There is a reason that people like Bill Gates, Chris Christie, Rahm Emmanuel, Jeb Bush, Andrew Cuomo, Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg and yes Barack Obama will never really listen to teachers voices. And that is because, in the competition for money, power, and position, which is what is all the that really counts to them, they see themselves as winners and teachers as losers. Regarding themselves as examples of what talent and ambition can achieve, they look at someone who spends their life in the classroom as lacking in drive and imagination, and therefore undeserving in having a voice in shaping the way we train the next generation of citizens and workers. Whether or not they will say this in their speeches, they certainly say it to one another, in their private meetings, and high powered policy seminars. It is why the only teacher training organization they really trust is Teach for America, because that organization shares their view that really talented people would only remain a teacher as a passage to a more rewarding career. Unless you understand this– you will never understand why editorial writers, television personalities, corporate leaders, and elected officials systematically exclude teachers voices, and why the policies they ultimately support prove disastrous on the ground. Every section of the American Elite is poisoned with a fatal arrogance, and getting through to them with sound arguments is well nigh impossible. They only understand and respect power.
Professor of African American Studies and History
Fordham University
“If you Want to Save America’s Public Schools: Replace Secretary of Education Arne Duncan With a Lifetime Educator.” http://dumpduncan.org/
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Well stated Mark.
I disagree. While many teachers are wonderful people with valuable skills, too many are not. You can blame this on the incentives we have in our economy if you like, but the fact is the training they get attracts the lower third of those attending college not the upper third. There is a reason for this. The demands placed on those studying to be teachers are much less than those studying to be engineers, scientists, business people, medical folk etc. On top of that many teachers simply do not adapt to the needs of their students or their society and remain insulated from the real world. Finally, it is not clear that in the 21st century traditional teaching methods and systems are appropriate. With the internet we are entering uncharted territory where a global brain is there to support collaborative work and just in time learning as well as expert system- supported self learning on an unprecedented scale. Millennials and younger by the way have brains that are wired quite differently than those of their teachers because of their constant integration with digital systems. They work, learn and think in a different manner than prior generations. Many teachers and those that taught them have not figured this out. I don’t think our educator know much about this. Bill Gates, Arnie Duncan et al certainly do. I recommend you look at the TED talk and other material given by Professor Sugata Mitra
http://www.ted.com/speakers/sugata_mitra.html for some insights on this. Geoffrey Henn Professor Innovation and Creativity, former Director Biomedical Technology Transfer the University of MIchigan
Ghenny, where did you get this factoid? All the teachers I know are very smart and hardworking. I don’t agree with you.
Yikes! Sorry–but it sounds like you bought into a load of propaganda. Engineers are smarter than teachers? Business people, scientists etc are smarter than teachers? Do you KNOW any teachers? Did you ever have any teachers? HAVE YOU EVEN TRIED TO TEACH?!!!
Ghenny,
Do you work at the Gates Foundation?
Prof Henn:
This is a tough issue and one that actually needs to be clearly and definitively addressed. You are not going to persuade any of the regular readers here without providing data to support your assertion. You also need to frame it in a way that acknowledges that there are many highly effective and highly knowledgeable teachers. I had lousy teachers, but my 3 children had at least one truly outstanding Math, English, Latin and History teachers in their Middle School..
Only one?
Actually Millennials’ brains are probably being seriously damaged as far as their ability to concentrate and think deeply. See Nicholas Carr’s book The Shallows.
I disagree completely on the importance of technology in education, or that the brains of millennials are somehow “wired differently”.
In Silicon Valley, parents send their kids to private Waldorf schools because “Technology is a distraction when we need literacy, numeracy and critical thinking.”
“It’s supereasy. It’s like learning to use toothpaste,” Mr. Eagle said. “At Google and all these places, we make technology as brain-dead easy to use as possible. There’s no reason why kids can’t figure it out when they get older.” (NYTimes, 2011)
ghenny-You’re out to lunch on this. Spend a day in a school.
There is some evidence that grading standards in schools of education differ from other professional schools and the liberal arts and sciences. Here is a working paper that investigates these differences: http://economics.missouri.edu/working-papers/2010/WP1002_koedel.pdf
Biomedical Technology Transfer–that’s a mouthful. Plug a few wires in the brain, and presto! Hehe.
