Arthur Goldstein, veteran teacher of ESL at Francis Lewis High School in New York City, is one of the best teacher bloggers in the city, state, and nation.
He writes here about his disappointment with Neil deGrasse Tyson, after reading his tweet smearing the nation’s public schools. Arthur points out that Tyson is singing Betsy DeVos’s song and playing into the hands of the Flat zearthers he denounces.
Did Tyson notice?
Maybe he will google his name, see this, and respond to Arthur. Someone who is a scientist should be more careful about making blanket statements without checking the evidence.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Last night, I watched a 2015 Michael Moore documentary called “Where to Invade Next”. In it, I saw the labor rights of parents in Germany and Italy: paid parental leave, paid honeymoon leave, paid vacation time, two hour lunch breaks, equal board representation… I saw public school children of France using real silverware to eat truly gourmet, healthy, four course lunches served by waiters and waitresses on porcelain dishes during an hourlong experience in politeness. I saw students in Finland appreciating learning better with almost no homework and almost no standardized testing. I saw Slovenia as an example of the many countries that offer tuition free university, immigrants welcome.
The United States is ignorant. Clueless! In that sense, Tyson is right. But the clueless and ignorant American is not the teacher or the student. Tyson is wrong to blame schools. Cluelessly ignorant is the greedy policy maker, the greedy CEO, and the greedy, accepting reporter. The Flat Earth Society has nothing on Corporate America.
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^^This^^. Exactly this, LCT.
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Yes, yes, yes! AGREE.
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I saw that film too. It was wonderful. I was in East Germany before the wall came down. Someone told me they sold Pravda on every corner but no one bought it. Yet here, Fox News is the most popular purveyor of cable news.
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Corporations (including the mainstream media) often know the truth (eg, on the dangers of Tobacco, climate change or of financial derivatives) but hide it.
They also often cherry pick and otherwise misuse science to pursue their goal of the Almighty dollar.
So, for example, they ignore studies that show the effect of
neonic pesticides on honeybees and claim that scientific uncertainty (which is always present to some degree) means “scientists just don’t know”.
There are undoubtedly many within corporations who are genuinely ignorant, but I’d have to say that the ones running the show usually are not.
The corporation will be the downfall of this country.
It has all the protections afforded citizens but none of the accountability.
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I am happy that Goldstein answered Degrasse Tyson’s comment. Public education has been the public whipping boy in this country for far too long. The failure narrative, fueled by the forces of privatization, has permeated the public consciousness. Even very intelligent people can be influenced by propaganda.
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Tyson also believes there is very high likelihood that we are actually all just part of an elaborate computer simulation created by very advanced computer gamers (as was the case in the movie The Matrix)
If that is indeed the case, its not really clear why education even matters — to say nothing of the public vs private school debate — but who am I to argue “logic” with an astrophysicist?
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Incidentally, lest anyone think that all astrophysicists share Tyson’s view that it’s all just a simulation, Lisa Randal is a practicing Harvard astrophysicist who does not believe it. The operative word is “practicing” astrophysicist, which Tyson is not. He’s really an astropublicist.
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Is he really an astrophysicist or does he just play one on TV?
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If we are all really just part of a computer simulation, then by definition, Tyson is just playing an astrophysicist on “TV”
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deGrasse Tyson is an “astrotwitterist”
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Then Rhee is an astroturficist.
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I didn’t necessarily interpret that tweet as anti-public school. He didn’t mention “public” at all.
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Goldstein addresses that. In fact, it’s part of his point. First:
“Now there are certainly better interpretations of this statement. After all, there’s no context here whatsoever. Is he targeting teachers? Is he targeting the system? Is he questioning Common Core, which claims to create critical thinkers but actually gets kids so accustomed to tedium they might spend several decades working at Walmart without killing themselves?”
Then he goes on to say:
“Hey, everyone else does. Go ahead. Put out that statement, offer no context, and let everyone see it. You’re an expert so you must be right. Never mind that it’s well out of your field of expertise. Who could possibly take it the wrong way?
…
“I can’t read your mind, but a whole lot of people read your tweets. If you don’t provide context, people will fill it in for themselves. In fact, poverty accounts for a whole lot of America’s educational standing. Despite the nonsense propagated by Gates, and blindly promoted by Obama in the form of Race to the Top, education alone will not solve the issue.
