Mark NAISON is a professor of African-American Studies and history at Fordham University. He writes:
Thoughts on the Destruction of the Teaching Profession and Other Losses
As I watch the teaching profession be destroyed before my eyes, through bi-partisan initiatives that are difficult to fight, and through the march of technology that some view as irreversible, I am filled with anger. This after all is my life they are rendering obsolete, something that has been a source of pride and excitement for me for nearly 50 years since I first started teaching tennis at Camp Kitatinny in Dingmans Falls NJ in the summer of 1963 at age 17. The kind of freedom I experienced in teaching high school students in Upward Bound programs in the late 60’s and early 70’s and in teaching college students and graduate students at Fordham since 1970, is gradually simultaneously being crushed by “outcomes assessment” and scripted learning, and the replacement of tenured positions like mine with low paid adjuncts who have no job security. And what I am experiencing in universities is magnified tenfold in the nation’s public schools where surveillance, supervision and assessment have truly reached Orwellian proportions, and where teachers are browbeaten into squeezing all joy out of innocent children as they force march them into passing high stakes tests.
I hate what is going on, and will fight it with every ounce of my energy, but as a historian, I am hardly surprised to see something of value be destroyed both by the impersonal evolution of the economy and by conscious choices of policy makers. After all, I watched the Bronx burn before my eyes in the early 70’s as I took the 3rd Avenue El to Fordham in the early 70’s, and watched it burn some more when the El came down at I started taking the number 4 train up Jerome Avenue. These fires weren’t abstract to me. They destroyed neighborhoods where I fell in love, played ball, celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas, and hung out and heard music in bars and clubs. Watching this, I felt like something precious in my memory was being desecrated, or better yet, like a limb was being violently torn from my body yet I was helpless to stop it. I joined with organizations which kept the fires from spreading to the Northern parts of the borough and began rebuilding slowly rebuilding devastated areas, but when the smoke cleared, buildings which once held 300,000 people had turned to ashes
Then, ten years later, I watched cities in America’s great industrial heartland be crushed by factory closings that not only destroyed millions of jobs that paid enough to support a family, but crushed the dreams of people whose labor had helped make the US the most prosperous, and one of the most equal nations in the advanced world, leaving huge sections of once vibrant cities looking as though they had suffered aerial bombardment. As I walked through devastated sections of Detroit, Buffalo, Youngstown, Baltimore and Bridgeport, and saw factories which once employed tens of thousands of people be knocked down, I thought of the what those communities had once been during WWII and the 50’s, and felt tears come into my eyes for what had been lost. once again I could do nothing.
Given these experiences, it would not surprise me for the Education Reformers to have their way and make creative teaching impossible in most American public schools. I will fight them, but I am not sure my efforts will make that much of a difference
But I will say this. I cannot and will not forgive those who profit from the destruction of other people’s livelihoods, institutions and dreams. I reserve the right to resist, along with the right of memory and of moral judgment . And I will never give those up, if only out of respect for those who lives have been crushed by “impersonal” forces which they experienced in the most personal terms.
May 11, 2013
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Excellent and inspirational.
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I am with Naison!
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I couldn’t have said it better, nothing needs to be added, this is an anthem to cue up the fight and the resistance. I will teach my grandchildren, not the corporate pirates. I can help deny them their precious data.
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” I will fight them, but I am not sure my efforts will make that much of a difference”
Together, we can make a difference.
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Excellent Mark! Thank you.
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A huge thanks to Mark Naison for his passionate defense of public education, a topic of vital importance to every man, woman, and child in America. Everyone knows that there are problems in the schools—problems of discipline, problems of academic achievement—but not everyone is aware of the problem of the squandering of the unique talents of each individual student. The most serious threat facing us now is that people of power and wealth have created a narrative of the reason for the perceived problems in our public schools—teacher ineffectiveness—and then proceeded to craft solutions with no input from the people—teachers and teacher educators—that they have a priori, with no evidence, decided to blame. Why is it that “philanthropists” who fancy themselves to be experts on education lavish untold millions on an agenda of their own choosing? Why has this been aided and abetted by a Democratic Presidential administration? And why is it that some of the wealthiest human beings in the country seek to blame and make lives miserable for the very people who are doing the most humane work possible—nurturing and educating the young of our society?
Could it be that there are several cynical motives? One motive— to break the teacher unions. After all, many of the large, powerful trade unions have lost considerable membership and power in the last few decades. Teacher unions are one of the last strongholds of public sector unions. Another motive is more purely mercenary—to force out the veteran teachers who are earning the highest salaries and benefits. If they can be forced out before they can collect their pensions, so much the better. But keep in mind that veteran teachers also know what their students need, and would be less likely to acquiesce to unreasonable demands than newer teachers. These motives are disturbing enough, but the third and fourth are far more chilling: the standardization of our children across the country (via the Common Core State (sic/sick) Standards) for both monetary gain (test manufacturers, test prep publishers, data crunchers, and technology purveyors) and the dulling of our children’s minds, to create docile, obedient, low-skilled workers in the global market place. Those that will not or cannot comply are on the road to a life without fulfillment at best, and prison at worst. This might sound harsh and too cynical, but it is already happening.
