A Response to the New York Times article by Mr. King

Colleagues,

This article by Kristof (interestingly, the same name of the guy on "The Truman Show" who is artificially able to control every aspect of his universe) fails to adequately define "good teachers."  This is a common fallacy; "good"-ness in a teacher cannot even be agreed upon as a meaningful defined attribute, much less measured with any objectivity.  The article does make mention of teacher program graduates in the "top third of their class(es)"... does that make one a "good teacher?"  Certainly not by default.  (Book smarts de facto translates to classroom prowess?)  Or will the totality of the post-redesign re-hiring process simply be to whip out our grad school transcripts?  (I kid because I care...)

This article also seems to fault teachers entirely for the woes of schools, suggesting that the Japanese model of "larger classes, but with outstanding, respected, well-paid teachers" would save the day.  This statement necessarily implies that it is the lack of "non-outstanding" teachers that is responsible for schools' failure.  This negates the affirmative duty and responsibilities of the many other stakeholders in the educational process to ensure that the educational process works for all; if we just replace all our current "non-outstanding" teachers with teachers who got a 3.7 or higher in college, BAM, things will improve.  But the part of Kristof's comment about the Japanese model that goes unnoticed, unaddressed, under the radar, is the word "respected."

"Respected" is a participial adjective, part of a passive construction which begs the question "respected by whom?"  And that's the key.  Pacific Rim Asia and its member nations have an almost unilateral cultural endorsement of (formal) education as a profound value and a necessary virtue.  Until American society really understands and respects the job that we do as teachers, this type of change will not come in the measure that we might like to see.  In many Asian countries, it is simply axiomatic -- teachers are noble and their mission is to be respected... so they ARE.  These are countries where secondary education is HIGHLY competitive, where students must test INTO their high school of choice.  De facto, an American public school model could not follow even the most basic tenets of the "Japanese" model for that reason alone.  In Japan (Korea, etc,...) education is frequently tied to status, which maybe used to be the case in America, but perhaps no longer is  (and maybe it should not be, because then we inadvertently de-value vocational education, military service, etc in the process, because it's not the "gold standard" of a 4-year university, and therefore "not good enough").  In many Asian countries, and in many Asian ethnic enclaves in the US, an education is sought by students with almost religious zeal, and enforced by parents with a near-dictatorial level of inevitablilty.  The pressure is staggering, and predicated in the notion that an education is in and of itself an absolute Good.  That is not, it seems, the mindset of the America in which we live... an America where teachers are not infrequently the scapegoats, fall guys and whipping boys of frustrated parents, overwhelmed administrators and opportunistic lawyers and politicians everywhere.  Zounds.

Many Asian countries (and Asian populations in the US) have well-documented HIGH student suicide rates over academic failure, or the inability to make certain grades, achieve certain test scores, or get into certain vaunted institutions.  Do we really want our schools to come to that?   These are societies where it may be considered culturally taboo for student to speak out of turn to a teacher, to challenge/debate or ask questions, or even make direct eye contact in class.   That's not how I imagine a successful classroom running!

What we do have in America is a staggering and wonderful diversity of students, schools, programs and options... a multitude of different tracks for students to follow, and opportunities for a much wider swath of the student population to find SOMETHING that works for them that they can then channel; into a career, a living, a vocation, a future.  We do wrong if we try to force everyone into a 4-year college track; we deny the very diversity we should be celebrating.  Oh, that's the other thing about many Asian societal/educational institutions -- almost total homogeneity.  I know we don't want our schools to come to that!

And to declare that teacher X is "93% better than" teacher Y... that's just an attempt to conveniently quantify the abstract, to the extent that the discussion becomes meaningless.  What is Kristof's rubric?  Test scores?  Class grades?  Student self-reporting?  Administrative observation?  We are so desperate to force things into tiny little boxes that we can name and give a score to, that we lose sight of what the heck our positions are all about.  We become creatures of pure, decontextualized data.  My goodness, let's not give up to the point where we abandon our own common sense, reason, objectivity and standards to the first prophet that comes along dangling a bait that looks like hope, or the first system that looks "simple" enough to "manage." Our job is too important to resort to shorthand like that.  I hope the Redesign Team's teacher contingent will represent well the concerns of teachers, at least to the extent that teacher concerns are valued by the State of New York, in the coming months/year.  Good luck to all of us.

Respectfully,
Andrew