Response by Leila Jerusalem

Here's the response to Strauss, Damon and the rally by my assistant, Leila Jerusalem, a former TFA corps member in Newark (full reply below):

 

There is nothing clearheaded about this, Ms. Strauss. Dr. Paul Farmer has a question he likes to ask people who disagree with him, "And on what data do you base that statement?" It is the same question I would like to ask Damon. He talks of a utopia that I hope we can achieve someday, but his claims are purely anecdotal. Of course, even reformers would love a world where we "took a teacher's word" that students are learning in their classrooms, without accountability. Our current practice of giving teachers complete freedom has led to the dismal state of American education.

 

When I was a first-year teacher in Newark, NJ, I asked the veteran 4th-grade teacher who had my students the year before for some advice on teaching math strategies. His response, "Honey, I stopped teaching ten years ago." A quick peek into his classroom confirmed any parent's worst nightmare: he had a television and VCR, a movie library, a supply of popcorn, along with a microwave. There was no secret as to what was going on in his classroom on a daily basis--the waft of popcorn fumes was proof. I hope that someone can look me in the eye and tell me that the reason his students weren't learning anything was because of poverty, or single-parent households, or because they weren't motivated. There are thousands of teachers like him. I invite you and the Damons and Ravitches of the world to send your child or the child of someone you love to a classroom like his. (In a way, you already have.) This teacher made six-figures, drove a Jaguar and retired the next year. Without a doubt, every good teacher deserves this type of monetary reward but we need to think straight as a society as we decide which teachers should be retained – and which ones let go. How do you propose we decide? The sad truth is that not holding teachers accountable only confirms the lowly view we have towards their profession and them as people! We demand much from those whom we put in high regard, which apparently, according to Damon and you, do not include teachers.

 

Like Damon, I had a public education in a high school that in retrospect was quite subpar. It was a high school someone else chose for me, with a reputation of being "good enough." Although I was lucky enough to skip a grade and be tracked into the gifted and talented program, I still had a few teachers who were duds.

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Response by Leila Jerusalem:

 

There is nothing clearheaded about this, Ms. Strauss. Dr. Paul Farmer has a question he likes to ask people who disagree with him, "And on what data do you base that statement?" It is the same question I would like to ask Damon. He talks of a utopia that I hope we can achieve someday, but his claims are purely anecdotal. Of course, even reformers would love a world where we "took a teacher's word" that students are learning in their classrooms, without accountability. Our current practice of giving teachers complete freedom has led to the dismal state of American education.

 

When I was a first-year teacher in Newark, NJ, I asked the veteran 4th-grade teacher who had my students the year before for some advice on teaching math strategies. His response, "Honey, I stopped teaching ten years ago." A quick peek into his classroom confirmed any parent's worst nightmare: he had a television and VCR, a movie library, a supply of popcorn, along with a microwave. There was no secret as to what was going on in his classroom on a daily basis--the waft of popcorn fumes was proof. I hope that someone can look me in the eye and tell me that the reason his students weren't learning anything was because of poverty, or single-parent households, or because they weren't motivated. There are thousands of teachers like him. I invite you and the Damons and Ravitches of the world to send your child or the child of someone you love to a classroom like his. (In a way, you already have.) This teacher made six-figures, drove a Jaguar and retired the next year. Without a doubt, every good teacher deserves this type of monetary reward but we need to think straight as a society as we decide which teachers should be retained – and which ones let go. How do you propose we decide? The sad truth is that not holding teachers accountable only confirms the lowly view we have towards their profession and them as people! We demand much from those whom we put in high regard, which apparently, according to Damon and you, do not include teachers.

 

Like Damon, I had a public education in a high school that in retrospect was quite subpar. It was a high school someone else chose for me, with a reputation of being "good enough." Although I was lucky enough to skip a grade and be tracked into the gifted and talented program, I still had a few teachers who were duds. I look back with fury on teachers who wasted my time, took their lessons for granted, and never challenged me to know the material the way my peers were challenged at the best schools in the nation. How could my entire class have been assessed to know that we were behind in these subjects comparable to students who had a different teacher? The way Damon demands that I shouldn't have been! I WISH I had taken a test to tell me that I wasn't learning anything, or rather, that my teachers weren't teaching anything. This information would have been very useful to me and my parents. The teacher, one hopes, would have been held accountable (or at the very least, observed in an honest way to keep him on his toes). I applaud "rich corporate reformers" who seek to extend opportunities they give their own children to all children.

 

Based on Damon's words, we can assume that he had great teachers, ones who fostered his creativity and passion. Such teachers have no reason to fear a test. Lucky for him, they felt a sense of responsibility to their students in helping them thrive (unlike the teachers I describe above). Although these types of traits are not currently tested in teachers, I am sure there is a researcher somewhere who can. As such, the reform movement argues for a comprehensive value-added multi-dimensional type of assessment of teacher effectiveness, one that even measures "grit," a trait proven that great teachers possess. Don't all the students in this country deserve such? Shouldn't education schools be recruiting these types of future teachers? That type of assessment might have to wait, but in the meantime we should welcome ways in which we can gain more information about what is really going on in classrooms. Data is good. Smart people acknowledge without reservation the importance of data. I am sure you and Damon use data every day to improve your own lives. Testing students is one very important way of getting information about what remains a mystery for many—what is really going on in classrooms? Many reformers publicly acknowledge that it is an imperfect start and it is dangerous when people like Damon and Ravitch oversimplify the demands made by reformers by saying that testing is the end-all be-all of reform. That is not true and neither Duncan nor the president have ever advocated for placing the future of any teacher in the hands of one test.

 

Damon may have had humble beginnings but his longstanding wealth, privilege and access have allowed him to send his four children to one of the most elite and expensive schools in the world, a school for the children of highly-educated parents whose privilege will pave the way for their children's success regardless of what might be missing from their school. It is also a school in which almost no testing is done. In that way, Damon is not a hypocrite as he advocates little to no testing for all children. But former parents at this school describe a cult-like focus on anti-testing. They have also supplemented their children's education with thousands of dollars in outside tutoring to make sure they are actually learning something. This is a privilege most students in low-income districts simply do not have. The responsibility falls largely on the school to teach, and with assessment, if no learning is going on, to find a better teacher. Even an individual as seemingly valiant and courageous as Damon will never find the nerve or will to place a child in a classroom where a teacher "stopped teaching ten years ago" because the teacher had total autonomy, as Damon claims his own teachers had while he was growing up. Without assessment and data through tests, we simply have no basis upon which to identify and either remediate or replace bad teachers, which continues the cycle. Damon presents us with a catch-22 but no solutions. He will support public school teachers only to a point, by flying across the country to pay lip service, to and for them, because he is yet uninformed of the educational realities in this country, probably because he is data averse. He worships them but not enough to place his children in their classrooms. A thousand first-class red-eye flights to deliver speeches on behalf of ordinary citizens is not actually as painful as sending his children to study with them.

 

I am saddened that I can see the stars in your eyes as you wrote about his speech.  Perhaps it is not just Damon who should clear his head.

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