Professor Henn, even if what you say is true (that teacher training attracts the lower 3rd of students, which is something I’m not sure I buy), and even if we go back further, to the cliche “those who can’t do, teach,” where does that leave us if we want talented and intelligent individuals in the teaching field? If teaching is the “backstop,” the thing you do when you “fail” at something grander, how do you propose to attract the so-called “top talent” when teachers are reviled as “union thugs,” treated like indentured servants, and paid so much less than they might have been had they stuck with one of the “grander” professions?
We don’t respect public school teachers, as a country (certainly the right doesn’t). We blame them for our childrens’ failure to learn, then expect that so-called “more talented” people are going to be chomping at the bit to enter the field? Why? Are you offering more money? Why didn’t you say so?
Or are you (as your post vaguely suggests) saying that we should bypass public schooling altogether, and plunk each kid in a room with a computer?
Adjusting methodologies to the times isn’t a bad thing, and adjusting the manner in which information is conveyed is something worthy of study.
I think, however, that denigrating an entire class of citizens who have dedicated their lives to the education of the nation’s children is a pretty STUPID way to start your argument, though–it’s arrogant, elitist, and it’s certainly not going to change the minds of the people you seem to be trying to reach. In my experience, there’s a good reason people say that “A-squared stands for arrogant assholes.”
Or is Bill Gates the only one you’re concerned about reaching? ‘Cause he can afford to fund your research for a couple more decades, until you retire?
Yeah, actually I graduated with a 4.0 in history (pre-law) got accepted to law school but declined because deep down inside I knew I wanted to teach. Doesn’t sound like the bottom third to me.
Marc:
Prof Henn does need to justify his generalization. However, your background falls into the exceptions that he has already noted. The question is “what proportion of teachers have educational backgrounds like yours?”
Why don’t you already know this? I’m sure you have some stats and research for us.
Educate the readers so we know how ignorant and ineffective we are based upon the colleges we attended, our GPA, the other options we turned down, etc….just to become a lowly classroom teacher.
In NSF’s Science and Engineering Indicators 2012 they note (see Table 1-8) that in 2007-2008 64.3% of Middle School Mathematics teachers have a degree and/or
full certification in a field related to mathematics (e.g.,
science, science education, computer sciences, engineering).
Does that mean that those without a Math degree or less than full certification are poor teachers? Not necessarily.
Can’t we ever get anything but the same re-heated talking points from these people?
So, so stale.
Absolutely, according to them, despite their flowery BS, you are a chump if you stay in the classroom. May their arrogance combined with ignorance be their downfall when it comes to improving education.
yes I agree. All these self serving greedy people mentioned above
“see” are dollar signs.
It seems that money make the “blind” see..Money corrupts just like
absolute power corrupts….absolutely…
I’m with you. I know that the attitude at my elite undergraduate college—which I now admit I shared to a great extent—was “Did you hear that she’s going into teaching when she graduates?!?! But she’s so brilliant! I always thought she’d be doing something much more significant and meaningful…”
As an adult, and as a parent of a young child, I’ve radically changed my views on this; reality will often do that to people.
However, in professional circles, you’ll still sense and often directly hear phrases like,
“Well, he’s only a teacher.” or “If she was REALLY smart, she’d be doing something a lot more important than JUST teaching!”
Like the guy sitting at home, guzzling a beer, watching a comic on The Tonight Show, thinking to himself, “Hey, everybody says I’m really funny. Anybody could get up there and tell some jokes, like this guy does. It’s really pretty easy and I would be funnier than this guy if I cared to do so…”
Yeah. It always “looks easy” from the outside, looking in. Go tell some jokes and see how quickly Jay Leno comes calling…
And try to teach some kids, of any age, and see how “easy” that is too…
Talk is cheap. Particularly if it’s laced with arrogance, ignorance and plain stupidity.
“Let me start by saying I looovvvvve teachers.”
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=n2rpO75ZFQ0&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dn2rpO75ZFQ0
Yes–and working with children is not for the “ambitious weary.” And especially now with women competing for those “elite” spots, teaching is poo-pooed even more.
It’s a myth though.
Power is fleeting. Seduction by one’s own “greatness” just leads to narcissism. Wisdom is better, IMHO. Right now our society is struggling with what we value—wisdom or power.
