many readers every week, so I hope you will share this post.

Superficial opining like Mr. Burton’s muddies the waters, not a good thing at a time when clarity is needed.

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[[1]]1. Here’s the link, if you’d like to check it out for yourself:
http://www.governing.com/topics/education/gov-michelle-rhee-versus-diane-ravitch.html [[1]]

[[2]]2. For more about the magazine and its publisher, the Governing Institute, go here: http://www.governing.com/about [[2]]

These five test questions may explain why American students score lower than their counterparts in most other advanced nations.  The first is a sample problem offered by the University of Wisconsin/Oshkosh {{1}} to high school math teachers. It was designed with the stated goal of ‘Closing the Math Achievement Gap’:

Jack shot a deer that weighted (sic) 321 pounds. Tom shot a deer that weighed 289 pounds.   How much more did Jack’s deer weigh then (sic) Tom’s deer?

Basic subtraction in high school?  The second comes from TeacherVision, part of Pearson, the giant testing company {{2}} :

Linda is paddling upstream in a canoe. She can travel 2 miles upstream in 45 minutes. After this strenuous exercise she must rest for 15 minutes. While she is resting, the canoe floats downstream ½ mile. How long will it take Linda to travel 8 miles upstream in this manner?

While the second problem does not contain language errors, its premise is questionable.  Will some students be distracted by Linda’s cluelessness?  Won’t they ask themselves how long it will take her to figure out that she should grab hold of a branch while she’s resting in order to keep from floating back down the river?  What’s the not-so-subtle subtext? That girls don’t belong in canoes?  That girls are dumb?

And I found this on a high school math test in Oregon:

There are 6 snakes in a certain valley.  The population doubles every year. In how many years will there be 96 snakes?
a. 2
b. 3
c. 4
d. 8

Remember that these are math problems for high school students!  They require simple numeracy at most, and “Snakes” can be solved by counting on one’s fingers.

Next is an example of what lies ahead for 8th graders–not high school students–under the new Common Core National Standards, which are supposed to introduce much needed ‘rigor’ to the curriculum.  This question (without illustrations!) is from New York State’s sample tests.

Triangle ABC was rotated 90° clockwise. Then it underwent a dilation centered at the origin with a scale factor of 4. Triangle A’B’C’ is the resulting image.  What parts of A’B’C’ are congruent to the corresponding parts of the original triangle?  Explain your reasoning.

Did you go ‘Huh?’ I did.

The fifth and final question was given recently to 15-year-olds around the world on a test known as PISA (for Programme in International Student Assessment):

Mount Fuji is a famous dormant volcano in Japan.  The Gotemba walking trail up Mount Fuji is about 9 kilometres (km) long. Walkers need to return from the 18 km walk by 8 pm.
Toshi estimates that he can walk up the mountain at 1.5 kilometres per hour on average, and down at twice that speed. These speeds take into account meal breaks and rest times.
Using Toshi’s estimated speeds, what is the latest time he can begin his walk so that he can return by 8 pm?

For simplicity, let’s call these problems ‘Deer/Canoe/Snakes,’ ‘Triangles’ and ‘Fuji.’  Those high school problems are far too easy.  With enough practice, just about anyone can solve undemanding problems like that and, consequently, feel confident of their ability.

Note that ‘Fuji’ is not a multiple-choice question.  To get the correct answer to this engaging question, students had to perform a number of calculations.  The correct answer (11 AM) was provided by 55% of the Shanghai 15-year-olds but just 9% of the US students.

Speaking of confidence, the PISA results reveal that American kids score highest in ‘confidence in mathematical ability’ despite underperforming their peers in most other countries.  Is their misplaced confidence the result of problems like ‘Snakes’ and others of that ilk?

School is supposed to be preparation for life, but spending time on problems like ‘Deer/Canoe/Snakes’ is like trying to become an excellent basketball player by shooting free throws all day long.  To be good at basketball, players must work on all aspects of the game: jump shots, dribbling, throwing chest and bounce passes, positioning for rebounds, running the pick-and-roll and—occasionally–practicing free throws.

Come to think of it, basketball and life are similar. Both are about rhythm and motion, teamwork and individual play, offense and defense.  Like life, it can slow down or become frenetic. Basketball requires thinking fast, shifting roles and having your teammates’ backs.  Successful players know when to shoot and when to pass. As in life, failure is part of the game.  Even the greatest players miss over half of their shots, and some (Michael Jordan!) are cut from their high school teams.  And life doesn’t give us many free throw opportunities.

