education

“PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE”

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

Let’s suppose you decided to run a marathon. How would you prepare for a 26.2 mile running race? You’d probably create a schedule that called for runs of different distances, some of just two or three miles, quite a few 5-10 miles runs, and at least one of about 20 miles. Maybe you’d join a running club or seek out others who were preparing for that particular marathon. You’d think about your diet and your sleep patterns. You might even visit the actual course, just to get a feel for what was to come.

In short, to get ready to run a marathon, you would do whatever seemed necessary to simulate the actual race.

Now imagine that you’ve been cast in a play. How would you prepare? You would set aside time to memorize your lines, and perhaps you would ask a friend or a family member to give you your cues. At some point, you’d join the cast for a reading, then a walk-through, and finally lots of rehearsals. You would need to be aware of your inflection, your facial expressions, and your body language…but also of the team-building process.

In short, to prepare to act on stage, you would do whatever seemed necessary to simulate the actual on-stage performance.

Now let’s think about preparing to live in a free society, a democracy. What would be a sensible approach to preparing young people for a world in which they are generally free to decide what to wear, when to speak up and when to remain silent, what to say, when to eat, how to work with others, and so on? What’s the best way to prepare young people to carefully examine propositions, instead of automatically saying ‘Yes’ or robotically doing what someone tells them to do?

Should they, to get ready to be successful in a democratic society, actually practice democracy while they are growing up?

Right now, we don’t allow children to practice democracy, not in schools anyway. In fact, with the exception of our prison system, public schools are the most undemocratic institutions in our society. Even the branches of the military offer choices to those who enlist, but American public schools tell students (and teachers too, for that matter) where to be and when to be there, when to eat, and what to wear. Most public schools teach students to regurgitate information, not to think critically or to question. Schools are set up to sort, not to individualize. Their basic question about each child is “How Smart Are You?” which they seek to answer by subjecting children to a constant battery of standardized (and most often multiple-choice) tests.

Perhaps our schools are anti-democratic to make it easier for the adults. Perhaps because long ago we adopted the Prussian education model: lectures to children grouped by age. Or perhaps because we adults haven’t had much experience with democracy in our own lives.

Could public schools actually be ‘democratic’ in nature? Could a system of mass education ask a fundamentally different question about each child, “How Are You Smart?” and then adapt the pedagogy to fit a child’s needs, aptitudes, and inclinations?

Not only is it possible; it’s essential going forward, if we are going to rebuild America after Trump.

This is not an argument for letting children do whatever they want, whenever they want. That’s chaos, and no one–not even the kids–wants that. Instead, it calls for thoughtful practice, cooperation, an end to age-segregation, lots of project-based learning, and a focus on social and emotional learning.

Here’s an example that may shock you: Letting students make the rules for classroom behavior. That’s democracy in its purest form, and it can work, although it’s rarely tried. I’d wager to say every elementary school classroom I visited in my 41 years of reporting had a poster listing the rules for classroom behavior. Almost always laminated, these posters generally included obvious rules like “Listen Carefully,” “Follow Directions,” and “Raise Your Hand When You Want to Say Something.”

best 'class rules'

These posters were mass-produced, store-bought, glossy, and laminated. No editing possible, and no thought required. I imagine that on the first day of school, the teacher would read the rules aloud and then point to the poster whenever things got loud or rowdy.

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

But occasionally the ubiquitous poster would be hand-made, clearly the work of students. If I asked the teacher for an explanation, the answer went something like this:

“On the first day of school I always ask my students what sort of classroom they wanted to spend the year in? What should be the rules? It takes a few days to develop the rules. Sometimes I present alternatives, such as “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 I might ask them “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 the students invariably came up with reasonable rules much like those on the laminated posters: Listen, Be Respectful, Raise Your Hand, Be Kind, and so forth. But there was a difference, teachers and principals told me: When students create the rules, they owned them and were more likely to adhere to them.

Schools can practice democracy in other ways. The adults in charge can give students more say in what they study. Again, not carte blanche but thoughtfully personalized. That means taking the time, early on, to figure out what students are interested in and then using those interests to see that they learn to read with comprehension, work with numbers, speak in public, and work well with others.

Of course, students should not get to make all the decisions about what they’re studying. After all, a central purpose of school is the transmission of knowledge, and so the basics are also part of the deal. Young children need to learn spelling rules (“I before E, except after C”), the multiplication tables, how to divide and carry, and other basics. They need to know that letters have sounds associated with them (i.e., Phonics and Phonemic Awareness). Someone has to teach them that, if you put an E at the end of words like ‘ton,’ the O sound changes from ‘short’ to ‘long.’

That democratic step–giving students power over their learning– will make teaching easier and more enjoyable. When I was a high school English teacher many years ago, my students were supposed to write ‘themes’ based on ‘Macbeth,’ ‘All Quiet on the Western Front,’ and whatever other plays or novels they were told to read. No choices–just rules from on high. However, if I were teaching high school English today, I would try to ask each student to identify three or four things they were curious about. Then I would spend a few minutes with each student, getting that list down to one topic for them to write about. I’d ask for a 1-page ‘memo’ of their thoughts about how they would approach the topic, followed a week or so later by an outline.

When I discovered that some students shared an interest in the same general topic, I would connect them and urge them to share their pursuit of knowledge.

Because I would be looking at drafts of their work, the chances of them using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to write their papers or downloading someone else’s work from the internet would be minimized.

Why not ask students to create a webpage where essays could be shared with students and the community at large? After all, pride of publication is a great motivator!

Math teachers could invite students to create word problems that reflect their own interests. A youngster interested in farming oysters might create problems that provide data about the cost of ‘seed,’ the rate of loss, the time involved in transferring the ‘seed’ as it begins to mature, the labor costs involved in harvesting. What’s the rate of return on investment if…..?

I also believe young people should be deeply involved in figuring out how their efforts will be measured. It makes no sense to wait for end-of-the-year bubble test results or for teachers to arbitrarily say ‘This passes” or “This doesn’t.” Teachers and students should assess progress frequently, take a clear-headed look at the results, and adapt accordingly.

As in a democratic society, choices in schools have consequences, and students could play a role in developing that system as well.

Rebuilding public education after the ravages of the Trump presidency should be recognized as a great opportunity. I am convinced that our rigidly undemocratic school system, with its tracking, constant testing, and bias in favor of the elite, undoubtedly contributed to Trump’s victories in 2016 and 2024. After all, living in an autocracy for 180 days a year, for twelve or thirteen years, seems to have produced millions of adults who are susceptible to, and comfortable with, autocrats and autocracy.

Creating schools that actually practice democracy will produce a more informed and more thoughtful electorate. That’s essential, today more than ever.

It’s Never Too Late to Say “Thank You”

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

When you finish reading this paragraph, I hope you will close your eyes and think about the teachers who made you a better person or helped shape the future direction of your life.  Picture in your mind’s eye your old classrooms and what happened there.  What did those teachers do to make you feel smart, special, safe, or valued? Did they believe in you when you were doubting yourself?  Or refuse to let you do substandard work? 

I did this exercise when writing an earlier draft of this essay, and I promise you it’s a rewarding experience.  

Please do it now.

OK, now I have a question: Have you thanked those teachers, either in person, in a letter, or on the telephone?  I ask because thanking your special teachers personally will mean more to them than you can begin to imagine. It will lift their spirits, rejuvenate them, and give them a renewed sense that what they spent their lives doing did matter.  

If it’s too late to make a personal connection because they have shuffled off this mortal coil, then you might consider writing an appreciation and sharing it with friends and family members.  Submit it to your local newspaper, or post it on Facebook or a blog.  Just get the word out there, because that will inspire others to express their own gratitude.

I want to share a story about a former student who called me, out of the blue, a few months ago.  His call could not have come at a better time, because 2025 has not been a particularly good year for me: Brain cancer killed my youngest brother this Spring, a handful of family members whom I dearly love are struggling with significant health issues, Joan and I have lost some good friends to death and dementia, and our country seems to be sinking deeper and deeper in crude bigotry and crypto-fascism.

One day this June I was riding my bike in a hilly part of western Massachusetts when my phone rang.  I normally don’t answer the phone when I’m biking, and I’m pretty sure that I would have ignored the call if I had been coasting down a hill. However, I was approaching a very steep hill that I dreaded climbing, and so I jumped at the chance to take a break.

Hello, I said, tentatively.  “Is this John Merrow,” a man asked?  Who’s calling, I asked suspiciously.  “My name is Paul (redacted). Mr. Merrow was my high school English teacher 60 years ago, and I’m trying to reach him, so I can say ‘Thank you.’”