I wrote this yesterday, but it fits better here:
As for higher ed and how it is or has been contributing to education teform movement, I think a degree from a top tier or Ivy League seems to be used as a ticket to a life others cannot have by pure right, rather than a chance to be a better educated person who leads by example and allows others to learn from them (like a teacher does). To me a truly well-educated leader rarely makes note of where they went to school and looks ahead more often than they look back, forging new connections and truly using the insight they should have gained at the school to better their communities. To use any school as a brand-name that gets you into certain circles cheapens the degree. Attending a more “rigorous” school is allowing yourself to be put through the ringer, so you come out a stronger person, rather than something like a logo that you simply pop on your résumé. While it can and should be popped on the resume, to stop there and then only be self-serving looks like a dead-end road to me in terms of legacy. If one gets seduced by one’s own “greatness,” then one loses the point of being well-educated. There should be a humility to having been educated at a reputable institution–not arrogance. Both types, and everything in between, exist. I just think the arrogant ones have been a little louder lately. A wise leader goes out among the crowd and leads by example, I think—like teachers.
If you read Michele Rhee’s book, which I did, she describes classroom situations that to many veteran teachers or those who studied education in undergrad, would find ho-hum. She describes events every teacher has dealt with, but as if the epiphanies she has along the way are somehow unique because they are her epiphanies. Are her epiphanies better because she proved herself to be Ivy-league worthy?A wise and humble mother problem-solves every day and gains keen insight into her children (as do teachers). An industrious mother or teacher writes a book about it. But the one who wrote a book about it and called herself radical is not experiencing the wisdom, necessarily, to any greater degree than the mother or teacher who did not write a book about it. It’s like a city kid spending a day on the farm and then suddenly becoming an expert on farming. Good farmers will roll their eyes and just keep on farming. I am sorry that in this case the city kid has convinced people with power and money to go in and take over the farm.
This reminds me of why Mitt Romney bugged me so much during his campaign. I remember this footage of him standing in one of rich donor’s backyards, the kind with several acres of lush garden, a huge pool and a tennis court, all cared for by outside help, of course, and saying how Obama didn’t think people deserved that life or something, and that what he, Romney, stood for is enabling everyone to have that life, that a huge mansion was essentially the American Dream. This is more about the rich and “elite” than party politics, but essentially, I took offense at that assumption. I was the top of my class in both college and high school, and I considered becoming a lawyer. My parents were a little disappointed in my choice, I think, but have always supported my decision to teach English. I feel called to do this job. I feel disturbed that the only way to get “ahead” in my district is to leave the classroom, but I never will. I have taught college, but I chose to come back to teaching high school because despite all the stess and work and grading, I love working with teenagers at this time of life. My job is never boring, my students are wonderful people, and I am living my version of the American Dream. All I ask is to be given a reasonable middle class life with the autonomy and professional respect I deserve. I don’t always get it from the public, but I get it from my students more often than not. How dare these pompous, materialistic narcissists insinuate I am a loser because I chose a life of passion and service over money.
Thank you – well said
This is an astonishingly prescient piece.
My cousin is a Yale College graduate who was her prep school valedictorian. Since college, she has become a successful entertainment executive.
I once asked her what the most important thing was that she learned at Yale.
Her response–winning is not everything, it’s the only thing.
Now, she is a decent person and shares her talents, time, and the fruits of her success.
But make no mistake; she is not a tuna, she is a shark.
I’m sorry, but I seem to be missing your point. Are we losers because we stayed in the classroom and therefore we are not sharks? Maybe I am a bit dense today but your story didn’t click for me.
I apologize for being obtuse.
My point was that my cousin seems to have been inculcated with the ethic of “we’re smart and gifted” and you “kind of are not.” Hence, my tuna and shark analogy—probably not a good choice.
Anyway, as a public university graduate, I am probably put in the “kind of are not” group by virtue of my university pedigree regardless of a modicum of academic success.
I certainly don’t think we teachers are losers except where we let these elitists dictate to us without a fight.
You should know by now that I am on the side of truth and righteousness! (smile)
Yes, of course I know. Thank you.
Connected to the arrogance- borne of elitism- are notions of autonomy and control.
