We lost a giant with the passing of Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, the former President of the University of Notre Dame, on Thursday, February 26. “Father Ted” was a national leader and not simply the head of a major university. He had the courage to challenge a sitting U.S. President, his own Catholic church, and even big time college football. He won two out of three.

After Father Hesburgh spoke out, President Richard M. Nixon backed away from his plan to use federal troops to quell student demonstrations. After Father Hesburgh insisted that the purpose of Catholic higher education was to search for truth and not merely to propagate the faith as the Vatican maintained, his Church backed off. However, big-time football proved too formidable an obstacle for this courageous man, and football’s sorry pattern–low admission standards, lower graduation rates and unacceptable (often criminal) behavior in pursuit of television money–continues unchecked.

The obituary in the New York Times captures the man’s greatness. It notes that “Father Hesburgh was for decades considered the most influential priest in America. In 1986, when he retired after a record 35 years as president of Notre Dame, a survey of 485 university presidents named him the most effective college president in the country.” For more of the story, see the University’s website.

Father Hesburgh advised Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, but proximity to power did not prevent him from speaking truth. As Chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, he battled the Nixon Administration over busing for purposes of desegregation and other civil rights issues; he eventually resigned from the Commission, a black eye for Nixon.

Will we look upon his like again? That seems questionable, at least in American higher education, where ‘leadership’ seems to be focused on raising money to put up new buildings on campus, and not our pressing social problems.

I hope you will read or re-read “A Deafening Silence,” my blog from May 2012. I wrote it after a 15-year-old New Orleans student we had gotten to know was gunned down–executed– merely because some other kids suspected that she might be able to identify them.

Toward the end of the piece I raised this question:

I want to know where all the leaders have gone. Where are the university presidents, once moral and ethical leaders of our nation? Remember Clark Kerr, Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, James Bryant Conant, Fr. Timothy Healy, Bart Giamatti, Kingman Brewster and Robert Maynard Hutchins? The nation once looked to them for counsel, and they were willing to speak forcefully on the key moral issues of our time.
We are living in an age of economic inequality that is unprecedented, but have the Presidents of Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Chicago or Princeton spoken out? They must be aware that nearly 25% of our children are growing up in poverty and being denied a fair shot at what we used to call The American Dream, and yet they are silent.
Gun violence is tearing our urban centers apart, and the blood that’s most often shed seems to be that of promising young children. Why the deafening silence from our leading campuses?
I was on the campus of Notre Dame earlier this week and had the privilege of spending 30 minutes with Fr. Hesburgh, now nearly 95. ‘Father Ted’ happens to be one of my heroes, but this was the first time I’d had the opportunity to shake his hand. Though hampered by failing eyesight, he is as bright, strong and forceful as anyone I know, and I walked away from our meeting inspired by him — but depressed by the resounding silence of those occupying university presidential suites today.

Remember, this was seven months before the Newtown massacre, another preventable tragedy that was also followed by a deafening silence most of from American higher education. I wrote about it in early January, 2013.

Neither of these pieces is an anti-gun rant, although I believe we are crazy to make it so easy for just about anyone to get a gun. This is about leadership, or the lack thereof.

But perhaps we will look upon Fr. Hesburgh’s like again. A candidate, in my view, is Dr. Freeman Hrabowski III, the long-serving President of the University of Maryland–Baltimore County. He was one of the few Presidents who spoke out forcefully after the Newtown murders, and he has been a consistent, eloquent and effective force for opportunities for students of color, particularly those from low-income communities. His book, “Holding Fast to Dreams,” crossed my desk yesterday in ‘uncorrected page proof’ form. It will be available in May, and I hope many of you will read it and reflect upon the leadership lessons.

Meantime please, a prayer or other appropriate expression for Fr. Hesburgh. Rest in peace….

Before you read further, please picture NEA President Lily Garcia, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, AFT President Randi Weingarten, and U.S Senator Lamar Alexander sitting around my kitchen table.

What are they doing? They are playing my new socially valuable parlor game, “Multiple Measures.”©

What’s “Multiple Measures”©? Well, it’s the phrase everybody uses when they’re talking about the most reliable way of evaluating schools, teachers and students.’ After all, anybody who knows anything about education understands that a single measure (i.e., a score on a standardized test) cannot accurately capture the complexity of the enterprise.

Unfortunately, the conversation usually stops with that overused phrase, “multiple measures,” and we continue to rely heavily on one measure, scores on standardized tests.