After I admitted to being John Merrow, we talked for about 15 minutes.  He told me that I had set him on a track to become an avid reader. How, I asked?

“One time your assignment was to analyze some poetry,” Paul told me, “And, because I was kind of a wise-ass, I wrote a careful analysis of the lyrics of a popular folk song, Pete Seeger’s “Where Have All the Flowers Gone.”  I expected you to get angry because I hadn’t done the assignment, but you went out of your way to praise me.  I think you even read it aloud to the class.”

And Paul, until then a self-described indifferent student, became a voracious reader. He told me that during his four years of college he read the complete works of Dosevesky, Hesse,  Steinbeck, Salinger, Orwell, Tolstoy and Nietzsche.

“Want to know how I ended up in your class,” he asked?  

Before I share that story, you need to know about the high school where I taught for two years, 1964-65 and 1965-66.  Like most large high schools back then, Schreiber High in Port Washington, NY, was rigidly tracked, levels One through Five.  As an untrained rookie teacher, I wasn’t allowed anywhere near the One and Two level students, who were, in truth, the students the people in power cared most about.  Their parents were probably professionals with multiple degrees, and so these privileged kids were on track to attend prestigious colleges. 

Most of the Threes had a shot at college, while the Fours were headed straight to work or the military, and the small number of Fives, many with severe handicapping conditions, were basically being warehoused.

At Schreiber, I taught five classes–125 students –of 10th, 11th, or 12th grade English, mostly Threes and maybe one or two classes of Fours.  

By the way, I cannot imagine a better gig than teaching Threes and Fours. Those young people, who felt the opposite of entitled, responded eagerly to any and all positive attention, including challenges.  

Teaching Threes and Fours had other benefits: As long as my kids read a couple of Shakespeare’s plays and weren’t disruptive,  administrators paid no attention to what we did in my classroom. It wasn’t that they trusted me; they really didn’t care.

**That meant we could put MacBeth and Lady MacBeth on trial for first degree murder, with students (in every role) ‘testifying under oath.’  And so we did that. 

**That meant I could invite the kids to set the poems we were reading to music, which they did.  I still remember a trio/quartet performing Edna St Vincent Millay’s “Renascence.” 

**That meant I could encourage my students to “elevate the quality of the bathroom graffiti” by erasing the scatological slurs and replacing them with lines from TS Eliot, John Donne, Robert Frost, and others–and we did that too.

**That meant I could create a stand-alone unit of anti-war poetry–during the growing  VietNam war protest movement–to introduce my students to Wilfred Owen, Stephen Spender, Rupert Brooke, and Siegfried Sassoon. 

**That meant I could challenge my kids to write and stage their own play, which they did. You can read about it here.

Back to Paul’s story: Apparently he was a Four when he got called into the Guidance Councillor’s office. “My father came with me, and when the Councillor said that I should either drop down to level Five or transfer to trade school and become an electrician or a plumber, my Dad erupted.  ‘Bullshit!,’ he shouted, as he slammed his fist on her desk.  ‘My son is going to college! I want him in college level classes!’ 

“And that’s how I ended up in your class,” he concluded.

He told me that he graduated from college with 3 majors: History, Political Science, and Sociology.  “I’m pretty sure I was the only student carrying three majors.”  After college Paul worked for Xerox for a few years before starting his own financial advising company.

Paul’s story about his Dad proves another point: Thanking our teachers is necessary but not sufficient.  For more on parents, please read Billy Collins’ superb poem, “The Lanyard.”  

Have you thanked other teachers, I wanted to know?  “Yes, my sixth grade teacher,” he replied. “I called him years ago and thanked him. This was about a year before he passed away.”

The list of teachers who changed my life for the better includes Catherine Peterson, the First Grade teacher who taught me and most of my siblings to read–and to love reading; two high school English teachers, William Sullivan and Roland McKinley; a writing teacher at Dartmouth, Alexander Laing; an English professor at Indiana University, Donald Gray; and David K. Cohen, my doctoral thesis advisor at Harvard.  I thanked the first and last in person and another, Professor Gray, by letter, but I never had the opportunity to tell the others how much they meant to me. 

By the way, Saying “Thank You” feels really good.  It’s satisfying to close a door left open from your past.  Try it!

I don’t think I will ever forget how being thanked by a former student made me feel. My spirits were lifted, and my troubles disappeared. Of course, Paul’s phone call couldn’t bring back my brother Jim or help my ailing family members recover, but hearing from Paul—60+ years after I taught him—made me feel that I had made a difference. There’s no better feeling.

Teaching has always been–often literally–a thankless job, but it doesn’t have to, and shouldn’t, be that way. So, please, express your gratitude.

Don’t Blame Trump. It’s on Reagan (and us)

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

I will start with the fun stuff, some grist for dinner and cocktail party conversations about the cost of going to college these days.  Then I will try to connect these dots with six interconnected points: 1) The dramatic increase in the number of colleges shutting down; 2) The approaching ‘Enrollment Cliff;’ 3) The growing number of colleges offering three year Bachelor’s Degrees;  4) Increased questioning whether college is worthwhile;  5) President Trump’s attacks on colleges and universities; and, finally, 6) How much if not all of this can be traced back to the policies of Ronald Reagan. 

THE FUN STUFF: Two hundred years ago, 1825, it cost less than $200 to attend Yale; this fall it will cost more than $90,500. This includes tuition of $69,900 and a combined cost of housing and meal plans at $20,650.  (Simply adjusting for inflation, that bill for $200 would be less than $7,000 today, in case you’re wondering whether the cost of college has gone up a wee bit more than other parts of the economy!)

My brother sent me this from the 1825 Yale student handbook;  he also shared it with a grandnephew who is a Sophomore at Yale:

A clever friend of mine reacted with this additional information about life in America 200 years ago: “Those ‘good ole days’ meant a life expectancy of 40 years, an 25-30% infant mortality rate, an annual income of $500-600, and a good bath twice a year, once in the spring and another in the fall.”

A FEW FACTS AND FIGURES: We have nearly 6,000 colleges and universities, both 4-year and 2-year. About 1,900 of these are public institutions, another 1,750 are private and nonprofit, and an estimated 2,275 are for-profit. 

More than 60% of today’s high school graduates enroll in college.  In the fall of 2024, approximately 19.28 million undergraduate students were enrolled across the United States. Unfortunately, most of them will probably not graduate; in fact, nearly 20% will drop out during their freshman year. 

Dropping out is a significant, if largely ignored, issue: Nationally, more than 44 million American adults have some college credits, no degree, and, perhaps, student loan debt weighing them down. 

It’s also worth noting that American  higher education generally opposed the GI Bill, which allowed millions to attend college, which jump-started the American middle class, and which created a post-war economic boom that lasted for generations.  

Another important piece of background information: While most European countries created independent scientific research institutions after World War II, the United States government forged partnerships with colleges and universities.  Eventually, the Feds subsidized research at hundreds of American universities to the tune of billions and billions of dollars every year. For years the partnership worked, and the scientific breakthroughs are legendary. 

However, there is a down side, because, as the perverse Golden Rule cliché has it, “Whoever Has the Gold Rules.”   Every research university has become dependent on those dollars, giving the federal government a powerful hold over higher education.  This is, of course, playing out in front of us right now.

Now to the business at hand, my 6 interconnected ideas:

1) COLLEGE CLOSINGS: As noted, nearly 6,000 colleges and universities today, but in 2011, we had more than 7,000.  Between 2008 and 2024, two or three colleges closed or merged every month. Today, however, colleges are now closing at an increasing rate–some say it’s one every week!  The causes are myriad:  Enrollment continues to decline due to natural population trends, operating costs continue to rise, colleges don’t seem to be willing or able to lower their tuition, and young people–concerned about debt–are increasingly skeptical about the value of higher education.  

Late in 2024 the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia estimated that up to 80 colleges could close this academic year because of financial distress caused by a worst-case-scenario drop in enrollment.  While for-profit colleges once drove closure rates, since 2020 traditional private colleges have been closing at a higher rate. The closures have affected the lives of more than 50,000 students, thousands of faculty and staff, and the economies of the communities where these institutions are located.