As I argued in an earlier post, (http://www.arthurcamins.com/?p=196), the foundation of currently dominant education reform is the belief that the entrepreneurialism that drives innovation and profit in the business world is directly applicable to the public sector
and that regulation is anathema to creativity. This autonomy principle is evident in efforts to expand the number of charter schools that are free of constraint and in the drive to open public schools to private sector intervention. The control idea is that unless the remaining public schools (presumably not run by those imbued with entrepreneurial skill and drive) are held accountable for strict guidelines about learning goals (standards) and governmentally imposed operational regulation, they will not change or improve. This is evident in the inclusion of student assessments results in personnel decisions in the guidelines for Race-to-the-Top and in Title I School Improvement Grants. Support for Teach for America reflects a faith in inherent smartness and drive and a related devaluing of learned instructional skills. For example, many reformers want deregulation for charter schools and tight control over remaining public schools. One interpretation of this apparent autonomy and control contradiction is that the supporters of these reforms believe that really smart motivated people like them will do the right thing and should be left alone, while everyone else needs strong guidance and either penalties or financial incentives. In my view, these ideas are hardly new or bold. Rather, they are rooted in long standing beliefs, practices and policies for which many politically conservative business leaders have long advocated across a range of policy areas. What is new is a far more vigorous and coordinated effort to apply these ideas in public education with bipartisan embrace.
It may be true that the dominant reformers may be oblivious to reason and evidence and only respond to power. However, our greater challenge is that over time their ideas come to be accepted by the majority. We need to keep framing challenges in ways that have resonance with ever larger numbers of people.
While it is somewhat painful and maddening to realize that the “elite” have such disdain for teachers, I actually pity them. With all their power and money, they have limited minds.
Love this, Mark. But how do you unsmug the smug?
Way I see it, the person who dies with the most money…still dies.
But the people who stuck it out on the front lines, got their hands dirty and valiantly tried to make a difference–hey, they live on in their achievements. And those folks are generally known as teachers.
My Mom used to say that the only thing you take out of this life is what you gave away.
We are all in deep trouble until eveyrone in America, from Obama on down, realizes that we ALL put our pants on one leg at a time…that rich people are often shallow and brittle…and that Rahm is a jerk.
Linda @ 6:23
I said at least one for each of 4 subjects for three children. You do the math and leave it as an inequality.
According to you…maybe other parents felt differently. You are not the sole judge of a teachers effectiveness.
Linda:
I suggest you give it a break. I am asking for the data upon which Prof Henn based his assertion. You seem to want an echo chamber rather than a discussion. Too bad. I am disinclined to be bullied.
You don’t like being challenged. I suggest you back off.
It’s only a discussion if one fawns over your great ideas and your superior observations.
You are evidently thin skinned and full of yourself. It’s not bullying.
It’s the reality of your posts and your theme of bashing teachers.
Don’t read it if you are so easily offended.
Skip over the “discussion” that doesn’t bolster your already preconceived notions.
You mistake me. I enjoy being challenged. Please point to anything that I said that bashed teachers as a group. I have said that I had lousy teachers and that my children have had outstanding teachers and that my wife is a great teacher. I asked Prof Henn to produce data to support his assertion. You, of curse, are free to produce data that disproves his assertion. I wait with baited breath.
We also need to re-learn some basic lessons such as might does not make right. Also that people who do well in life are not somehow magically gifted – and that especially those who are born into power and money are not somehow better evolved than other humans.
They’ll laugh all the way to the bank, but I’ll smile humbly knowing that I didn’t put another 0 in my bank account on the backs of people who started off in situations worse than my own.
teachingeconomist @10:32
Good find. Prof. Koedel’s paper is very interesting – and pretty clearly written and readily accessible. Its findings appear robust and he did a pretty thorough job eliminating alternative explanations for the massive gap between GPAs from Education Department courses and courses from other university academic departments. This probably will not be news to many here since some have already pointed at the need to make Education Departments more selective and more rigorous in their ratings.
With respect to Prof Henn’s (ghenny) assertion, its significance depends upon the numbers of teachers at different levels who are Education Majors as opposed to Education Minors. The other points Koedel raises, however, stand on their own.