Here’s how to get beyond the talk. Take a pile of plain index cards. Then, invite a few people from differing political camps who are solution-oriented, or at least willing to engage in dialogue, to have a cup of coffee and play “Multiple Measures.”©

Let me demonstrate at my kitchen table with Secretary Duncan, Senator Alexander and Presidents Garcia and Weingarten. First I distribute pencils and index cards to each of them, and then I explain the challenge: “What exactly do you mean when you say “multiple measures”? Your task is to write specific measures on the back of index cards. Each of you must identify three measures, then put the cards, face down, in the middle of the table.”

Mix up the cards, then turn them over. Discuss….

With that awesome foursome, the specific measures might include test scores, teacher attendance, student attendance, participation in Advanced Placement classes,extent of project-based learning, years required to gain tenure, teacher turnover, and who knows what else. A few measures would most likely appear on more than one index card.

Now repeat the process. Twelve more cards. Turn over. Discuss….

Keep playing until you have reached agreement on at least five specific measures.

The principle behind the game is simple: It’s time for us to measure what we value, instead of our current practice of valuing what’s easy to measure.

The goals of my game are threefold: general agreement on multiple ways of assessing schooling; a lowered temperature; and a commitment to work together for the benefit of children and society.

I think everyone reading this should arrange a game of “Multiple Measures”© in your community. Please take pains to include people from the left, right and center, men and women of varying ages, races and occupations. {{1}}

If you’re wondering, “Where can I buy this wonderful game?” I have good news: “Multiple Measures”© is now commercially available…..from me. The basic set, which includes a dozen index cards and four unsharpened pencils, sells for $69.95. The deluxe boxed set, available for $99.95, includes two dozen index cards, six pre-sharpened pencils and a signed photograph of my kitchen table. {{2}}

Multiple games of “Multiple Measures”© in local communities might break the logjam and chip away at the walls {{3}} we’ve built up in our polarized society, and I am excited about that.

I am also excited about making a bundle of dough. I’ve worked in non-profit enterprises for my entire career, and “Multiple Measures”© is my first effort in pure, naked capitalism. Frankly, I hope to make enough money {{4}} to allow me to retire comfortably. I’ve stockpiled multiple cases of index cards and #2 pencils, so I’m ready for the orders to pour in.

But my life-long habits of generosity and public service are hard to break, and so I have decided to donate an unspecified portion {{5}} of the proceeds to the “Save Nebraska’s Whales” fund.

Can’t wait to hear your reports about playing “Multiple Measures”©….and to cash your checks.

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[[1]]1. Extensive field studies indicate that four is the ideal number, but you may try other combinations.  A basic rule that cannot be tinkered with, however, is “No Shouting!”[[1]]

[[2]]2. The first 100 customers will receive a set of “Multiple Measures”© coasters to protect your kitchen table from coffee stains.  Hurry. Act now![[2]]

[[3]]3. This is not an impossible dream. Arne Duncan and Lily Garcia have breakfast together once a month, and perhaps they will play “Multiple Measures”© next time.[[3]]

[[4]]4. I’m not about to cut into my profits by paying for shipping. That’s on you, so add $7.50 to the tab.[[4]]

[[5]]5. When I decide on the portion,I will let you know.[[5]]

“Pro-Test” or “Protest”? The dash makes all the difference, making one word into two that, taken together, describe polar opposite worlds. If you are “pro-test,” you favor the Common Core State Standards tests. Remove the dash, and you are aligned with those urging families to opt-out and refuse to take the PAARC and Smarter Balanced Common Core tests, which will be administered in March.

Are you in one of these camps?

Or are there even two camps? It’s hard, maybe impossible, to measure the strength of the “protest” movement, if indeed there really is a ‘movement.’ It could be thousands and thousands of tiny, grass-roots organizations and loose gatherings, or it could be just a few hundred. If it is a national movement, it’s one that lacks a ‘command central,’ although three organizations, Save Our Schools (SOS), United Opt-Out, and Badass Teachers Association, do have modest national profiles. Every week FairTest publishes a report of anti-testing actions, but the list gets repetitive and sometimes includes newspaper stories and blogs that merely ask tough questions–hardly evidence of a full-blown revolt. Is there a genuine bandwagon, or is FairTest trying to create the illusion of a bandwagon where none exists? Hard to say.

In some places, local and state politicians are taking note. Colorado’s legislature is holding hearings, and there’s ferment in Philadelphia, for example. And Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker wants to stop the testing.

We know the protesters have different motivations. Some are upset about what they see as excessive testing in schools, while others are vociferously opposed to the Common Core State Standards, which they have labelled “Obamacore,” his plan to take control over public education.

Protest politics makes for strange bedfellows, with lefties and righties coming together to agree on this issue (and probably on just this one issue).

As for the other side, the “Pro-Test” camp has the appearance of substance. With unofficial “headquarters” in Washington, DC, the Common Core test defenders include the US Chamber of Commerce, the Business Council, the Education Trust, the Leadership Council on Civil and Human Rights, the Council of Chief State School Officers, and Arne Duncan, the US Secretary of Education.