2) THE ENROLLMENT CLIFF: This term refers to changes in the size of the traditional college-going population, 18-24.  The so-called ‘Cliff’ that’s fast approaching is generally attributed to a drop in fertility during the Great Recession. “Between 2008 and 2011, the U.S. birth rate plummeted, and despite an economic recovery facilitated within the next decade, did not bounce back. As a result, the college-age population was reduced, and enrollment figures fell from 19.9 million in 2017 to 19.1 million in 2024. Within this time period, public 4-year colleges maintained the most enrollment, totaling 7.8 million students in 2020. Demonstrating the tip of the enrollment cliff, this number dropped to 7.6 million by 2023. Along with declines in demographics, the number of prospective college students may have been impacted by the recent COVID-19 pandemic, in which the switch to online learning led to an additional 1.1 million high school dropouts. Additionally, Americans may be further inclined to defer pursuing higher education on account of the exceedingly high costs – and subsequent debts – incurred from attending college in the United States.”

The Enrollment Cliff gets steeper when one considers the dramatic drop in foreign students. Two years ago, about 6% of all US college students came from foreign countries, more than 1.1 million (tuition-paying) students.  This year those numbers are dropping.  About half of American colleges anticipate big drops, because the Trump Administration proposes to limit foreign enrollment to 10-15% of a college’s student body.  

Meanwhile, a record number of American students have decided to study elsewhere; granted, it’s a small number, but it’s a trend.  

While it’s true that college enrollment is up slightly this fall, this is apparently the last gasp, and tough times will soon be upon most institutions.

3) THREE-YEAR BACHELOR’S DEGREES:  If you attended college, you spent at least four years earning your degree, but that’s changing.  “The first three-year degree programs in the country—online programs at Brigham Young University–Idaho and Ensign College in Utah—gained approval just two years ago. Since then, the number of shortened degree programs has expanded exponentially, with nearly 60 colleges nationwide now offering or working toward developing such programs.” 

That’s the lead paragraph of a fascinating article in Inside Higher Education, and I hope you will click on this link to read the entire piece.

When you do, you will discover that almost all of the accrediting agencies (major power-brokers in higher education) are now willing to recognize the 3-year Bachelor’s Degree, something they have resisted for years.  Four years and 120 credits have been part of the landscape forever, but just because something is normal does not make it right or inevitable.  The 3-year program will require 90 credits, so you can say goodbye to electives, of course. However, if a student is focused on a career, why not push through as fast as possible?  Recently a friend told us about his grand-niece, who is majoring in ‘Golf Tournament Management’ at a university in Kentucky.  She has to complete internships at three golf clubs during the summers, but why should she have to spend four years on campus?  

The same logic applies to graphic design, physical therapy, hospitality management, and cyber-security, and a host of other fields. 

It’s also worth noting that higher education systems in some other countries have embraced the 3-year Bachelor’s Degree.  

This trend is evidence that higher education is in survival mode, on high alert, perhaps because of #4, below.

4) QUESTIONING COLLEGE:  It’s apparent that many young people–and their parents–are questioning the value of higher education in the United States; although 79 percent of Americans believed it was more or equally as important for people today to have a college degree in order to have a successful career, only six percent said that everyone in the U.S. could access a quality, affordable education after high school if they wanted it. In addition, current students have been vocal about the negative impacts of attending higher education, with over half considering dropping out of school due to emotional stress. College dropouts tend to be worse off than when they started due to high levels of debt, and student debt is also a major factor on the financial decisions that Americans can make after college.

5) DONALD TRUMP: He is very much part of higher education’s problem, because he’s not a fan of higher education, and, if you have read this far, I am certain you are familiar with Trump’s attacks on Harvard and other leading private institutions, or his forcing the resignations of the president of the University of Virginia, George Mason University, and others.  Under the banners of ‘fighting DEI’ and ‘ending anti-semitism,’ Trump and his allies have seemingly brought most of higher education to heel.  

To some extent, higher education has brought some of this on itself, with its embrace of ‘safe spaces’ and ‘micro-aggression’ and ‘identity politics,’ all of which seem to have made many campuses places where it’s dangerous to talk about controversial ideas and even riskier to actually hold divergent views.  

Trump’s so-called ‘cure’ may be worse than the disease, unfortunately, but the roots of higher education’s problems can be traced back to another politician who was famously hostile toward higher education, the Great Communicator himself.

6) THE LEGACY OF RONALD REAGAN

If you needed financial help to go to college before Ronald Reagan became president, the chances are you received most of what you needed as a grant, not a loan.  From the right-leaning publication, The Intercept: “For decades, there had been enthusiastic bipartisan agreement that states should fund high-quality public colleges so that their youth could receive higher education for free or nearly so. That has now vanished. In 1968, California residents paid a $300 yearly fee to attend Berkeley, the equivalent of about $2,000 now. Now tuition at Berkeley is $15,000, with total yearly student costs reaching almost $40,000. Student debt, which had played a minor role in American life through the 1960s, increased during the Reagan administration and then shot up after the 2007-2009 Great Recession as states made huge cuts to funding for their college systems.”

Here’s more on that point.

And from The New York Times in late 1981: Since taking office last January, the Reagan Administration has set out to curtail the cost of Federal student assistance and to alter the philosophy as well. ”I do not accept the notion that the Federal Government has an obligation to fund generous grants to anybody that wants to go to college,” said Budget Director David A. Stockman in Congressional testimony in September. ”It seems to me that if people want to go to college bad enough, then there is opportunity and responsibility on their part to finance their way through the best they can.”

Most of us have lived through a sea change, going from a time when we collectively believed that investing in higher education paid social dividends that far outweighed the costs, to a time when the federal government and all state governments have reduced their support.  Now, the operating philosophy seems to be, “Hey, you want an education? Pay for it yourself!”

I don’t know if anyone has a solution for higher education’s problems, but I am certain that “education reform” is NOT the answer.   I see higher education’s challenges as part of a larger picture: our declining commitment to almost anything ‘public,’ such as public transportation, public libraries, public spaces, public schools, public health, public safety, and on and on.  

Absent a strong commitment to the common good, coupled with disgraceful–and growing–income inequality, our national experiment in “a more perfect union” seems doomed.

“A Third of Teachers Are Terrorists”

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

The US has nearly 3.6 million K-12 teachers, and another 1.5 million college teachers. One-third of 5.1 million is 1.7 million. Who knew that we have 1,700,000 terrorists in our classrooms!

I certainly had no idea things were that bad, and I’m kicking myself for not knowing. After all, I spent more than 67 years in American classrooms, as a student, a teacher, a parent, and a reporter. I must have interviewed and maybe even socialized with thousands of these terrorists, and I didn’t have a clue.

My 4th grade teacher yelled a lot and banged desks (and some ears too), so I supposed she “terrorized” us, but I don’t think that’s what the accuser had in mind.

I can think of one other possible example of ‘terrorism’ in the classroom: My 10th grade English teacher, Mr. McKinley, would deliberately make mistakes when he wrote stuff on the blackboard and then erupt in (faux) fury if we failed to catch his flubs. Somehow, I don’t think that’s what the accuser had in mind.

Are you questioning the accuracy of the accusation? OK, it came from President Donald Trump’s buddy Steve Bannon, who opened his mouth while in Arizona to pay tribute to Charlie Kirk, the assassinated leader of Turning Point. The podcast host was saying to Bannon that Kirk’s ideas about marrying early and having lots of children were actually not popular with young people, which prompted Bannon to blame teachers for brain-washing their students. Here’s what he said:

“…..those kids — look, from kindergarten all the way up, they are essentially, you know, a third of the teachers are terrorists that are trying to form them.”

Predictably, the right-wing podcaster didn’t challenge Bannon’s wild accusation or even ask him what he meant by ‘terrorist,’ so I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that Bannon meant that teachers were teaching values that Bannon disapproves of, like tolerance and cooperation. I have seen lots of teachers work hard to inculcate such values, and, if that’s ‘terrorism,’ I approve.

Mocking Bannon is a woefully insufficient response, however, because his blatant teacher-bashing is part of the right wing’s persistent, harsh, and (unfortunately) often successful campaign to bring down public education.

And Bannon’s not even a field general in this war. He’s clearly outranked by Oklahoma’s State Superintendent of Education Ryan Walters, who in January reacted to violence at the Mardi Gras in New Orleans. You may recall that, early on New Year’s Day an army veteran carrying an ISIS flag drove his pickup truck down Bourbon Street and killed 14 people and injured dozens more before the police killed him. It was labeled a possible terrorist incident, prompting Mr. Walters to go off: “We also have to take a look at how are these terrorists coming from people that live in America. …. You have schools that are teaching kids to hate their country, that this country is evil. You have the teachers’ unions pushing this on our kid (sic).”