Anyway an excellent find that brings substance and data to the current topic/post. I hope Diane gets a chance to read it and comment.
So after reading Professor Naison’s piece about teachers being ignored when public education policy is formulated, I shared it with a friend and colleague of nearly 50 years, Dr. William E. Sheerin, a classmate at Fordham in the late 60’s and a fellow educator recently retired. My email, his response and an article he wrote for the New York Times back in 1985 appears below:
Hi Bill,
Do you remember how many times in the earlier years of our careers we’d run into someone we hadn’t seen for a while and they’d say, “Are you still teaching?”
“Still” as if it was commonly understood that what we did was only intended to be a temporary job until we found something in “the real world.”
Well here’s a post from Diane Ravitch’s daily blog that I think you find interesting.
After reading Dr. Naison’s piece Dr. Sheerin responded as follows:
I think Shaw’s old saying—“Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach”—pretty much captures public attitudes toward teachers in both England and the United States. The elites, of course, have always been the worst offenders in their condescension. A number of years ago, Yale shut down its graduate school of education, contending that it was not an appropriate element of an elite university. A number of other institutions did likewise in the years following that.
Even at Teachers College/Columbia (perhaps the most prestigious graduate school of education in the U.S.), I remember some professors complaining about how their counterparts on CU’s Graduate Faculty of Arts & Sciences saw them and their students at TC as lesser beings. (Of course, arts & science professors at elite universities are themselves teachers, aren’t they?) Anyway, as soon as they finished complaining about how the GradFac people sneered at them, the TC professors proceeded to sneer at public school teachers and discuss ad nauseam how educational administrators (“the cosmopolitans”) have to lead the unenlightened teachers (“the locals”) around by the nose.
Of course, the sneering is by no means limited to elites or higher-ups. Rich Lavino used to remark that he’d get barbs from his own family (and he was the only of them who went to college), questioning his sanity for pursuing so much coursework to get such a low-paying job. The attitude was: “If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?” I was asked more than once why I was “still” teaching high school after getting a Ph.D. (Of course, a lot of people don’t know that unionized public school teachers are often paid a lot better than college profs, but that’s another matter.)
I think these attitudes reflect a general tendency in American culture to idolize rich people, even if they made their money in socially useless ways (foul-mouthed rap stars, moronic/criminal professional athletes etc.). Perhaps it’s different in some other countries. My old Yorktown colleague, Aldo Belardo, used to remark that school teachers were called “professori” in Italy and were treated with considerable deference there. I heard in years past that teachers in Japan also are treated with a great deal of respect, but I don’t know if that’s still the case (if it ever was).
This whole issue of sneering at teachers and never seeking their opinions reminds me of something that happened back in the mid-1980’s. Another colleague of mine at Yorktown—a great guy who later became assistant superintendent of schools in the excellent Edgemont (Scarsdale) district—lost a school board election to an anti-teacher cretin in his home community (Croton?). Following up on it, I wrote an article decrying the anti-teacher bias and outright snobbery that leads to classroom educators seldom (if ever) being consulted on educational issues— whether by local school boards or prestigious national commissions. If you’d like to get a look at it, it’s available online at:
http://www.nytimes.com/1985/05/26/nyregion/westchester-opinion-a-lesson-in-snobbery-and-school-boards.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/1985/05/26/nyregion/westchester-opinion-a-lesson-in-snobbery-and-school-boards.html
It’s unbelievable how these ridiculous anti-teacher attitudes never die (they just seem to get worse as time goes on). I can feel my blood pressure rising just thinking about it. And I thought retirement was supposed to bring tranquility. Oh well…
Bill
Here is the article from the New York Times written by Dr. Sheerin 28 years ago. I could have been written today.
WESTCHESTER OPINION
WESTCHESTER OPINION; A LESSON IN SNOBBERY AND SCHOOL BOARDS
By WILLIAM SHEERIN; Dr. William Sheerin lives in Bronxville and teaches at Yorktown High School.
Published: May 26, 1985
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REPRINTS
IT is often the smarter kids in school who ask the most questions. They are the ones who realize that they do not know everything and that it makes good sense to take advantage of whatever expertise the teacher may have to offer. In the adult world, however, a lot of presumably smart people would sooner consult a soothsayer than a schoolteacher – even when the questions at hand involve public education.