The basic message: “If you don’t take the test, you won’t be counted–and you won’t matter.” The “Pro-Test” group has an impressive roster with money and power, but perhaps it’s mostly Chiefs and very few followers. Impossible to say now, but we will find out before long.

Just last fall, the establishment was agreeing publicly that we might be subjecting our children to too many tests. The President spoke out, and his Secretary of Education noted that testing was sucking the air out of classrooms. Now, they’re saying, “OK, perhaps schools do test too much, but these tests–the Common Core tests–are essential.”

I haven’t found overwhelming evidence that hundreds of thousands of students are going to boycott the Common Core tests, but people in Washington appear worried. How else to explain their going on the offensive to trumpet the importance of these tests?

What do they know that we don’t? Or are they seeing dragons under the bed at night?

In other states, educational leaders have been issuing threats: “Boycott these tests and you will suffer the consequences,” is the tone of these messages. “I know some of you have already received questions from parents who would like their children to be able to opt out of taking the test. Opting out of PARCC is not an option,” Illinois State Superintendent Christopher A. Koch recently wrote to district administrators, a message he expected they would share with their principals. Some schools are going to force kids who come to school but opt-out of the tests to ‘sit and stare’ all day long, instead of offering them alternative learning experiences. “Sit and stare”–Now that’s enlightened leadership, teaching kids what it means to live in a free and democratic society!! Teaching kids how power responds to principled action.

So, the establishment is dropping the hammer. Will that backfire?

We will find out in March, when the PAARC and Smarter Balanced tests are administered over a 2-3 week period.

The great Dinah Washington song I am riffing off, “What a Difference a Day Makes,” ends with the line, “And the difference is you.”

Care to make a prediction as to what will happen?

Peggy Charren, the founder of Action for Children’s Television (ACT), died earlier this month at the age of 86, leaving behind a legacy to be thankful for. I’m grateful to Peggy because her work benefited all children, including my three children and six grandchildren—but also because she saved me from embarrassing myself on national radio. I’ll get to that in a minute.

If you were a TV-watching child in the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, you saw lots of ads for sugar-laden cereals, unnecessary toys and wall-to-wall cartoons. Yes, your parents might have changed the channel to PBS for ‘Sesame Street,’ ‘Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood’ and ‘The Electric Company,’ but those wonderful programs were oases in a vast and unhealthy wasteland.

Then along came Peggy Charren, a Massachusetts mother of two young children who ran a gallery and held children’s book fairs. In the late 1960’s she began what turned into a successful crusade. As reported in The New York Times, she held the first meeting of what became ACT in her living room in Newtown in 1968. At its height, ACT had more than 100,000 members, and Peggy was often called to testify before Congress and the Federal Communications Commission.

Under her leadership, ACT persuaded the National Association of Broadcasters to reduce the amount of commercial time on children’s programs, and in 1974, pressured by ACT, the FCC issued guidelines that directed stations to put educational and informational programming on their channels. In 1990, Congress passed the Children’s Television Act, which established standards and limited the number of commercial minutes. That law represented a triumph for Ms. Charren, who, as The Times points out, had lost quite a few battles during the eight years of Ronald Reagan’s presidency.

I remember Peggy as smart, energetic, outspoken, generous and feisty. But I am hopelessly biased because she was there when I desperately needed her. The occasion was a Congressional hearing on children’s television, sometime in the mid-1970’s. I had started my weekly program, “Options in Education,” on NPR a few years earlier; those 1-hour programs were documentaries, recorded live somewhere and then edited to time when I got back to Washington. In other words, my mistakes went on the cutting room floor. But, hey, I was NPR’s education guy, and so someone higher up decided that I should anchor the hearings, live on NPR. The fact that I had NEVER been on radio live apparently didn’t bother anyone, and I was up for the challenge.

I knew that I would need to say something to introduce the hearings, and so I read up on the issues and the Committee Chairman, and then I typed up two pages of copy. Put me in, coach!

Congressional hearings are scheduled to begin ‘straight up’ on the clock, meaning 9AM, 10AM, 1PM and so forth. We set up in the back of the Committee Room, I put on my headphones, leaned into the mic, and, voila, I was live, coast-to-coast.

“From National Public Radio in Washington, Welcome to the Congressional hearings on children’s television. I’m John Merrow and….blah blah blah”

In front of me was a half-circle of desks where the Representatives were seated, waiting for the hearing to commence. What I did not know–but should have known–was that hearings operate on ‘Chairman’s Time,’ not Greenwich Mean Time or NPR’s schedule of events. No matter what the schedule said or when NPR went on the air, the hearing would not begin until the Chairman showed up.