But if school is supposed to be preparation for life, why are American high school students being asked to count on their fingers?  That mind-numbing and trivial work is the educational equivalent of shooting free throws.

Now to ‘Triangles,’ which represents education’s brave new world of the Common Core, adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia. In this new approach, students will be exposed to higher and more ‘rigorous’ standards. The hope is that the curriculum, locally developed to reflect the standards, will challenge and engage students.  I suggest you read ‘Triangles’ aloud.

Triangle ABC was rotated 90° clockwise. Then it underwent a dilation centered at the origin with a scale factor of 4. Triangle A’B’C’ is the resulting image. What parts of A’B’C’ are congruent to the corresponding parts of the original triangle?

Are you feeling ‘engaged’?  Imagine how 8th graders might feel. If ‘Deer/Canoe/Snakes’ are the educational equivalent of practicing free throws, then solving problems like ‘Triangles’ is akin to spending basketball practice taking trick shots like hook shots from midcourt—another way not to become good at the sport.  I worry that questions like ‘Triangles’ will impede the understanding and appreciation of math for the 99% who are not destined to become mathematicians.

If our schools persist with boring, undemanding curricula, our kids will be stuck at the free throw line, practicing something they will rarely be called upon to do in real life.  If, however, in the name of the Common Core’s ‘rigor’ we give our kids lifeless questions like ‘Triangles,’ schools may end up turning off the very kids they are trying to reach.

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[[1]]1. Wisconsin source: http://www.uwosh.edu/coehs/cmagproject/many_word/documents/1_Dear_Hunting_Problems.pdf The web page notes that ‘slightly more difficult problems are coded with a shamrock/diamond.’  Here’s one of those: “In the first half of a recent game, the Packers scored 14 points on touchdowns and 9 points on field goals. In the second half, they continued scoring, and they ended the game with 43 points. How many points did they score in the second half?”  [[1]]

[[2]]Pearson source: https://www.teachervision.com/tv/printables/botr/botr_140_3-3.pdf [[2]]

According to the Journal of American Medicine in 2000, somewhere between 44,000 and 98,000 people die every year because of problems they developed while under a doctor’s care.  The Greek term for ‘doctor-caused’ problems is Iatrogenesis.  (By the way, Wikipedia ups the ante, asserting that 225,000 deaths every year have iatrogenic causes, but it includes pharmacists, psychiatrists, psychologists and therapists among the killers.)

I raise this point because it seems to me that the widespread cheating in American schools is the result of the educational equivalent of iatrogenesis.  It is educator-caused, the result of threats and intense pressure to raise scores on standardized tests.  Take your pick of cities where some principals and teachers have cheated to raise student scores, and I think you will find that the ‘doctor’ at the top put intense pressure on his or her minions to “perform or else.”

The ongoing trial in Atlanta is the poster child, of course.

If Washington, DC, had courageous political leadership and a strong newspaper like the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, I have no doubt that the DC students whose scores were falsely inflated would be getting an apology and perhaps some remedial compensation, as the Atlanta students will soon receive. My colleagues at Learning Matters and I have carefully documented what I called “Michelle Rhee’s Reign of Error” there.  In other cities (Columbus, Ohio; Baltimore; El Paso, Texas, et cetera), adults have been caught breaking the rules.

(Many others have resisted the pressures and temptations to cheat, and their honesty should be acknowledged. I am personally grateful to the few who have blown the whistle.)

Because, like Mr. Shakespeare, I have “small Latin and less Greek,” someone else will have to construct a word to mean ‘arising from an educator’ to describe what has been happening in our schools.  “Edugenesis,” perhaps?

Unlike Iatrogenesis, “Edugenesis” doesn’t literally kill people.  However, it has ruined careers and blighted lives.

On a positive note, I sense the tide is turning, and so perhaps a new coinage is no longer necessary.  The backlash against excessive testing seems stronger than ever, and many knowledgeable people are recognizing that our system uses standardized tests to evaluate teachers, while other countries use them to assess students (which is what they are designed to do).  The AFT’s Randi Weingarten has just turned her back on using VAM (value-added measurement) to assess teachers.  Respected superintendents like Josh Starr of Montgomery County, Maryland, have called for a moratorium on high-stakes testing during the transition to the Common Core.  The tireless Diane Ravitch, once a lone voice crying in the wilderness about the tyranny of machine-scored testing and the war on teachers, now has 70,000 Twitter followers and countless readers of her blog.

Will the backlash against excessive testing bring down with it the national effort to raise academic standards, collateral damage as it were?  These are interesting times, to be sure.  And hopeful too……