Not long ago a teacher friend of mine ran for school board in the northern Westchester community where he lives. A bright, articulate and personable young man, he waged a fine campaign against a far less qualified candidate. Yet, he lost. The political post-mortems revealed that what had done him in was the simple fact that he was a teacher – even though he worked in another district, miles away. The voters just didn’t want a teacher involved in educational policy-making.
It is hard to imagine a business concern seeking new directors for its board and then ruling out businessmen. But putting a schoolteacher on a board of education? Well, that is another matter.
Of course, that was just one election in one community, and no doubt there are many places where public opinion is more enlightened. I believe, however, that the case illustrates some attitudes toward schools and teachers that are common in most communities and are prevalent at the national level as well. High-level commissions on educational problems have been poking around everywhere over the last few years, yet schoolteachers have been scarcely better represented on these panels than have been Marxists on the Republican National Committee.
This lack of interest in the teacher’s point of view reflects a certain contempt rooted in social snobbery and considerations of occupational prestige. Such attitudes, moreover, are reinforced by the press’s often sneering reports on public education and educators and by their sensationalized accounts of what does and doesn’t go on in the schools.
It is really very simple, we are told: students aren’t learning because teachers aren’t teaching – or, at best, aren’t teaching very well. And why is this, we ask the media pundits. Simple once again: the older teachers are ”burned out” and the younger ones aren’t much smarter than their students. The net effect? A younger generation of lamebrains and functional illiterates, or so they tell us with their usual overkill.
Now I am not about to argue that teachers are just long-suffering victims of today’s educational woes. Indeed, I have seen some disappointing specimens on both sides of the teacher’s desk. (Doesn’t every profession have its weak links?) What I would like to do is to call for a little more balance and fairness in appraising educational problems. Most current appraisals focus quite correctly on the central role of the teacher, but they often ignore other factors which underlie many of the persistent problems and conflicting demands that confront the school today.
Ironically, a number of those who now lambaste educators for not giving enough attention to basics were themselves, just a few years ago, demanding that public education take on all sorts of tasks – most of them only marginally related to the school’s traditional role. It is no wonder that the ”Three R’s” have suffered when the schools were expected to become comprehensive social agencies, to act as surrogate parents, to ”clarify” social and moral values, to solve racial problems, to combat delinquency, drug and alcohol abuse, reckless driving, teen-age suicide, pregnancy and venereal diseases -in short to be all things to all people.
Despite the critics who talk of the ”torpor” and ”rigidity” of the schools, the schools in fact are all-too-vulnerable to political pressures, to social faddism, to the demands of those who are vocal and well-connected. It is remarkable how many people today deplore ”educational frills” and ”esoteric programs” – except when such things benefit their children. If public education is to succeed in its basic mission, the public itself will have to recognize that the schools cannot be expected to serve everyone’s private interests or to remedy all of society’s ills.
As we work to improve curriculum and instruction, we should be careful not to repeat the mistakes made during earlier periods of reform – such as the retooling of school programs in math and science by university scholars in the period after Sputnik. To be effective, reforms must entail significant teacher involvement at each stage of development. They have to be based on practical experience in the schools, not just on the opinions of ivory-tower theorists and scholarly associations. We don’t need another ”new math,” let alone a ”new reading” or a ”new writing.”
Quick fixes for the instructional process are just not in the offing. No computer or packaged instructional program can replace a capable teacher, and the job of attracting and holding first-rate teachers is crucial to any serious attempt to improve public education. This job will not be accomplished until the rewards of teaching – both in terms of pay and public recognition – are significantly upgraded. Talk of competency tests for would-be teachers will remain so much hot air unless we can attract an abundance of candidates from which to select. Merit pay is no quick fix either. If a fair way can be devised to identify and reward superior teachers, that’s fine. But let’s not fantasize that the chance of being awarded a bonus of some sort is going to result in a surge of top applicants into a generally underpaid and undervalued profession.
In the final analysis, a greater measure of recognition and respect may be as important as higher pay in upgrading the teaching profession. The time has come to stop treating teachers as hired hands and scapegoats and to start recognizing them as full partners in the educational renaissance we all seek.
Dr. William Sheerin lives in Bronxville and teaches at Yorktown High School.