So I was looking at that semi-circle of desks, oblivious to the fact that the Chairman’s chair was empty!

We went on live as scheduled, and I began reading my two pages of introductory material. How long does it take to read two pages? Not very long at all, even if you slow down and stretch out every word. About halfway through the second page, reality dawned on me: This was live radio, I was about to run out of stuff to say, the Chairman was nowhere in sight, and in a handful of seconds, NPR would be broadcasting ‘dead air,’ the worst sin in broadcasting except for those seven forbidden words. 40 years later I still remember the awful sinking feeling of impending doom. My producer, Midge Hart, was also in full panic mode, looking around desperately for someone for me to talk to.

I spotted Peggy Charren in the witness area and signaled to Midge to ask her to come over, which she did. I think I handled the transition OK, or at least I hope I did. At that point I probably didn’t care what we talked about, just as long as I didn’t have ‘dead air.’ In addition to her other virtues, Peggy was chatty and eloquent. Nobody’s fool, she was probably thrilled to have a chance to make her case on NPR, which she did, until the Chairman finally showed up 15 or so minutes later.

My national debut on live radio was judged a success, and I don’t think the suits ever realized how close we were to an embarrassment. When I next did live radio, I made certain we had a couple of guests on stand-by and I wrote more than two pages of introductory copy.

If not for Peggy Charren and ACT, children’s television might still be non-stop cartoons and endless commercials. For her work, she eventually received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor, from Bill Clinton.

If not for Peggy, I might have become known as “Dead Air Merrow.”

RIP, Peggy Charren, and thanks for everything.

The familiar cliché turns up in a lot of conversations with educators. Normally the emphasis is on the last word, rarely on the fourth. But I believe that “it” is the key word.

I’ll get to it in a minute.

You may have noticed that President Barack Obama all but ignored K-12 education in his State of the Union speech. He made one direct reference to K-12 (to higher graduation rates). He devoted a lot of time to his proposal to make community college free, which is a non-starter for Republicans, and to expanding high-quality early childhood programs, but nary a word about the current effort to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, now called No Child Left Behind.

He stayed away from the Common Core National Standards, a wise idea given that the Administration maintains that it’s a state initiative, and the forthcoming Common Core tests, a genuine third rail nowadays. He used to tout ‘Race to the Top,’ the initiative that led many states, desperate for dollars, to line up behind higher standards (read “Common Core”), more charter schools, better information, and test-based accountability, but none of that {{1}} crossed his lips in this year’s State of the Union.

Based on that speech, what is the President’s “it” that schools do, alone or in concert? Graduate as many students as possible, I guess.

Here in New York State, Governor Andrew Cuomo is taking a page out of the playbook that the President seemed to abandon last night. He is promising more test-based accountability, more charter schools, and more effective ways of getting rid of ineffective teachers. Some observers believe he has his eye on the White House, which makes others think he’s out of touch with what’s going on in schools and society.

I’m not convinced that the Governor actually has a vision of “it,” though he seems to be convinced that ineffective teachers, obstructionist unions and lead-footed bureaucracies are keeping schools from doing whatever it is they are supposed to be doing.

Now about that cliché, “Schools cannot do it alone.” Most people don’t believe schools should operate alone. Many believe that parents are a child’s primary educators, while others expect parents to participate in their children’s education. Others maintain that it takes a village to educate its children, meaning that education is better when meaningful social services are coordinated and when businesses and community groups pitch in.

Which brings me back to the fourth word and the purpose of schools. Just what is the “it” that schools are supposed to do? Rarely do we examine that question, settling instead for canned phrases like ‘get all children ready to learn,’ ‘educate the whole child,’ and ‘ensure that students are college and career ready.’

For some, the “it” is represented by higher test scores. Get those, and that’s proof that schools have done “it.” For others, increasing the high school graduation rate is evidence that schools have done their job–That was the President’s evidence in his State of the Union speech. Others believe “it” means doing better on international comparisons like PISA, or improving scores on our own National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

You may have read “Among the Disrupted” in Sunday’s New York Times Book Review. This powerful and disturbing essay by Leon Wieseltier is not about schools. Rather, he attacks the role that data-gathering plays in our culture, but much of what he wrote is pertinent to the role schools could play.

Especially these lines (emphasis added): “Quantification is the most overwhelming influence upon the contemporary American understanding of, well, everything. It is enabled by the idolatry of data, which has itself been enabled by the almost-unimaginable capabilities of the new technology. The distinction between knowledge and information is a thing of the past, and there is no greater disgrace than to be a thing of the past.”

