Check out the Atlantic's Clay Risen piece on Michelle Rhee the reformer Chancellor of DC Public Schools.Rhee’s name doesn’t appear among the signatures. In her opinion, external factors simply underline the need for better educators. And while she pays lip service to the realities of urban poverty outside school walls, she dismisses the impact that poverty and violence might have on achievement. “As a teacher in this system, you have to be willing to take personal responsibility for ensuring your children are successful despite obstacles,” she told me. “You can’t say, ‘My students didn’t get any breakfast today,’ or ‘No one put them to bed last night,’ or ‘Their electricity got cut off in the house, so they couldn’t do their homework.’” This sort of moral certitude is exactly what turns off many veteran teachers in Washington. Even if Rhee is right, she seems to be asking for superhuman efforts, consistently, for decades to come. Making missionary zeal a job requirement is a tough way to build morale, not to mention support, among the teachers who have to confront the D.C. ghetto every day.
Really Michelle Rhee? Seriously? Basic inputs as a requisite constitute moral certitude? I guess.
I've had this urban education debate with classmates, professors and colleagues ad nauseam and until someone outside of education industry talks me down, I'm sticking with my position, which is as such:
IT IS NOT A TEACHERS JOB TO FEED HUNGRY STUDENTS, BABYSIT, ENSURE THEY WAKE UP, CONVINCE THEM NOT TO GET HIGH, MOTIVATE, ENSURE THEY DO THEIR HOMEWORK, ENSURE THEY GO TO BED ON TIME, PROVIDE HEAT, DINNER OR SHELTER.
To argue otherwise is absurd on its face. How so? Indulge me. I'm a mgmt consultant, let's say I'm brought into a client for three weeks to evaluate a merger. I'm not trained in teaching clients how to type or write or read basic financial docs, which I determine fairly quickly is a daily precondition to getting what I really need from them regarding the merger...my real task. Meanwhile my colleague will be working with clients who know how to type, write and read. At the end of the 3 weeks, both the CEO who hired him and the CEO who hired me will require our findings. My colleague will present them in a dossier containing exactly what was requested, I will either give him an inferior report (time constrained by my other task) or...suprise...a set of employees who can now type, read and write, either way it's not what he's looking for as he's not making any allowances for his crappy employees and is now extolling the work of my colleague...he with the literate clients, as a measuring stick.
For those who parrot the erroneous argument that 'these urban teachers need to be prepared to work harder and go the extra mile' I'm calling bullocks. I was 27 and making a lot of money as a consultant, and was never put into a situation where the input was beyond faulty, and if it had been I had recourse with my firms partners. Asking a teacher, on what I'm certain is a fraction of the pay, to go above and beyond daily for the life of their career and, AND be thrown under the bus by self-serving boards and politicians is also absurd on its face.
I would submit that I'm willing to undertake teaching clients to read, write and type in a related but wholly independent industry from mgmt consulting. To be sure this would be a situation in which CEOs don't conflate consulting with teaching, and I'm judged only on how well I teach the clients not consult. To further the analogy this would mean a part of urban education would be spun off into de facto parenting that would handle all basic parenting functions, namely providence and guidance. Teachers...err..."de facto parents" would provide meals, shelter, protection, counseling and environs for success. These teachers...err..."de facto parents" would be judged by the bureaucracy only on their kids overall alacrity and health not on test scores or graduation rates, which would be function of the real teachers that is.
In case you couldn't tell I was being sardonic when I penned the above paragraph, but as I think this through, creating inner city boarding schools wouldn't be a half bad idea. I'm almost certain many at risk kids long for security, safety and just the ability to be a kid. If you created a system where after school the kid would be allowed to be with the parent from only 6-8pm nightly you could almost ensure that they were warm, safe, eating properly, getting enough rest, doing homework and being a kid.
Understand I know to some how off the wall my suggestion sounds, but you now see how off the wall the innovative, charter for all, vouchers for reform sounds to me, an inner city schoolboy who was the function of parents (plural) who ensured warmth, safety, proper nutrition, rest, time for studies and most importantly a childhood.
I have no doubt Michelle Rhee and others hearts are in the right place, but if you can't fix my engine then find an adequate proxy, not a political strawman.