The mind-numbing and soul-robbing effects of day in and day out test prep for multiple-choice tests should be called what it is—child cognitive abuse. It not only wastes the time and resources that need to be spent on truly educating children and developing their unique talents, but it crushes their will to apply their minds to true learning while simultaneously crushing their self-esteem. This reads more like a program to break the will of political prisoners than to encourage the blossoming of unique human beings.
Who after a few seconds of thought would agree that it’s necessary to scale down college and career readiness to pre-K and kindergarten, and use up precious time at that young age with meaningless test prep, time which should be devoted to play? Not one early childhood development expert was asked to contribute to bringing the Common Core standards to the youngest students. This is already happening now and will get worse when the Common Core State (sic/sick) Standards and the computerized testing that goes with them are fully rolled out almost everywhere across America. Check out what recently happened in New York with the first English Language Arts assessments produced by Pearson as Common Core assessments. There were unforgivable flaws in this enormously expensive test, including having some of the exact same passages and questions at the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade levels, and having names of actual commercial products in the questions! Many high-achieving students were in tears because they did not have enough time to finish the assessments. It also was revealed that some of the passages on the tests were exactly the same as test prep materials (coincidentally produced by Pearson) that teachers had unknowingly been working on with their students a short time before! This gave an unfair advantage to students in schools that had used those materials vs. students in other schools who hadn’t.
There is no question that there is a huge assault on the public education system precisely because it is public. The wealthiest among us—corporate tycoons and hedge fund managers—are looking at the public schools as a colonial power looks at third world countries—as fair game for exploitation. They adamantly oppose any consideration of the true reason that negatively impacts student learning and achievement across our country—unconscionable child poverty. Those of us who cherish the mental, physical, and emotional well-being of our children, and cherish our democracy, must pull together to educate the general public to this menacing mind-set that is coming to fruition before our very eyes. We must mobilize to resist it. There is no other choice.
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Well said Sheila. Well said!
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Wonderfully presented! You speak the voice of SO MANY teachers. As “almost” older teacher, I want the younger teachers to understand just how important they are to the future generations of students. I want them to understand how older veteran teachers want THEM to join in because it is THEIR FUTURE and THE FUTURE OF THE STUDENTS THEY TEACH that are being bull-dozed by “ed reformers”. I hope the professors around this nation are encouraging their students to investigate what is happening and what is at stake!
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“But I will say this. I cannot and will not forgive those who profit from the destruction of other people’s livelihoods, institutions and dreams.”
If society did not destroy some people’s livelihoods, institutions, and dreams, your life would be very different. Piles of horse manure in NYC, the clacking of typewriters heard everywhere, kerosene lanterns lighting the night. We all profit because change has destroyed past livelihoods, institutions, and dreams.
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Spoken like a true elitist! I can tell that you have never walked those decimated city streets nor visited the homes of those whose families have been devastated through generations by the greed of an elite few. I have been there and I stand with them. Always. You, who offer nothing original nor new to the tired old conservative cliches you spout need to go visit the South Bronx and spend a few months among those who didn’t and never will “profit” from the change you advocate.
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Although there’s a difference between the kinds of technological changes you list and what Naison appears to be talking about, no?
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Not when he is lamenting the end of industry in the heartland. He forgets the iceman whose job was destroyed by refrigeration and the GE plants of Ohio, the harness maker and the wheelwrights that Ford destroyed in order to build Michigan.
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Fair point.
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Terrible analogy. This type of comparison wouldn’t fly in an introductory college class. How do you expect it to be received here?w
Are you constructing this strawman because you actually believe something this obtuse? Or are you assuming you can fool the rest of us into buying it?
FYI: We’re not.
Anyone who can’t make a distinction between the deliberate shutdown of profitable factories because they weren’t “maximizing potential ROI” and ridding the streets of NYC of horse manure is not someone most people would regard as a serious educator or “economist”.
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My, my, PSP. A personal attack rather than a refutation? Scorn rather than courtesy? Communism rather than Capitalism? Tyranny rather than Freedom? teachingeconomist in my view is one of the more sensible voices here. And calm, too, unlike my own.
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It is not an analogy, but the story of economic progress, the story of creative destruction as Schumpeter put it. If we want to make new and different things we have to pull resources away from the industries that are making the old things. Just think about the number of obsolete goods and services that people used to provide. Each job lost was a livelihood destroyed.
When economists talk of profits we refer to economic profit, not accounting profit. The difference is that in calculating economic profit one includes opportunity costs. This is why economists call zero profit “normal” economic profit. From that perspective if a firm could earn a higher return by moving production from New England to South Carolina, production in New England is not economically profitable.
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teaching economist, it seems that your thinking is aligned with another very misguided agent of “change” …
“Success is the sole earthly judge of right and wrong.”