Mocking the hyperbole of school critics like Walters and Bannon is ineffective, because culture warriors are immune to humor. Instead, they are seriously opposed to just about everything that some of us believe is in the public interest, such as public education, public transportation, public libraries, public parks, public health, and so on. They recognize that public education is a cornerstone of our democracy, and they are going after it, with sledgehammers and other implements of destruction, including lies and absurd accusations from the likes of Bannon and Walters.

(They are anti-public-everything, acronym APE. Don’t be an APE!)

Early in September, the New York Times reporter Dana Goldstein did a deep dive into the impact of vouchers, education savings accounts, tax credit scholarships, and other programs that divert funds from public schools to non-public schools. The entire article is well worth your time.

The number of students whose parents are using these programs has doubled since 2019, nearly all in Republican-led states. Five years ago, only about 20,000 students had education savings accounts (ESA), which allow deducting any ‘educational’ expense from one’s taxes; today, more than 500,000 families have ESA’s.

In the past, eligibility for most of these programs was means-tested because the stated goal was to help low income families. That’s changed, and in the new programs, any family can take advantage, regardless of income.

This ain’t cheap. Indiana’s program, for example, is costing more than $600 million a year, dollars that might have gone to public education.

Joining the 14 states with voucher-type programs is your federal government, because the “Big Beautiful Bill” passed by Congress earlier this year includes a $5,000 voucher.

Do these voucher programs work? The evidence is mixed, at best.

Are they popular with voters? Here the answer is crystal clear: NO! In the 17 opportunities that voters have had to weigh in on vouchers since 1970, they’ve said NO, including three votes in Republican-led states in 2024.

For a critical view of what’s going on, read David Osborne’s analysis here.

If you support public education, begin by thanking teachers. Take a minute to picture the teachers who changed your lives for the better…and then to ask yourselves if you ever said ‘Thank you’ to those women and men. If it’s too late to connect directly with them, you might write something about them and share it with others.

That’s only the first step. Consider attending school board meetings, perhaps even running for election to your local school board. You might join the parent-teacher organization, or volunteer as a tutor. You might contribute supplies, or help with school fund-raising efforts. Let your elected officials at all levels know that you support public education. If you’re a public school parent, move beyond ‘involvement’ to ‘engagement,’ by getting to know your children’s teachers.

(I’ve written about this in more detail in “Addicted to Reform: A 12-Step Program to Rescue Public Education,” which is available at most public libraries, some bookstores, and Amazon. It’s reviewed positively here and negatively here.)

It’s not pie-in-the-sky idealism to believe that a strong public education system is the road to equality and citizenship, or that the real safeguard of democracy is education. Those insights came from FDR and Martin Luther King, Jr., among others.

Please make certain that you are registered to vote, and that your friends and neighbors are as well. This attack on public education is serious, folks. Don’t take our democracy for granted.

Higher Education in the Crosshairs/at a Crossroad

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

Let me begin with an assertion that may upset some readers: Most American colleges and universities are glorified vocational institutions whose primary purpose is to prepare people for the work force. Most students understand this and go about ‘building a resumé’ that will earn them a good job.  This is, I think, a devil’s bargain for the vast majority of students.

It’s the rare college student who focuses on the challenge of ‘building a self,’ even though jobs come and go, and one’s inner self is your only sure companion for the rest of their lives.  And while some professors push their students toward personal discovery and intellectual growth, the primary drivers of higher education are jobs and careers: ”Learn to Earn.”

It has always been thus: Harvard, the country’s oldest college, was established in 1636 to train ministers, and Yale was founded in 1701 to serve the same purpose.  

That said, I think that colleges have an obligation to guide their students in directions that are likely to lead to gainful employment, and perhaps to “lives of significance” as well.  Teach ‘the Principles of Management,’ not ‘Stagecoach Maintenance.’   But also expand your students’ horizons and encourage their dreams.  

Universities cannot accurately predict the future or the future job market, and that can have awful consequences for their students.  I encountered this in 1969 when I was teaching English at Virginia State College, in Petersburg, Virginia.  Virginia State (now a university) was and is an HBCU, serving mostly first generation African American students, many of them from challenging economic circumstances.  A Virginia State education and diploma offered a huge opportunity, the chance to join the middle class.

Remember now, 1969 was the dawn of the computer age. You’ve seen photos of large main-frame computers and the armies of key punch operators who punched, collated and then fed cards into the machines. But even then savvy people knew change was coming.  It didn’t take long: The first personal computer was introduced in 1971, and three years later, 1974, the Altair-8800 became commercially available.

I was shocked to discover that some VSC officials were steering students into a major that essentially taught them to be key punch operators, and I learned that that particular major was the college’s most popular. Students were being told that good jobs would await them upon graduation, and they believed it.

Fast forward to 2025, and something similar is happening. While nobody is being taught how to key-punch, thousands of students majored in computer science and other math-related fields because they were told that good jobs would be theirs for the taking. Now they are discovering that to be false. 

The New York Times dug into this recently.  

“Growing up near Silicon Valley, Manasi Mishra remembers seeing tech executives on social media urging students to study computer programming.  

“The rhetoric was, if you just learned to code, work hard and get a computer science degree, you can get six figures for your starting salary,” Ms. Mishra, now 21, recalls hearing as she grew up in San Ramon, Calif.

Those golden industry promises helped spur Ms. Mishra to code her first website in elementary school, take advanced computing in high school and major in computer science in college. But after a year of hunting for tech jobs and internships, Ms. Mishra graduated from Purdue University in May without an offer.”

Many others are in her situation; they have degrees and debts, but no job.

How widespread is over-vocationalization, if such a word exists?  In a casual conversation a few weeks ago, a friend told me that his grandniece was majoring in “Golf Course Management” at one of the country’s best programs and that her course work included a summer internship at a nearby golf course.  “Do many colleges offer that major,” I asked?  Yes, he said, dozens do.

He’s right. A casual Google search turns up a surprising number that offer a major in Golf Course Management, Golf Tournament Management, and/or Turf Grass Management.  On the list: Penn State, Ohio State, the University of Nebraska, Florida State, the University of Colorado, the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore, New Mexico State, Western Kentucky University, Coastal Carolina University, Mississippi State University, Kansas State University, the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, and (her school) Eastern Kentucky University. 

A few more institutions, such as Michigan State University, offer a “certificate” after 4 semesters and 54 credits.  Sixteen of these programs are certified by the PGA, professional golf’s governing body. 

Internships are a crucial part of the training; one university insists on an 16-month internship, meaning that students are working away from their university for nearly a year and a half, while presumably paying tuition!

While running a golf course can pay more than $100,000 a year, are there job openings awaiting the 600-800 or so men and women who graduate each year?  The US has about 16,000 golf courses, but 75% of them are public courses, under management by a political entity.   There’s probably not a huge turnover in the public or private arena, which suggests that the vocational training that these men and women have paid for (and will continue to pay for) may not lead to jobs in the field they have immersed themselves in.

What do they do now? Are they prepared to switch careers, from one that didn’t want them to something else?  Has specialization done them wrong?

Colleges and universities have larger and more public problems than what I am describing: President Trump has them in his crosshairs, the supply of 18-year-olds is about to drop dramatically, and, on average, one college closes every week.  

However, I believe what you’ve just read gets at the root of the issue.  Higher education has embraced ‘learn and earn’ as its Golden Rule, with disastrous consequences, including isolation and polarization.  How many of those young people who majored in Golf Tournament Management also  took courses in philosophy or classical music, or computer science for that matter?  How many of those math and computer science majors branched out?  

American Higher Education is failing its students by allowing and encouraging specialization, instead of providing and requiring a broad curriculum, an experience that ‘builds a self,’ to again use Jacques Barzun’s memorable phrase.  

He’s worth quoting at length on the value of a broad liberal arts education.  Professor Barzun begins by asking why one should tackle the classics.

The answer is simple: in order to live in a wider world. Wider than what?  Wider than the one that comes through the routine of our material lives and through the paper and the factual magazines—Psychology Today, House and Garden, Sports Illustrated; wider also than friends’ and neighbors’ plans and gossip; wider especially than one’s business or profession. For nothing is more narrowing than one’s own shop, and it grows ever more so as one bends the mind and energies to succeed. This is particularly true today, when each profession has become a cluster of specialties continually subdividing. A lawyer is not a jurist, he is a tax lawyer, or a dab at trusts and estates. The work itself is a struggle with a mass of jargon, conventions, and numbers that have no meaning outside the specialty. The whole modern world moves among systems and abstractions superimposed on reality, a vast make-believe, though its results are real enough in one’s life if one does not know and follow these ever-shifting rules of the game. 