Mr. Wieseltier has identified, for me anyway, the vital “it” that ought to be the purpose of our schools. They must be organized to help young people distinguish between knowledge and information. Teachers must help students formulate questions and then search for answers to those questions. Schools must prove Mr. Wieseltier wrong.

Think of it this way: young people swim in a 24/7 stream of data. In that world of information-overload, how are young people to know what’s true? Only by challenging, asking questions, doubting and digging. And they ought to be doing that in their classrooms, guided by skillful teachers who are comfortable with giving students greater control over their own learning.

Technology floods our world with information, but the human brain can develop ways of weighing and sorting information to separate the wheat from the chaff. (It should go without saying that we need to encourage–and model–choosing the wheat!)

Some schools do this. “What do you know?” the great educator Deborah Meier would ask of students, “And how do you know that you know it?” I imagine that at Sidwell Friends School, where the Obama daughters are students, the “it” of education moved away from regurgitation and toward inquiry a long time ago–and perhaps that’s why the Obamas chose it for their daughters .

But the Administration’s education policies are reinforcing an unimaginative vision of education, a business model with a bottom line of standardized tests results. Ironically, many forward-thinking business leaders have discarded that narrow view and instead support schools that graduate students who can think critically, make sense out of contradictory information, and work well with people of every age, race, gender, religion and sexual identity.

Unlike its rhyming barnyard relative, “it” does not just happen. These are choices we make, choices that matter.

—-

[[1]]1. One can imagine Education Secretary Arne Duncan and his people sending over suggestions for the speech…and the White House throwing them away as fast as they come in.  After all, these policies, particularly the effort to punish teachers for low student test scores, seriously dampened enthusiasm for Obama and Democrats in the recent elections.[[1]]

For the last 18 months or so, three {{1}} colleagues and I have been immersed in educational technology, trying to figure out how it is being used and abused in our schools.

Technology and the internet changed the rest of our world a long time ago. Now, federal and state government are spending billions to get our schools and classrooms up to speed. While equal access to technology strikes me as a civil right, what happens after access is achieved is just as important. If this marvelous technology is harnessed simply to try to produce higher test scores, then its vast potential will be lost, and those students will be denied opportunities to dig deep, to raise questions and find answers, and to have real control over their own learning.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a lot of what some call ‘electronic work sheets’ and ‘digital drill and kill’ out there.

For this film, we visited schools and teachers in California, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Oregon, New York, New Jersey and elsewhere. We learned a lot about what’s called ‘Blended Learning.’ In fact, I believe we have discovered the recipe for successful blended learning, which we will share in the film.

(Here’s a hint: Effective technology and skilled teachers are necessary but not sufficient, because there’s another vital ingredient.)

It’s been an exhilarating journey for us, and you can now enjoy some of what we have seen.

While you’re on the website, please sign up to follow The School Sleuth on Twitter and to get regular bulletins about our progress, including news of when the film will be seen nationally.

We will be posting ‘clues’ and interesting videos on a regular basis, so please consider bookmarking the site. Thanks.

We recognized a major hurdle from day one: Mention “technology in education” to people outside our wonky world, and their eyes glaze over. To keep that from happening, we decided to bring back The School Sleuth, the film noir detective we created 15 years ago. Back then, he was hired by a beautiful blonde to solve “The Case of an Excellent School” but got beaten up along the way by a thug hired by education’s status quo. {{2}}

“The Case of the Wired Classroom” is also a film noir parody. I play the detective, a world-weary gent who is not as bright as he likes to think he is (type casting!).

The film opens in a bar at 4AM, in the city that never sleeps….and goes from there.

The world premiere of “School Sleuth: The Case of the Wired Classroom” will be Friday, March 13th at 2:30 PM in Washington, DC, as part of Digital Learning Day. This year DLD is being wrapped into the annual Celebration of Teaching and Learning, organized by Ron Thorpe’s National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. This event seems to get better and better every year, and I hope to see many of you there.

If there’s a way to reserve a ticket to see the film that afternoon, I suggest you consider doing it, because the room holds only 250 people.

—-
[[1]]1. Cat McGrath, Jessica Windt and David Wald. Lately we’ve also been helped by Brendan Joyce.[[1]]
[[2]]2. He solved the case and won a Peabody Award, but he didn’t get the girl![[2]]

What kind of year can we expect for public education? I’ve been reading some of the predictions, and most focus on Washington, perhaps because the pundits think that’s where the action is. While predictions are almost always wrong and made to be forgotten, the process can remind us of our goals and values, not a bad thing.