“And with all due respect, Dr. Tyson, if you aren’t part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”
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NYC public school parent
For once we agree. By definition ignorance is a failure to educate. Which does not mean that educational failure was in schools . If even some failure were in schools, was that a failure of teachers?.
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Hmm. I wonder what Carl would say. I wonder if Carl would invite Neil to a conversation out behind the woodshed.
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I also don’t see his comment as necessarily a denunciation of “public” schools. And I think I have a good idea what his opinion of vouchers is. But DeGrasse Tyson has a history of making negative statements about his own K-12 experience and K-12 teachers generally. He’s said that any success he’s had has come in spite of, rather than because of, what his teachers told him, and that students who get straight As do so not because of good teachers but in spite of bad teachers.
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He is probably not alone in that sentiment . “Winners” no matter what their level of achievement seldom see where they have been recipients of beneficial treatment from institutions.
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I thought his kids went to NYC public high schools. And I thought he spoke at Bx Science
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That may be. Although there are probably a lot of parents who send their kids to Bronx Science who think most public schools suck.
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FLERP!
Almost all the students at Bronx Science were educated at those public schools, so I doubt there are “alot” of parents who think “most” public schools suck. It’s also an idiotic comment to make and most people (Trump voters excluded) seem to have a modicum of sense.
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My sense is that most parents of Bronx Science students were extremely motivated to get their children into a school like Bronx Science precisely because they think that most public schools in NYC suck. Of course, I mean “suck” as in “suck for their kids.” They may well think those schools are good enough for other people’s kids, to the extent they consider it.
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“My sense is that most parents of Bronx Science students were extremely motivated to get their children into a school like Bronx Science precisely because they think that most public schools in NYC suck.”
How many parents at specialized high schools do you know? I realize your daughter is going to Stuy but if you imagine the other parents there are smug and certain that their kids are in a school superior to all the public high schools that “suck” you may be sadly disappointed. Or maybe you will find some like-minded parents to celebrate how non-sucky your child’s public school is.
The many parents I know whose kids go to specialized high schools talk about the good and bad of different schools and what is right for their child. They don’t think all the other public schools “suck”. In fact, most of them know the children of their friends who are in non-specialized public high schools all over the city and many of them end up in the same (or better!) colleges than the students at specialized high schools.
Every parent I know whose kid went to a specialized high school made a considered decision as to whether that high school was a good choice for their kid or not. Some of them (or their kids) chose non-specialized schools instead. And I suspect there are many public schools you are very certain “suck” because they don’t have lots of affluent Manhattan students vying for spots which are perfectly fine. Perhaps you should broaden your view a little.
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I would guess most Bronx Science parents would agree that there are plenty of high schools besides specialized high schools that don’t “suck.” But I would guess there are a lot more high schools that they do think “suck,” although they might publicly characterize those schools as schools that “aren’t right for my child.”
But agree to disagree, I guess. Incidentally, do you want to share where your children go to school, to serve as an exemplar of what education choices someone with broad horizons makes?
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FLERP!,
I confess that maybe you Manhattan parents are different and you think lots of schools “suck” and your child is far too superior to have to lower herself to attend one of them. Or maybe you will be here complaining about Stuy next year.
I live in Brooklyn and I know kids who attend public schools all over. Do you? Or just the few “acceptable” to affluent white parents?
There are some failing schools in NYC because there are schools that take the students who have no interest in education at all.
There are also many schools that don’t attract the affluent high performing students and accept student with a range of academic abilities that nonetheless offer those students who want it dedicated teachers doing their best under trying circumstances. And the parents who chose that school for their kids do not think it “sucks”. And many of the highest performing students go on to great colleges.
Or perhaps those parents think it “sucks” that their school doesn’t get the resources it should because rich billionaires are too busy fighting to cut money from their budgets and forcing their kids to pay for the costs of the system while charter school students are free riders.
Again, your belief that the parents of students at Stuy all believe their child’s elementary and middle schools “sucked” may be challenged once you get there.