And then he addresses the consequences of living in the silo of one’s speciality:

The need for a body of common knowledge and common reference does not disappear when a society is pluralistic. On the contrary, it grows more necessary, so that people of different origins and occupations may quickly find familiar ground and, as we say, speak a common language. It not only saves time and embarrassment, but it also ensures a kind of mutual confidence and goodwill. One is not addressing a stone wall, but a responsive creature whose mind is filled with the same images, memories, and vocabulary as oneself. Otherwise, with the unstoppable march of specialization, the individual mind is doomed to solitude and the individual heart to drying up. The mechanical devices that supposedly bring us together—television and the press, the telephone and the computer network—do so on a level and in a manner that are anything but nourishing to the spirit. 

The message to students should be crystal clear: do not put yourself into a pigeonhole by specializing. Instead, take courses across the curriculum. Find out who the most interesting professors are and enroll in their classes.  Stretch, because you might discover parts of yourself that you didn’t know existed.   

And, remember, that job that you think you want, that job may not even exist three or four years from now.  Or less, as AI picks up speed.  Before you’re through, you may end up having a dozen or more jobs, and two or three careers.  

The way to prepare for change and uncertainty is to embrace them.

“The Play’s the Thing….”

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , , ,

Before I get to the point of this essay, I want to tell you a story that I hope you will find interesting. Paul D. Schreiber High School is in Port Washington, New York, only 23 miles from Times Square, the beating heart of New York City. Like most public high schools sixty years ago, Schreiber was rigidly tracked, 1-5. The Ones and the Twos, clean cut kids with last names like Wilshire and Braddock, were destined for college and success, so they got the most attention. Threes, the ‘average’ kids, were on track to become mechanics and hairdressers; many of their surnames ended with a vowel. As for the Fours and Fives, the system didn’t really care much about them, although a few teachers dedicated all their energy to getting them through high school.

I was teaching in a public school only because I had failed the Peace Corps physical, and because I was an untrained rookie, the system didn’t let me anywhere near the Ones and the Twos; instead, I had five classes of Threes and Fours, maybe 130 students in all. And when a young history teacher suggested that she and I combine our classes and team teach our 10th grade Fours for the second semester, the powers-that-be just shrugged and gave their approval.

Patty, who was tall, blonde, and attractive, was also a few years older, so perhaps the motivation wasn’t entirely pedagogical, but it took me a while to figure that out. Anyway, she and I now had 25 or 30 disinterested kids for a double period, about 90 minutes, every day. We needed something big to hold their attention. I think I got the idea of having students write a play from The English Journal, one of the magazines I started reading when I realized I had no clue about teaching.

Patty liked the idea, and that was that. We didn’t have to ask permission or even inform our supervisors, because, after all, we were teaching Fours. We presented it to the kids as a challenge and an opportunity, and perhaps because I had taken my Fours to a Broadway play during the first semester, most were willing, even eager to try something different.

We told them about plot, character, story arc, scenes, and acts, but what I remember is the story they wanted to bring to life. At its center was a group of teenagers that no adults seemed to care about, students who went through the motions in school but who led full lives outside of school as members of a group (not a gang!) that took care of each other and also helped elderly neighbors by repairing their cars, etc etc. Rough-looking and tough-talking, these kids were misunderstood.

They were also scorned by the elite students in their school, largely ignored by teachers, and looked upon with suspicion and hostility by local merchants.

Art imitating life, you’re thinking? Yup.

So those were their characters. What was the plot? What would be the arc of the drama?

What I remember is that it involved shop-lifting. The owner of the neighborhood ‘five and dime’ store had accused a couple of the teenage ‘roughnecks’ of regularly stealing packs of cigarettes, and he banned them from the store. Their friends knew they were innocent, because they had seen two other kids, the football captain and the head cheerleader, taking the cigarettes, but they had to catch them in the act.

Our students were on fire, and we would spend class time trying out lines, acting out scenes. We tried to convince them to introduce some complexity into the plot, so the ‘bad guys’ weren’t all bad, the ‘good guys’ not entirely good. Shouldn’t there be some sympathy for the store owner, who was losing money every day, for example, even though he was lashing out at the wrong kids? I don’t know if we were successful at that, but I remember that I had the kids doing a lot of writing and rewriting, not just of the play itself but also about the process of creating a play, what they were learning about that.

Soon the students were pushing to stage their play, not just in our classroom but on the school’s stage! Word had gotten out that Miss Ecker and Mr. Merrow’s class was doing something cool, and eventually the Principal gave his OK.

That brought a whole new level of energy, because it meant creating and building sets, finding costumes, and rehearsing after school. It meant significant responsibilities for a lot more students, not just acting and directing but also set design and construction, lighting, etc etc. Suddenly these Fours had real status in the halls of Schreiber.

We–they–put on the play, maybe two or three performances, and it was a hit. Students loved it, and some of the parents were overjoyed to see their children succeeding. In the eyes of other Threes, Fours, and Fives, our kids mattered. They were now achievers, a status they had never attained–and perhaps had never had the chance to attain. How the school’s elite students, the Ones and the Twos, felt, I don’t remember, but that didn’t matter.

What I realized only later is that Patty and I had inadvertently and accidentally invited our students to become producers; we’d given them permission to seemingly take control over their own learning.

I say ‘seemingly’ because she and I, their teachers, still held the reins, albeit loosely. It was our responsibility to see that they became capable writers, learned some history of theatre, learned to work together, to fail and try again, and so on, but we were using their energy and curiosity to make it happen.

Generally speaking, most of school back then and today (even for the Ones and the Twos) requires Consumption, not Production. Students are expected to absorb and regurgitate information, but we had invited our kids to become Producers, and not just of a play that allowed them to work out their resentments. They produced real knowledge, and they went forward knowing that they had achieved something significant.

That opportunity can and should be extended to all students, as often as possible.

(Incidentally, the next year I invited/challenged my Threes to put MacBeth and Lady MacBeth on trial for First Degree Murder, and they jumped at that chance. We had defense and prosecuting attorneys, a judge (the Principal!), and lots of witnesses like Banquo’s Ghost and MacDuff. The only down side was there weren’t enough parts, so a handful of students had to be jurors. If any teacher reading this decides to do it, I recommend that those ‘extra’ students be reporters, assigned to produce a news report at the end of each trial day. Talk about learning opportunities!)

I wanted to tell you that story because I am concerned about what’s going to happen–or not happen–because so many schools are banning cellphones.

Simply put, banning is the right thing to do, but if that’s all schools do, it’s going to be a disaster. That’s the negative step: “NO YOU CAN’T DO THAT.” But have the adults given serious thought about what new opportunities they’re going to offer students?

That’s why this essay is entitled “The Play’s The Thing….” Shakespeare uses the staging of a play to ‘catch the conscience of the King’ who had murdered Hamlet’s father, but schools could use drama, music, other creative arts, and sports to catch and engage all the creative energy that kids bring to school, lest it turn negative and destructive.

As I write this, at least fourteen states, and thousands of school districts and individual schools (public and private) have banned or severely restricted the use of cellphones. That number is certain to increase. This is a good thing, a necessary but hardly sufficient step forward. In addition to banning cellphones, schools must provide stimulating opportunities and experiences; they must bring back theatre, art, music, and other ‘extra-curricular’ activities that all but disappeared when George W. Bush’s disastrous “No Child Left Behind” bill became law in 2001.

First, here’s why a complete ban makes sense:

  1. Nearly all teenagers–95%–are on social media like TikTok, WhatsApp and their counterparts. One-third of teens admit to using social media “almost constantly.”
  2. Social media is damaging our kids, according to the U.S. Surgeon General: “The types of use and content children and adolescents are exposed to pose mental health concerns. Children and adolescents who spend more than 3 hours a day on social media face double the risk of mental health problems including experiencing symptoms of depression and anxiety. This is concerning as a recent survey showed that teenagers spend an average of 3.5 hours a day on social media. And when asked about the impact of social media on their body image, 46% of adolescents aged 13-17 said social media makes them feel worse.” A ‘national mental health emergency’ for children and adolescents was declared by the American Academy of Pediatrics back in 2021. The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that “In 2021 and 2022, 21% of adolescents reported experiencing symptoms of anxiety in the past two weeks and 17% reported experiencing symptoms of depression.” Undoubtedly, matters have only gotten worse, as teens’ use of social media has increased.