Adolf Hitler
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The thread is closed
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The newer technology still employed American workers. The more modern jobs were destroyed and taken to others overseas. The companies benefit from the protection of the US military yet, they’ve turned their backs on the American worker in order to make greater profits. Technology changes and the job market will always change. The current “reforms” in education do not benefit the student nor the community. They are merely exploitive for profit schemes. Nothing more. All a sham. The inner cities are in total shambles by the lost opportunities. The arrogant billionaires and bought out politicians have the nerve to blame this on educators. People who outsource jobs aren’t even ashamed. Look at Gates. Does he feel any shame about turning his back on Americans so he can bring in cheap IT labor. No. He gets his rear end kissed by politicians and the media. Gross.
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Well said! I too feel such as you. I will continue to fight and spread the word and always carry the history of those who continues to make profit of our children.
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It is a fact that other ages of “progress” have eliminated jobs in the past, but the transitions to equal or better jobs did come along. Right now there seems to be a broad brushed distaste for teachers and an assumption that teachers have created problems that have besieged businesses. There has been a willingness to assume that teachers have almost created the culture that causes the problems. We teachers are a part of that culture, but we didn’t create the problems. Businesses are beginning to realize that age and experience DO matter. They are beginning to realize that no college/university can provide a degree program for every position that they wish to fill. They are beginning to hire again.
Also, the prevailing attitudes and changes that have overtaken our society have happened way too rapidly, leaving people who were othewise making their ways successfully have been slammed in the gut over and over again. People who were middle class are facing many problems. In other generations this occurred, but not as it has due to rapid technological changes.
As teachers know, when you take something away, it is more upsetting than when you don’t provide a certain opportunity. There are expectations that people have grown to expect. Concessions have been made. My district has had no raises for teachers for years. I hadn’t had one since 2008. I retired. But, it isn’t easy for me.
The sad thing is that, no matter what a teacher has done, no matter what he/she had achieved, it simply no longer matters. Yes, we have to march forward. Do we have to victims of cruelty, heartlessness, and indifference?
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Perhaps if businesses had to pay to educate the people that they hire when a particular job needs to be done, they would then begin to see their employees as an investment rather than an expendable commodity easily discarded. Business is always determined to maximize private profit and externalize the cost of doing business onto the public. As a society we have let businessmen act in an unethical manner for far too long. We do not educate our children to feed the corporate agenda. Bad Business practices are robbing us of our democracy and destroying our national security.
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Business is better off in the short run, sad to say, if other countries (e.g., India) educate their citizens and house their workers, because domestic business can avoid higher American taxes and regulations for those services. Business analysts and traditional economists do not factor in the non-monetized costs to workers and to communities (public goods such as education, art, music, health care, housing, transportation) of upending and outsourcing economic activity, from one region of our country to another, let alone internationally. Businesses count all their private benefits of reduced costs and ignore the public costs of decimated towns and communities. They even include the first generation of workers’ benefits because some workers do get immediate benefits from lower prices. Long term, the outcome is like any Ponzi scheme, tho’, where workers are the big losers. Businesses use a variety of devices to make it better for them and worse for workers and communities. First, they get the public to pay for some of their own costs (e.g., subsidies for costs of dismantling their factories and moving production overseas). Second, businesses lend the government money, which they saved by avoiding taxes, to finance deficit spending. Third, they advocate for a balanced budget to justify cutting public benefits even more. No one here is advocating for the ‘good old days’ straw man distraction of a past with horse poop in the streets, outhouses and impure water and food, and one room school houses. The argument’s about respecting teachers’ skills and professionalism, supporting family and child friendly policies, and using new technologies to support those values, not undermine them. We don’t have the money to compete head to head with business, but we do have the numbers, and that means we have to organize, organize, organize. We have to turn out like Pakistanis did in their election.
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Boycott Walmart and Microsoft! Don’t think about it…DO IT!
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Oh, I love this admonition: “Don’t think about it . . . ” Typical liberal, act without reflection.
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As compared to you and your reflections…please Harlan save it…pathetic!
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Beautiful!
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Well spoken. We in Texas are fighting to push back the testing monster. Take heart and take action. Call, email and call again to reduce testing, cancel testing contracts for failures to deliver services, deauthorize NCLB and Arne must resign.
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I posted the recent Texas Senate vote news to reduce testing to a teachers social media site which received numerous responses positive and negative. As the discussion unfolded, one of my responses included the following,
“Testing and accountability have been a failed expensive experiment that has maligned teachers and denigrated the profession and reduced learning to bare mechanics creating a cottage industry of craven profiteers.”
I proposed an alternative way of teaching that drew fire online, at trainings, and at conferences even though my results were outstanding. A way I thought more interesting and humane instead of drill and kill because that’s the way it is so do it.
The last 2 decades of teaching have been interesting. We educators have been negotiating an area between politically driven accountability and profession driven differentiation and diversity. I should never have left the country to teach overseas where no state testing is done. You can’t imagine the relief and creative space there is for a class to explore together!
I loathe what education is becoming to its core. I found that I could not in good conscience do what many of my superiors were encouraging me to do. So I left. But, I email and call and encourage all to do the same.
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