Let’s begin with Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s predictions. He made four, according to Alyson Klein of Education Week. They’re non-controversial, and all in the category of ‘more.’ 1) At least 60,000 more kids will attend quality preschool; 2) 600 more colleges, companies and organizations will commit to help thousands more students get ready for college; 3) 10,000,000 more students will get access to high speed internet; and 4) more students will graduate high school as the percentage climbs above 80. These are admirable resolutions, wonderful goals to aim for.

Counting and measuring was the original federal role in public education. We know our schools are resegregating, for example, because of the Department’s Office of Civil Rights, which, under the strong leadership of Catherine Lhamon, is pushing to wake us up to this national embarrassment.

No predictions from the Secretary about quality, just quantity. Wouldn’t you love to know if he thinks that the in-classroom experiences of most of our kids will be significantly improved in 2015 because of the Common Core State Standards? But he wisely stays away from that.

Nor does the Secretary wade into deep or controversial waters. Will more states walk away from the Common Core and the associated tests? Will more parents join the opt-out movement and keep their children home on testing days? Will more teachers refuse to administer standardized tests? Will more politicians, foundation leaders and others back away from what is called ‘test-based accountability, using scores to judge teachers? Will more parents choose to homeschool their children?

All of those predictions are out there, naturally, from pundits on the left, right and center.

Rather than make predictions, I offer a wish/hope list for 2015: Ten wishes in all.

It’s my hope that Lamar Alexander in the Senate and John Kline in the House will make progress on the reauthorization of ESEA, because the current law, No Child Left Behind, expired years ago but remains in force. That bizarre situation has given the Secretary of Education the power to grant waivers to NCLB’s more onerous provisions, which he has granted to states that have been willing to hew to the Administration’s own reform policies.

I hope that Washington has now, finally, learned the fundamental lesson of NCLB, which is, simply put, “Washington cannot run American public education.” Many learned that during the Bush Administration, but not the Obama Administration. Those folks apparently drew a different conclusion: “Maybe Bush can’t run public education, but we can!” Well, they can’t.

I wish the Secretary would back away from his commitment to tying test scores to judgments about teachers, but that’s not likely to happen. In fact, his choices for Under Secretary (Ted Mitchell, who comes from the market-based education sector) and Special Advisor (former New York State Commissioner John King) suggest that Mr. Duncan is doubling down, not seeking common ground.

It is my fervent wish that the good people within the charter school world will police their own, because it’s increasingly clear that the ‘movement’ is being hijacked by profiteers and other ne’er-do-wells who are in it for the money. If the good folks continue to do very little, charter schools will become another failed experiment. It’s disingenuous for education’s leaders and politicians to say they “support good charters and oppose bad ones” and then do nothing about the loopholes that allow for-profit and not-for-profit charter operators to looti the public treasury.

I hope that the educational approach known as ‘social and emotional learning’ attracts more public support, some new champions, and maybe even a name that doesn’t sound so soft and squishy.

I wish that educators who are using technology just to get test scores up would leave the profession. “Drill and kill” deserves to die. Technology allows students to be producers of knowledge, not just consumers and regurgitators. We owe it to our kids to get it right.

Related to that wish, I hope that the idea of giving students more control over their own learning spreads. When students use technology to do original work, they almost always end up collaborating, a key piece of ‘social and emotional learning.’

I wish that no one ever again use the word ‘rigor’ when talking about education. “Challenging” is good; “rigorous” is bad. Let’s agree to leave rigor where it belongs, with “rigor mortis” and other harsh and unyielding stuff.

I wish that the critics of testing and ‘test-based accountability’ would get together with their opponents and agree on some fair, effective and efficient ways of evaluating teachers. Just being against something isn’t enough, in my book, and teachers deserve to be fairly evaluated.

I wish that we would figure out how to make it harder to become a teacher but easier to be one. Right now a lot of our policies and rhetoric are making it downright unpleasant to be a teacher. Let’s raise entry level standards and improve training, but then we need to make sure teachers are free to teach.

How will we remember 2015? Will it be “The Year of the Common Core” or “The Year of Opting Out”? There are other possibilities: “The Year Preschool Took Off,” “The Year College Students and Parents Said ‘No Mas’,” and “The Year of Blended Learning.”

What do you anticipate 2015 will bring for American education? What are your wishes?

Overlooked in the stories about the shooting death of Michael Brown in August and a Grand Jury’s decision not to indict the white police officer who shot Mr. Brown is the role of the public schools. What to make of public schools in Ferguson, Missouri, closing their doors on both occasions, while the local public library kept its doors open–and functioned as a school? Is this evidence of the depth of disenfranchisement of the Black community in one small city{{1}}, or does it suggest that public schools are no longer the vibrant center of community life?