Unrestrained use of social media damages children in many ways:

  • Social media exposes young people to “extreme, inappropriate content.”
  • Social media makes them–especially adolescent girls–feel bad about their bodies.
  • Social media is a haven for predators. Nearly 6 in 10 girls say they’ve been contacted by strangers online “in ways that make them feel uncomfortable.”
  • Social media can overstimulate the brains in ways similar to addiction, leading to problems sleeping and difficulty paying attention.
  • Time on social media is time that is NOT spent with peers, developing relationships, learning about life’s give-and-take, what Erik Erikson calls ‘identity formation.’
  1. Teenagers access social media on their cellphones, and 95% of teenagers have their own cellphone. These ubiquitous devices are their portal, their entry point, their lifeline to social media. Without cellphones, teenagers have extremely limited access to social media. Cellphones, which are ubiquitous, are the lifeline and portal to social media.

(It’s not just teens, of course. According to the National Institutes of Health, “Mobile phone adoption in the United States is starting in late childhood and early adolescence; currently, 53% of children have a smartphone by age 11.”)

Without cellphones, teenagers won’t be taking 100 or more selfies to get the ‘perfect’ photo to post. They won’t be making 10-second videos for TikTok or spending hours watching cats being cute. If they aren’t on social media, the thinking goes, they will be more social. If they aren’t communicating with a machine, they will engage in genuine personal communication.

Banning phones is necessary, but it is not sufficient, not even close. What are adults offering in exchange? What’s the rest of this bargain? Without some other steps, some quid pro quo, this will be perceived by most teens as heavy-handed and punitive, something being done to them against their will, something that makes school even less appealing.

Of course many kids see the ban as punitive, and why wouldn’t they? When adults try to reassure them by saying, “Trust us. This is for your own good,” that only confirms their suspicions. This is being done to them–and so they are going to devote a lot of energy to beating the ban.

Unfortunately, schools and the adults who run them are too often reactive, when thoughtful proactive behavior is called for. Instead of simply banning phones, the adults ought to be trying to get young people to want to come to school regularly, not simply ‘to attend school.’ To do that, schools (with or without cellphones) need to be interesting, challenging, and safe.

Let me suggest four specific steps that should, I believe, accompany the cellphone ban:

1) Restore the full range of extra-curricular opportunities–because most kids come to school so they can do interesting stuff with their friends! Invite them to write and perform their own plays, as Patty and I did back in school year 1965-66. While schools today aren’t officially tracked, most students know whether they are unofficial Threes or Fours. That energy can be tapped into, for good.

Recently I heard Oskar Eustis, the theatrical director of New York City’s Public Theatre, speak about the value of theatre. He argued persuasively that participating in theatre brings kids together and teaches all the skills and virtues we hope all children will acquire: teamwork, self-discipline, compassion, courage, a strong sense of their own worthiness, and more.

As I related at the top of this essay, I can attest to that.

2) Homeroom could become an extended period, not just a quick five minutes when attendance is taken. Make daily homeroom a pressure-free time when students–without phones to distract them–can catch up with friends, forge new relationships, finish homework, or even take naps. “Home” is the operative word here. For most high school and middle school students, “Homeroom” is the equivalent of the starting blocks in a track meet. They touch base, listen to (or maybe ignore) morning announcements, and, when the bell sounds, dash off to class. In truth, “Homeroom” matters to school administrators only because it gives them a head count, but it’s a meaningless perfunctory exercise for kids. For them, “Homeroom” is just a room, about as far from actually being a home as one can imagine.

That could change. America’s teenagers desperately need more “Home” in their lives, more opportunities to connect with others, more moments that tell them they matter. The rigidity of today’s high-pressure school schedules makes matters worse, not better.

The simple—not easy, but simple–fix is to make “Homeroom” more of a HOME, not just another room. Some teachers will have to be convinced that this new time period is an opportunity for them to expand their own professional repertoire of skills to include their students’ social and emotional growth. The challenge may be to train teachers to listen and not react, in order to allow young people to identify and share their feelings. NewsWeek magazine reports that Tacoma, Washington, schools are doing this, training not only teachers but also parents and school bus drivers.

In each of these new extended Homerooms, teachers and their students will have to work together to figure out how they want to use this time. Some students may want to finish homework, or sleep, but the teacher could steer the conversation in the direction of “team building.”

Perhaps one day a week could be set aside for discussion of some interesting questions (“If you could meet one figure from history, who would it be, and why?”), even trivial ones (“What questions would you like to ask Taylor Swift?”).

Ideally “Homeroom” will turn into a safe space where students can learn to share and will agree that what’s shared there stays there. No bullying allowed.

3) Expand course offerings to include some college classes and vocational training opportunities. Meet kids where they are, not where you think they should be.

4) Work harder to make schools safe in three vital ways: physically, emotionally, and intellectually. Emotional safety means that bullying and cyber-bullying are not tolerated. Intellectually safe schools celebrate curiosity and honor academic achievement. In these schools, adults encourage students to admit when they do not understand or are confused, often by modeling that behavior. Intellectually safe schools don’t treat kids as numbers but as growing and changing individuals. (And young people who are treated with respect are unlikely to bring their dad’s AK-47 to school.)

Without cellphones as a crutch and given a more stimulating environment, most young people will be inclined to engage with each other. With adult guidance, they can explore new ideas, share curiosities, make plans, and so forth. They can learn that there is life without cellphones.

Removing cellphones creates new opportunities and challenges, but that won’t happen if adults simply enforce the ban. That is, banning cellphones in school is NECESSARY but not SUFFICIENT.

It’s time for the grownups to grow up and step up!(POST

(POSTSCRIPT: Miss Ecker was a marvelous teacher who cared deeply about her students and about standards. I left Schreiber after two years and lost track of Patty, but about 10 or 12 years later I was in Los Angeles reporting for NPR and happened to turn on the TV in my hotel room–and there she was, an anchor for a local station! We had a cup of coffee and a pleasant reunion. A few years later she married a colleague, Joe Benti, and in 1982 gave birth to twins.)

HOW TO DEFEAT TRUMP

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

Donald Trump has inadvertently handed anguished Democrats, angry Independents, and disappointed Republicans the key to defeating MAGA and taking control of the House of Representatives and perhaps the Senate in the 2026 Midterm elections.  

While I hope you will keep reading, here’s the key: support public schools (and other public institutions as well).

 About 6 weeks ago, Trump ordered his Education Department to withhold nearly $7 billion in funds for public schools, money that had been appropriated by Congress.  

The outcry was immediate, loud, and non-partisan.  Republicans made just as much noise, maybe more, than their Democratic counterparts.   And it worked!  Three weeks later, the Education Department announced it was releasing the funds.

As the savvy education reporter Jennifer Berkshire noted, “And just like that, the Trump Administration has released the billions in funds for public schools it had suddenly, and illegally, frozen earlier this summer. The administration’s trademark combo of chaos and cruelty has been stemmed, at least temporarily. That Trump caved on this is notable in part because his hand was forced by his own party—the first time this has happened in the endless six months since his second term began.”

There is, as Berkshire notes, a ‘cross-class alliance’ that supports public schools, which close to 90% of students attend, in Red, Blue, and Purple states.  Republicans in Congress eagerly push vouchers (chits to allow students to attend private schools), but those efforts have been soundly defeated in state legislatures for years.  The best example is Kentucky, a deeply Red state whose voters last November soundly rejected a voucher proposal, 64.8% to 35.2%.  

Another savvy analyst, David Pepper, has been watching, and his insights are worth your while.  Here’s a sample:  “10 GOP Senators stood up to the administration’s freezing of $6 billion funds for public school programs across the country. Yes, GOP politicians who are silent on almost everything were willing to call out the freeze, which was crippling public schools every day it lasted, and demand it be ended.

They actually defended the programs in a public letter: ‘This funding goes directly to state and local districts, where local leaders decide how the funding is spent, because as we know, local communities know how to best serve students and families…These funds go to support programs that enjoy longstanding, bipartisan support like after-school and summer programs that provide learning and enrichment opportunities for school aged children which also enables their parents to work and contribute to local economies. …. Withholding these funds will harm students, families and local economies.”

Too many Democrats seem to be running against Trump and his assaults on our democracy. Too much energy is being wasted examining the plusses and minuses of potential Presidential candidates like Andy Beshear, J.B. Pritzker, Gretchen Whitmer, Jamie Raskin, Josh Shapiro, Wes Moore, Pete Buttigieg, and Reuben Gallego. 