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You remain as relentlessly unpleasant as always (and just as unwilling to divulge the slightest details about your own decisions). So I take it all back. Few, if any, parents at Bronx Science think that most NYC high schools are not good high schools. They probably struggled deeply with the task of how to come up with only 12 schools to rank out of a total of 400 other wonderful options that might be a good fit for their kids. I am a terrible Manhattan parent who thinks lots of schools suck and that my child is far too superior to have to lower herself to attend one of them. You, on the other hand, are a broad-minded Brooklynite who thinks that no schools suck and would be happy to have your child attend any of them, provided of course that it was “right” for your child. And finally, to circle back to what started this insipid exchange, DeGrasse Tyson must not have a history of making negative statements about his own K-12 experience, because his children attended NYC public high schools and because DeGrasse Tyson gave a speech at Bronx Science.
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FLERP!, I will quote you on what started this discussion:
“My sense is that most parents of Bronx Science students were extremely motivated to get their children into a school like Bronx Science precisely because they think that most public schools in NYC suck.”
NYC students have a very unique opportunity to attend specialized high schools like Bronx Science and Stuy which are in many ways even better than private schools. So any school that is compared to them is going to look bad but that doesn’t mean that they all “suck”.
There is a world of difference between recognizing that there are schools ONLY for high performing students and wanting that kind of school for your kid who happens to be academically high performing and being certain that the schools that don’t limit themselves to those kids “suck”. I never said that every school was great nor that there are no schools that are failing. (I don’t like the word “suck”) But there are schools that have a range of students that don’t “suck”. They are schools that are like the schools I went to as a kid that were ok. Many kids in the school where I grew up didn’t even go to college. Many others went to community college. And a much smaller number went to very selective universities and did well there.
Perhaps I am naive but I don’t believe that many NYC parents who have gone through the public school system believe that schools that serve a range of students instead of just the most academic ones all “suck”. I don’t doubt there are transfers from private schools who believe that. But if you have gone through the system you know students at schools all over this city that do not “suck” even if the majority of students in them are not at grade level.
Maybe it’s just a matter of semantics. But it is such a dismissive way to refer to schools that educate a range of students and do a decent job of it without a lot of resources or acclaim.
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As I also commented on Arthur’s blog, Tyson is a very intelligent and entertaining fellow, but I ceased trusting him when he used egregiously false analogies to argue in favor of genetically modified organisms.
Tyson claimed that GMOs, promoted under aggressive monopoly control by corporations, are no different from the hybrids that farmers and horticulturists have been using for millennia. This is transparently false, since hybrids were created among the same or very similar species. With GMOs, however, you might find pig genes in your breakfast cereal, a very different scenario…
His support of GMOs, and by extension the companies who create, market and control them, also conveniently avoided the privatization of the agricultural gene pool by companies like Monsanto, appropriatingthe patrimony of thousands of years of human endeavor, and privatizing it.
His indirect support of privatizing the agricultural gene pool is also of direct interest to teachers, students and parents fighting to save public education, since the issues are analogous.
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There is a disturbing tendency among some self-proclaimed “skeptics” to imply that anyone who questions official dogma on things like GMOs is anti-science.
Michael Shermer is another one who does this.
The irony is that they use the mantel of science to shut down dissent.
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From the Things Keep Getting Interesting Department:
Third graders in New York were introduced to Neil this spring when a reading passage about him appeared on the statewide English Language Arts test. We learn from this excerpt from Astrophysicist and Space Advocate Neil deGrasse Tyson by Marne Ventura:
“Neil went to public school. He was an average student. He never had a teacher tell him that he was the best in the class or that he was going to go far. In fact, his third-grade teacher wrote a note on his report card. She said Neil should be more serious about his schoolwork…
When he was ready for high school, Neil chose the Bronx High School of Science. When he was fourteen, Neil went to space camp. He spent a month studying the stars and the planets. He worked with scientists and other young people. When he got back to New York, he gave a talk to fifty adults. He told them what he had learned. Neil’s career as an astrophysicist had begun.”
So, Neil is viewed as appropriate material for 8-year-olds. You can read the 660 word passage at Engage NY and link to 2017 Released Questions.
I ask the readers of this blog and Arthur what, if anything, is the cosmic significance of all this?
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Does his existence prove that public schools are in decline?
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