Comments from a retired NYC teacher/principal

One of my friends passed along one or more of my emails to a friend who is a retired NYC teacher and principal.  She gave me an earful, with some good points -- and a little too much woe-is-us, blame-the-victim (and blame Klein and the DOE) nonsense:

After 38 years in public education as both a teacher and a supervisor, it is difficult for me to read some of your opinions about the ills of the City's schools.  It is a simple answer to blame the teachers, although there are some who certainly deserve the blame.  Education is such a complicated issue, hardly an exact science by any means, that it is vanity to assign school failure to one particular group or issue.  Having worked in both early childhood and middle schools, I can tell you how easy it is to predict in kindergarten and first grade which students will have problems later on.  Health issues, readiness issues, parental involvement, poverty and language are all factors.  In a perfect world, good teaching could ameliorate the effects of society's failures, but that's just not always possible. 

 

I have seen tremendous improvements in both curriculum and teacher support over my twenty years as a supervisor.  I have always been at the forefront of my district's and the school system's reform efforts.  I would be the last one to support the status quo for its own sake, but it's a little ridiculous to think we will ever attract the best and brightest to a profession that is always being criticized for not being able to perform miracles. 

 

It IS just like blaming the doctor for a cancer.  He can diagnose, prescribe and treat, but unless the patient follows his instructions and is in good enough health to benefit from treatment, the outcome will be dismal.

 

Let me suggest to you, as someone who has worked with potential drop outs for nearly forty years, that their lives are complicated by all kinds of problems outside of school.

 

Members of the charter school movement should realize that they live in rarified air. Try running a middle school with nearly two thousand kids who come from homes where parents are not supportive, sometimes downright hostile, to the efforts of the school.  Try retaining teachers when they feel maligned by the press and public and the 'experts' who have not walked in their shoes.  Try motivating students who feel that their lives will be shortened by drugs and/or violence.  Try keeping your head above water when the mayor and chancellor make senseless changes to cover their own failures.

 

I am proud of the great majority of what I have done and seen in classrooms.  Most school employees do their best in spite of the problems they face because of large class size, student misbehavior, and bureaucratic ineptitude from 'on high.'  Most teachers really love kids and are very well educated and very well meaning.  But none of us is a magician.  When one considers the high hopes of the current 'team' at Tweed in the light of the whopping one percent improvement in test scores, the enormity of the problem becomes clear.

 

I enjoy reading about your charter schools and I wish you every success, but you lose me when you talk about something you don't understand.  Try teaching for ten years and then you can lecture on what teachers should do.

Here was my reply:

Dear Ms. X,

 

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.  I'm not sure what you've read of mine, but I don't believe my views are simplistic or naive (I've been involved in this area for more than 17 years), nor do I blame teachers.  I blame the SYSTEM, which is deeply flawed, bureaucratic and unaccountable, with one major result being WAY too many lousy teachers and principals, esp. in schools serving low-income, minority students.  Look at this data (http://www.tilsonfunds.com/Personal/Teacherquality.pdf) -- it's impossible to come to any other conclusion.

 

I celebrate good teachers and we need many more of them.  I also appreciate the advantages public charter schools have over traditional public schools -- that's why I think every school should essentially become a charter, with the principal having control over his/her staff and budget -- and held accountable for results.  This is, in fact, precisely what Klein is trying to do in NYC, expanding the Empowerment Schools program to all schools.

 

Further thoughts and links are on my school reform home page at www.tilsonfunds.com/Personal/SchoolReform.  If you'd like to be on my school reform email list for daily emails like the next one, please let me know.

 

Best regards,

 

Whitney