The first priority has to be articulating its First Principles, and I suggest that the first of these should be THE PUBLIC GOOD: That means strong support for all things public:  public education, public libraries, public transportation, public parks, public health, public safety, public spaces, and public broadcasting.  Democrats must be the party of the Common Good.

But a second pillar must be Individual Rights.  Because the fundamental rights that are guaranteed in our Constitution are often subject to interpretation, debate, and even violent disagreement, Democrats must be clear.  Free speech, freedom of worship, habeas corpus, and other fundamental rights are not up for debate, and nor is a woman’s right to control her own body.  

Health care is a right, and Democrats must make that a reality.  

Conflict is inevitable–think vaccination requirements–and Democrats should come down on the side of the public good.  

Because Americans have a right to safety, Democrats should endorse strong gun control measures that ban assault weapons that have only one purpose–mass killing. 

We can and should argue about other First Principles, but Democrats must take control of Congress and begin the arduous tasks of stopping Trump and rebuilding America.  While the Trump regime continues to be a disaster for a majority of Americans and for our standing across the world, it’s not enough to condemn his greed and narcissism, even if he goes to prison.  Let’s first acknowledge that Trump tapped into serious resentment among millions of Americans, which further divided our already divided country.  

The challenge is to work to bring us together, to make ‘one out of many’ in the always elusive ‘more perfect union.’  The essential first step is to abandon the ‘identity politics’ that Democrats have practiced for too long.  Instead, Democrats must support policies that bring us together.  Here are five suggestions:

1) Adopt sensible and realistic immigration policies that welcome newcomers who arrive legally but close our borders to illegal immigration. 

2) Adopt fiscal and monetary policies to address our burgeoning national debt. This should include higher taxes on the wealthy, emulating Dwight Eisenhower. 

3) Rebuilding America also means rebuilding our alliances around the world.  Democrats should support NATO and Ukraine, and rejoin efforts to combat climate change. 

4) Urge states and local school districts to beef up civic education in public schools, teaching real history, asking tough questions.  At the same time, federal education policies should encourage Community schools, because research proves that schools that welcome families are more successful across many measures. 

5) Bring back the draft for young men and women and offer a deal to those who volunteer for two years of (paid) National Service. In return, they get two years of tuition or training credits at an accredited institution.  They may serve in the military, Americorps, the Peace Corps, or other helping organizations.  One may teach or work in distressed communities, or rebuild our national parks, or serve in other approved capacities.  JFK famously said “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”  Let’s ask BOTH questions.    (Perhaps National Service should be mandatory, but that’s a long row to hoe, and we should begin with a voluntary program.)

But the key to defeating Trump and saving our democratic republic from his vainglorious and petty fascism is support for public education and other vital public enterprises.  

PROJECT 2029?

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

Anybody else out there feeling depressed about what’s happening in our country? Frightened? Angry? All of the above? 

Well, join the crowd!

Although the fire hose of disturbing news can be overwhelming, panic and despair cannot be options, not on Memorial Day and not ever.  The smart people I’m listening to suggest at least three courses of action: 1) Support the ACLU and others who are fighting Trump in the courts; 

2) Focus on taking back the House, and perhaps even the Senate in 2026; and

3) Help figure out what Democrats stand for, rather than playing the parlor game of arguing about the strengths and weaknesses of Gretchen Whitmer, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, JB Pritzker, and others.  Parlor games and being against Trumpism aren’t enough; it wasn’t enough in 2016 or 2024, and it won’t be enough in 2026 and 2028 either.

#3, Figuring out what Democrats and the Democratic Party stand for could lead to ‘Project 2029,’ which should be the opposite of ‘Project 2025,’ the GOP’s blueprint for dismantling much of the federal government.  In sharp contrast, ‘Project 2029’ has to be forward-looking and positive, even as it seeks to undo the damage Trump has done and is doing.

So….what should be in Project 2029?  For openers, I would argue that Democrats should support almost anything that has the word ‘public’ in its name: public libraries, public parks, public schools, public transportation.

AND: Bring back the draft…for men and women….to require two years of universal National Service. This could be compensated service in a branch of the military, the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, Habitat for Humanity, a state’s Civilian Conservation Corps, or other similar organizations.  And this time National Service includes an additional reward: Two years of tuition or training credits, at an accredited institution.  JFK famously said “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”  Let’s ask BOTH questions.

ALSO:

A) Fiscal and monetary policies that help people buy their first home;

B) Higher taxes on the wealthy, a ban on trading by Congress, and other reforms of the tax code;

C) Community schools, not just stronger public schools.  These schools welcome parents and take full advantage of whatever the community has to offer. 

(And while we are at it, let’s make it harder to become a teacher but easier to be one. Higher entry standards and better training, and then more trust and better pay);

D) Rebuild our aging infrastructure;

E) Aggressively combat climate change;

F) Resist autocrats and support NATO and Ukraine;

G) Health care is a right. Make that a fact as well.

That’s my two cents. What would you add or subtract?

NECESSARY, BUT HARDLY SUFFICIENT

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

Banning cellphones in public schools seems to finally be happening in lots of states and school districts, but, unfortunately, the numbers are slippery. One source reports that, as of January 17th, 8 states had passed either bans or restrictions on cellphone use in schools, and another 15 states were considering legislation.  The newspaper Education Week, using a slightly different metric, reports that at least 19 states have laws or policies that ban or restrict use OR recommend that local districts enact their own bans.   Meanwhile, the federal government’s National Center on Education Statistics reports that in 2022 at least 77% of schools had “some sort” of ban in place–whatever that may mean!

The US has over 14,000 public school districts, with about 96,000 schools. We have another 20,000 private schools.  How many actually ban cellphones? No one knows, unfortunately. However, the evidence against cellphones in schools is mounting.  The New York Times covered the issue of violence in detail in December.  

Across the United States, technology centered on cellphones — in the form of text messages, videos and social media — has increasingly fueled and sometimes intensified campus brawls, disrupting schools and derailing learning. The school fight videos then often spark new cycles of student cyberbullying, verbal aggression and violence.

A New York Times review of more than 400 fight videos from schools in California, Georgia, Texas and a dozen other states — as well as interviews with three dozen school leaders, teachers, police officers, pupils, parents and researchers — found a pattern of middle and high school students exploiting phones and social media to arrange, provoke, capture and spread footage of brutal beatings among their peers. In several cases, students later died from the injuries.

That cellphones are damaging the mental health of our children is beyond dispute. As the Columbia University School of Psychiatry reported: 

Smartphones have transformed the way we communicate, learn, and entertain ourselves. However, their omnipresence can lead to compulsive use and a sense of dependency. The constant stream of notifications and updates can create a sense of urgency and a fear of missing out, leading to increased anxiety and stress. Furthermore, the excessive use of smartphones can interfere with sleep, which is crucial for mental health.

Social media platforms, while enabling us to connect with others and share experiences, can also contribute to feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem. The tendency to compare oneself with others and the desire for validation through likes and comments can lead to a distorted self-image and feelings of worthlessness.

Moreover, studies have shown a correlation between heavy social media use and depression, anxiety, loneliness, and suicidal ideation.

What changes when cellphones are banned?  As far as I know, the evidence is anecdotal;  here’s a typical story, this one from The American Prospect:  “One Minnesota school discovered, as do many schools with similar policies, that teachers and principals notice positive developments in student behavior. And even students, when prodded, agree that taking cellphones out of the school-day equation has made them more productive, social, and happier overall.


Reliable data doesn’t exist in part because “ban” means one thing here, another there.  Some schools require students to deposit their phones whenever they enter a classroom but allow usage in the halls and lunchrooms.  Others rely on the honor system, and some have full-fledged bans that do not allow cellephones inside school buildings.

Banning cellphones is, in my view, necessary but hardly sufficient.  In fact, it may turn out to be counterproductive unless we change our approach to teaching.  What’s essential are new approaches to instruction that give students more reasons to engage in learning.  

Let me give you one example of teaching differently, a 5th Grade class that is studying US geography.  In normal times, the teacher might hold the students responsible for knowing all 50 state capitals, and perhaps their major cities, rivers, and industries.  That’s largely rote memorization, the ‘drill and kill’ that turns off so many students.

Rote memorization makes no sense at all, because every kid knows that the information is readily available on their cellphones, with a few keystrokes. (The teachers know it too!)

Instead, let’s imagine the teacher saying, “Well, there are 25 students and 50 states, so each of you is responsible for two states.  Let’s figure out how to assign them.  Anybody have a favorite state, perhaps one your grandparents might have lived in, or one you’ve always wanted to visit?”

