The Times has learned that Whom has passed away after a long, lingering illness. Few details have emerged, although speculation is that the cause of death was indifference. Whom, of Latin origin, leaves no immediate survivors. A sole sibling, Whomever, passed away many years earlier. One distant cousin, Who, survives, but the bitter rivals rarely appeared together.

When robust, Whom was known for maintaining a high profile. He (or she–gender indeterminate) regularly insisted on jumping to the head of the line, as in “Whom may I say is calling?” and “To Whom it may concern.” Whom was particularly proud of surviving a frontal assault by Johnny Carson’s quiz show “Who Do You Trust?” that aired on ABC from 1957-1963. “I beat that upstart,” Whom would boast, although some observers suspect that the lingering effects of the 6-year struggle sealed Whom’s fate.

In recent years Whom regularly lost to Who in competition for jobs and prestige. The final blow, Whom’s supporters say, was when Twitter chose Who over Whom to fill the prestigious slot, “Who to Follow.”

Whom reportedly drowned his (or her) disappointment at a bar near Twitter headquarters in San Francisco. “I was born for that job. It was made for me,” Whom told the bartender before passing out.

Whom’s passing has drawn scant attention. Only one word, As, issued a public statement. “I understand Whom’s feelings of rejection. I was the subordinating conjunction of choice until that damn Winston campaign came along. ‘…..like a cigarette should.’ Awful English, but it blew me away, and, frankly, I have been depressed ever since.”

No national observance is planned; however, small groups have been springing up at some private colleges and in a few churches, most of them Episcopalian. These ad hoc organizations, determined to bring Whom back, are uniting under the name, “In Whom We Trust.” Contributions may be made on the group’s website, InWhomWeTrust.org.

Why are so many teachers leaving our classrooms? We know that somewhere between 40% and 50% will not make it into their 6th year, and nowadays the annual turnover rate is about 15%. Of course, the high departure rate is explained in part by the aging of the baby boomers, but we are also losing a lot of experienced teachers who, if all were going well, would be helping our children learn for many more years.

The situation seems to be worse in North Carolina, where some counties in that state are experiencing a 35% turnover rate. What’s happening in North Carolina {{1}} is worthy of your attention, because it could be the canary in the mine.

Last week I wrote about the best teachers I’ve known in nearly 40 years of reporting {{2}}. This week, your opportunity to hear directly from teachers who won’t be teaching next year, and why. I had the chance to speak with 6 North Carolina teachers recently, and I invite you to hear their stories.

A word about the video: The first 2:15 is some sort of PSA. I do the talking for the next 4 minutes or so, setting the stage for an audience of 1300. I asked everyone in the audience who either had been or was now a teacher to stand, and about 1000 people rose. Then I asked those who were no longer in classrooms to sit down. That left about 300-350 men and women still on their feet. You have to take my word for this because the camera is focused on a small part of the crowd (no wide shot, unfortunately). Then I said something like “If you would leave teaching if you could, if you got a better job or if your spouse suddenly got a big raise, or if you could find some other viable exit strategy from the classroom, please sit down.” Here the camera’s tight focus is kind of interesting, because you can see, even feel, people weighing what I said, shifting from one leg to the other while deciding whether to sit or stand. Eventually, about 100 more people sat down, leaving 200+ men and women still on their feet. We gave them a huge round of applause, and then the 6 men and women on the stage told their stories. Skip to 6:30 or so for their stories, which bring the dry data to life. I think you will feel what your rational self knows: this is not good for our children or our country.

Money is one issue in North Carolina. Teacher pay dropped 16% between 2002 and 2012 in inflation-adjusted dollars to $45,947, well below the national average of $55,418. Once near the national midpoint, North Carolina is now either 46th or 48th.

But that’s not the key factor. Respect is an issue, as is the human need to feel that one’s work has significance. Panelist Vivian Connell, who left her job in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro system out of frustration with constant testing and other mandates, explained, “I was tired of not having a voice. No one listens to teachers.”

Many have written about this, including Daniel Pink (who also spoke at the meeting in Raleigh). Richard Ingersoll of Penn, who is the nation’s leading authority on teacher retention/departure, is himself a former public school teacher. He told The Atlantic why he left. “One of the big reasons I quit was sort of intangible,” Ingersoll says. “But it’s very real: It’s just a lack of respect,” he says. “Teachers in schools do not call the shots. They have very little say. They’re told what to do; it’s a very disempowered line of work.”

All 6 of my panelists spoke movingly about the system’s ‘obsession’ with test scores and what all the testing and test-prep is doing to the profession. Sharon Boxley moved from North Carolina to Maryland (where she is making close to $15,000 more) and is still teaching. Her comment about test-prep produced an audible gasp. “I am still in the classroom,” she said, “and I miss teaching.”

It ought to be obvious that the profession cannot afford to lose its lifeblood. As I have said before, we need to make it harder to become a teacher but easier to be one. We seem to be doing the exact opposite.

—-
[[1]]1. Former New York Times Education Editor Edward Fiske and Duke Professor Helen Ladd have written this analysis of the North Carolina situation. (.pdf)[[1]]

[[2]]2. Three of whom, as it happened, were from North Carolina![[2]]

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.

—-
[[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.

—-
[[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]]