Early on Monday, November 24, hours before the Grand Jury announcement regarding the possible indictment in the shooting death of Michael Brown, Ferguson-Florissant, six other nearby school districts, a charter network, two Christian schools, two pre-schools, at least two private schools, and the local campus of Washington University announced that they would be closed the next day. The seven public school districts enroll more than 55,000 students, including the 11,600 who attend the 24 schools in the Ferguson-Florissant school district.

The Ferguson-Florissant decision–made by an all-White school board–released those 11,600 young people from the obligation to go to school the next day, and it’s a virtual certainty that some of them ended up on the streets of Ferguson, where rioting and looting took place after the Grand Jury’s decision was announced.

By contrast, Ferguson’s public library kept its doors open, announcing in a tweet, “We are open 9-4. Wifi, water, rest, knowledge. We are here for you. If neighbors have kids, let them know teachers are here today, too.” {{2}}

This was a repeat performance. Schools closed for a week in August after Mr. Brown was killed, while the library remained open.

Ferguson’s Head Librarian Scott Bonner had no problem staying open to provide an alternative for parents with school-age children: “We had about 60 volunteer teachers come in here to help,” he told me. They were retirees, Ferguson district teachers and Teach for America corps members. That day only about 40 kids, ranging from preschool to middle school, showed up, but in August, when during the week schools were closed, more than 200 children came to the library every day to ‘do school.’

When news of Mr. Bonner’s decision went viral, donations began pouring in. Within a week, the library {{3}} received over $300,000 in donations, 100 times what it receives in a typical year–and 75% of its annual budget of just $408,000, according to Bonner. (The library is independent of the community and has its own taxing authority, so the local City Council will not be able to reduce its budget for next year.) As of this writing, the $400,000 barrier has been crossed.

Peter Sagal of NPR’s “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me,” author John Green, and venture capitalist Marc Andreesen are among those who used their influence to support the library. Andreesen has 223,000 followers on Twitter, Sagal 114,000, and Green an astonishing 3,470,000.

The American Library Association sent this tweet to its 56,800 followers: “So proud of the @fergusonlibrary staff. Truly the heart of the community, serving everyone. #whatlibrariesdo.”

When I reached out to Tony Marx, the President of the New York Public Library, for his thoughts, he was on Staten Island, urging local librarians to remain open in the aftermath of another Grand Jury non-indictment, the Eric Garner case. Mr. Marx sent this email: “What the Ferguson Public Library did was an inspiration to us all and indeed relevant to library leaders across the country. By keeping open in a difficult moment for the community, the library displayed for all that libraries are indeed the centerpieces of civic space.” And, by the way, the Staten Island public libraries remained open.

But what about the schools? Back in Missouri, only one school district in the Ferguson area went against the trend and kept schools open. Rockwood Superintendent Eric Knost explained his decision in a letter to the parents of the district’s 21,500 students:

We believe it is important for us to provide the opportunity for a regular school day for our Rockwood students. In times of unrest and uncertainty, children need the security of routine so we want our families to have the ability to send their children to school. We completely understand that not everyone will agree with this decision, but we remind parents that it is ultimately their decision as to whether their children attend school today.

Regardless, we will be there, very visibly greeting kids and providing the option of a school day.

Why was “shut down” the default position for Ferguson-Florissant and so many other schools in that time of crisis? I reached out to a Ferguson High School Principal and the Board but was only able to talk with a PR person, who promised to get back to me. I’m still waiting.

I want to ask someone out there about the school’s obligation to its community and its students and teachers. Are libraries somehow different? Although no one from Ferguson would talk with me, three experienced superintendents responded to my emailed question.

Paul Vallas, who led the schools in Chicago, Philadelphia, New Orleans and Bridgeport: “I don’t believe in closing schools unless it’s absolutely necessary, because kids need a safe place to be.”

Dan Domenech, whose 40 year career in education includes 27 years as a superintendent: “If I was anticipating that riots would break out and kids would be safer in school, I would have kept them open. If my concern was with the anticipation of the no-indictment and how that might lead to confrontations in the school, I would have closed them.”

Jack Dale, formerly of Fairfax County, Virginia, the nation’s 12th largest district, wrote, “I would tend toward not closing schools unless I believed there were safety issues for students — that to me is the only reason to close schools. If we were open, I’d also be prepared to use the decision as a teachable moment. I remember doing so during 9/11 and other major events of our nation.”

When Superstorm Sandy devastated the New Jersey coast, some schools reopened so that teachers and administrators could distribute blankets, food and warm clothing or provide shelter for suddenly homeless students. The generosity of teachers toward homeless kids is well documented.

One can only hope that the Ferguson-Florrissant School District, with its seeming disregard for its civic responsibility, is an outlier and that most public school leaders would not shirk their responsibilities to build community.