Once the states are assigned, the teacher might say, “Now what I want you to do is find out–using your cellphone for research, if you wish–the capitals of your two states, why it was chosen as the capital, whether the state has had more than one capital over the years, and so on.  Whatever seems interesting, write it down, learn as much as you can, and be prepared to share what you’ve learned with the rest of us.”

“One of you is going to discover that one of your states has had EIGHT capitals over the years.  A couple of other states–including one of the smallest–have had at least SIX.  Maybe you will be able to tell us why they changed capitals. Was it money, religion, the environment, or what?  Have fun digging.”

“Maybe you can also try to figure out how the capital cities got their names.  For example, the capital of Ohio is Columbus.  How did that happen? Columbus came never within a thousand miles of what’s now Columbus, so why is the capital city named after him?  And, while you’re digging into that, check to see whether other cities are named after Columbus, and when they were named.”

“What I want you to be, kids, is curious.  You have a world of information on those phones you carry, but let’s never forget that information and knowledge are not necessarily the same thing.”

What’s happening here, in the age of cellphone bans, is actually revolutionary, because the students are in the business of creating knowledge, knowledge that they will own and share with others.  

That beats texting and TikTok any day….

Democrats Didn’t Lose the November Election in November…..

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

Some pundits are blaming Kamala Harris for not doing this or that, and others are blaming Joe Biden for not dropping out earlier, but I am convinced that Democrats lost the Presidential election long before November 5, 2024.  Here are three possible dates that help explain Trump’s victory:  August 24, 2022; December 22, 2020; and July 24, 2009. They represent bad policies and missed opportunities, all of which came back to hurt Kamala Harris.

August 24, 2022 is the day Biden announced that his Administration intended to forgive the debts that hundreds of thousands of (mostly) young people owed to the federal government, loans they had taken out to pay for their college education.  Low income debtors could have as much as $20,000 forgiven; others, $10,000.  The Supreme Court intervened and overturned his original plan, but he persisted. And as Election Day neared, he and Vice President Kamala Harris took pains to remind everyone that his Administration had forgiven about $175 Billion in government loans for about 5 million people. 

But I want to go back to that day in August, 2022.  When we heard the news that morning, my wife’s immediate reaction was ‘Bad move.’  Why, I asked?  Because, she said, this is going anger the millions of people who worked hard to pay off their loans, and it’s also going to alienate people who never got the chance to go to college.  

I think she was correct.  I’m guessing the vast majority of those 5 million who benefited from Biden’s move would have voted for a Democrat anyway. He didn’t need to give them preferential treatment, but what about the nearly 40 million adults under the age of 65 who have some college credits but no degree?  And the millions more who borrowed money and paid it back–or who may still be paying those loans off?   Or voters whose gut instinct is to treat everyone fairly?

It’s bad politics to clinch the votes of 5 million people while alienating 50 million or more voters. And it’s also bad public policy to divide an already divided nation.

But Democrats may have lost the 2024 election even earlier, on December 22, 2020 even before Joe Biden was sworn in: That’s the day that President-elect Biden announced his selection of 45-year-old Miguel Cardona to be his Secretary of Education.  On paper, Dr. Cardona sounded perfect, with his inspiring rags-to-riches, “up from bootstraps” story. Dr. Cardona, who was raised in a housing project in Meriden, Connecticut, entered kindergarten speaking only Spanish.  He went through the city’s public schools and earned a college degree before returning to work as a fourth-grade teacher in the district in 1998, rising to principal, then assistant district superintendent and State Superintendent.   Along the way he earned his doctorate, as well as praise for handling the Covid pandemic.  This was, it seemed, The American Dream of social mobility writ large, but it turned out instead to be a missed opportunity to chart a new course for public education to recognize the gifts and interests of all children (and not just their test scores).

The central point of Dr. Cardona’s story is not his remarkable rise but its exceptionality, because, unfortunately, most of our public schools have become rubber stamps for the social, educational, and financial status of the parents.  Schools are much more likely to be barriers, not gateways.  Sure, most schools do a decent job of educating most children, but it’s as rare as snow in July for a child to do what Dr. Cardona did: climb the ladder.  

Social mobility–the idea that anyone who is willing to work can make it–is central to the American story. If social mobility is just a myth,  if children are born into what amounts to a caste system, then the American experiment is doomed.  

Assuming he’s aware of the petrification of the public schools, Dr. Cardona had the opportunity to tell us how embarrassingly and tragically infrequent it is for someone to do what he had done. He could have used the Bully Pulpit of his office to lobby for policies and programs to bring about change.  Unfortunately, he did none of these things.

Which meant that the rigidity and calcification remained, perhaps increased, on his watch.  And the palpable resentment of so many ‘forgotten Americans’ increased, making it more likely that they would vote the incumbents out, first chance they got.

Which they did on November 5th.

Now let’s go back to July 24, 2009.  How can anything that happened more than 15 years before an election determine its outcome, you may be wondering.  Well, that’s when Education Secretary Arne Duncan, armed with $4.35 billion, came to a fork in the road–and quite deliberately took the one that led to more frequent high stakes multiple choice testing, more (largely unregulated) charter schools, the fiasco known as The Common Core, and–eventually–an exodus of teachers, parents, and children from the public schools, as well as a significant backlash against any and all federal involvement in public schools.  

But just as significant–just as tragic–is what the Obama Administration could have done with that unprecedented opportunity.  America was in the throes of ‘The Great Recession,’ the hangover from the Administration of George W. Bush, and Congress had given Secretary Duncan more discretionary money than all previous Education Secretaries combined!  

School districts, desperate for dollars, were willing to do whatever Duncan wanted. He could have “encouraged” (i.e., mandated) 1) all-day kindergarten and pre-school; 2) more art, music and physical education (slashed during Bush’s “No Child Left Behind”); 3) more apprenticeships and vocational-technical education for the roughly 50% of students not interested in attending college; and 4) more opportunities for ambitious high school students to take college classes .  

Instead, he sided with the technocrats and embraced test-based accountability, making it harder for good teachers to do their jobs, and making schools less interesting places for children and adults.

Good public policy ought to bring us together, not just right wrongs or settle grievances.  If Democrats want to win more elections in the future, they must figure out how to welcome disaffected and angry voters into their tent. Unfortunately, too often public policies are treated as a ‘zero sum game’ with winners and losers–like the inmates and guards in a federal prison in Virginia, where I taught English in the late 1960’s. 

What I remember most vividly about teaching in prison are intelligent students, determined to keep their minds active, and angry guards, who were furious that ‘common criminals’ were getting the chance to go to college, while they were being left behind.  A few guards did their best to sabotage the program, with some success.  

At the time it didn’t occur to me that my class could have easily been open to guards and inmates. However, years later, when I learned that the Ford Foundation was funding 30 or 40 prison education programs, I urged the program officer, whom I knew personally, to see that at least a few of these experiments were equal opportunity ‘dual enrollment’ programs for inmates and guards alike.  Why not see if that approach–studying together–could bridge the divide between inmates and correctional officers, since nothing else seemed to be working?

My plea was ignored, but I would bet you just about anything that these programs, however deserving they are for giving some people a second or third chance, also created lots of resentment. Resentment  may be an unintended consequence, but it is  also predictable…and avoidable.  In other words, inmate-only prison education as currently practiced is arguably dubious and perhaps even bad public policy, the equivalent of Biden’s loan forgiveness programs.  Both exacerbate the divide, even as they help a chosen few.  

That approach loses elections.

Many Americans know that something’s not working the way it’s supposed to.  Some citizens are losing faith in public schools (and in other public institutions as well). Today’s Republicans act as though education does not have a public purpose. However, it most certainly does, because some of the kids in middle schools anywhere in the United States now may one day be the physician’s assistant monitoring your IV drip, the EMT trying to resuscitate your spouse, the mechanic maintaining the jet you’re flying on, or the fuel company worker seeking to contain that gas leak in your neighborhood.  In other words, it’s in your interest to see that as many children as possible reach their potential.

The new Trump administration seems to be intent on burning bridges. This will create opportunities for Democrats to build bridges.  It’s not ‘us versus them,’ because quite a few of those ‘them’ folks are a lot like us.  

Enough of the hand-wringing about Harris’s campaign, or Biden’s late withdrawal.  That’s not why she lost.  Think about the policies (and attitudes) that need to change, in order to bring us together.  Perhaps it’s national service, more civic education, more apprenticeship opportunities, or fairer tax policies.  Let’s figure out how to work together.