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[[1]]1. That’s basically a rhetorical question, because of Saint Louis’s and Missouri’s dismal history of race relations, including education.  The grim story is here: http://www.propublica.org/article/ferguson-school-segregation?utm_source=et&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailynewsletter&utm_content=&utm_name= [[1]]

[[2]]2. The library’s twitter feed is fun to read and follow. https://twitter.com/fergusonlibrary [[2]]

[[3]]3. Librarian Scott Bonner posted this virtual tour (long before the Michael Brown shooting): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtrUgdJZMQQ [[3]]

Because I believe that books are a great gift for those interested in public education, I’ve compiled a list of suggestions, with the caveat that I do not have time to read most of the hundred-plus education-related books that come to me during the year.

2014 has been a good year for books about education. Two made the prestigious New York Times list of 100 Notable Books of the Year. Not surprisingly, they are two of my top four.

1. The must-read book of 2014 is Dana Goldstein’s The Teacher Wars: A History of America’s Most Embattled Profession. She writes well and has a great story to tell. If you are at all like me, you’ll find yourself thinking, “I didn’t know that” quite often. She draws compelling parallels between things that have happened recently or are happening now and events and people from the distant past, reminding us that, if we fail to remember the past, we are doomed to repeat it. The Teacher Wars made the Times’s list. {{1}} (Doubleday)

2. Building a Better Teacher: How Teaching Works (and How to Teach It to Everyone), by Elizabeth Green, also made the list of 100 Notable Books. It’s an engaging tour of the worlds of teaching and teacher training, with an exceptionally talented young reporter as the tour guide. (W.W. Norton)

3. Speaking of Fourth Grade: What Listening to Kids Tells Us about School in America, by Inda Schaenen, is an eye-opening read because Ms. Schaenen does what reporters and writers don’t do enough of: she interviews young children. The author is a teacher who took a year off and interviewed 166 fourth graders–(white, black, brown; urban, suburban, rural; wealthy, middle class, poor; and Christian, Jewish, Muslim) across the state of Missouri, where she teaches {{2}}. She has arranged the book according to the questions she asked: What is your school like? What’s the purpose of school? How do kids here treat each other? How do adults here treat kids? How do you feel about standardized tests? Do you ever feel bored? If so, when? And so on…. I think you will find it engaging and illuminating. (The New Press)

4. Teaching with Heart: Poetry that Speaks to the Courage to Teach is the most poignant book that has come across my desk in a long time. The editors, Sam Intrator and Megan Scribner, asked teachers to explain how their favorite poems have affected their teaching. Full disclosure: When I was asked to provide a blurb for the jacket, I did so with pleasure. This is what I submitted: “I am having trouble finding the right words to describe my feelings about this book. I opened it at random and was drawn in. Hours–and a few tears–later I emerged, feeling stronger personally and more optimistic about education’s future. I wish I could afford to buy copies of “Teaching With Heart” for all the teachers I have interviewed in my 40 years of reporting. My budget can’t handle that. Instead, I recommend that all of us non-teachers buy copies of this inspiring book for teachers we know. You will probably want one for yourself too. {{3}}” (Jossey-Bass)

Other education books from 2014 that you might enjoy:

It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, by Danah Boyd, comes highly recommended by Greg Toppo of USA Today;

Fear and Learning in America – Bad Data, Good Teachers, and the Attack on Public Education: John Kuhn, a veteran school superintendent in Texas, criticizes the ‘test and punish’ policies of Arne Duncan, Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein and others;

Lessons of Hope: How to Fix our Schools. The aforementioned Mr. Klein, former Chancellor of the New York City Public Schools, defends his record and argues for policies that he believes will transform public education;

Strugglers Into Strivers: What the Military Can Teach Us About How Young People Learn and Grow, by the always thoughtful Hugh Price, former president of the Urban League;

How We Learn, by Benedict Carey, is a book that Greg Toppo and I believe will astound you;

Excellent Sheep, by William Deresiewicz, has made waves in higher education;

The Marshmallow Test, by Walter Mischel, confirms the positive effect of learning to defer gratification;

Hold Fast to Dreams by Beth Zasloff and Joshua Steckel is one of New York Times reporter Motoko Rich’s recommendations.

While these books are available on Amazon, I urge you to patronize your local bookseller this holiday season (and throughout the year). Happy Holidays.

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[[1]]1. If there’s a revised edition, I will ask Ms. Goldstein to change an entry about me: Although I wrote about the Teacher Corps in my doctoral dissertation, I did not serve in the Teacher Corps.[[1]]

[[2]]2. Michael Brown, who was killed in Ferguson this summer, graduated from the high school where she taught.[[2]]

[[3]]3. They used the last four sentences on the book jacket.[[3]]