A few days ago, Diane Ravitch wrote about the NY Times and Trump. They oppose him, both on their editorial and op-ed pages. Ravitch gives particular attention to Charles Blow. Sometimes I like him, but not always. Ravitch herself wrote about him and how misinformed he is on the topic of reforminess. For me, once people spout reforminess, it's hard to take anything they say seriously. This is especially true when being well-informed is a crucial factor of their job description.

Of course Blow is not the only Times op-ed writer who adores all things reformy. Nicholas Kristof, like Eva Moskowitz, doesn't favor teacher certification. Now we all understand Eva wants cheap, replaceable teachers. If she could simply open up a new can every time she needed a few fresh ones, surely she'd be happy. Kristof, on the other hand, is ridiculous and illogical to the point of contending that teacher certification kept Meryl Streep and Colin Powell from becoming NYC teachers.

Have you noticed Streep and Powell coming to your school asking for work? Are their CVs on your principal's desk? Hey, I know it's a strain for Kristof to bang out 700 words twice a week. That's one heckuva burden. Perhaps all that work has addled his brain. Or maybe, just maybe, we need to be united in something more than opposition to Donald Trump.

Every reformy I know of opposes Trump. Even hyper-opportunist Eva Moskowitz was shamed into saying something negative about him after he vilified people who oppose white supremacy. But we have to be careful before we determine they're our friends. A while back I was Facebook friends with a whole lot of people who opposed Common Core. It was pretty clear, to me at least, that a lot of right-leaning people who opposed it would've embraced it had it not been pushed by Barack Obama. I mean, it was nice agreeing about Common Core, but all in all we don't see eye to eye.

I have a similar issue with opinion writers who oppose Trump but embrace all things reformy. These are people who either can't be bothered with cursory research or choose not to accept it. What's the fundamental difference between them and the climate change deniers? How are their beliefs more acceptable than those of people who think the earth was created 600 years ago, or whatever?

They don’t like Trump. We don’t like Trump. But they go along with nonsense like Common Core and charters. This is pretty much what Hillary did, and what she ran on. And this watered down wimpy nonsense is precisely what placed Donald Trump in the White House. Now they're all on their high horses, telling us how bad he is.

Truth is not a box of chocolates. You don't get to bite into one and place it back into the box half-eaten if you don't like it. There are no "alternative facts." You have to pretty much take it all, whether you like it or not, and deal with it. I voted for Hillary against Donald Trump, but I was sickened by her failure to embrace universal health care, college for all, and a living wage. Most Americans favor it, and a whole lot need it.

The point is we’re gonna have to do better in providing a vision for the future, because theirs has failed spectacularly. You can't come into an election with half-assed warmed-over platitudes and say, "Trump sucks so vote for us." More importantly, you can't present yourself as an authority and then pontificate on topics about which you know nothing.

A free press is vital to a democracy. The outrageous ignorance of NY Times columnists is most definitely one of the things that's brought us where we are today. On education, at least, their editorial staff is no better. Their education reporting, with notable exceptions, can be the very worst of any NY paper. On ATRs, it's little better than reformy Chalkbeat.

If we want to educate our children, and if we want to beat Trump and his merry band of white supremacist apologists, we're gonna need better from the "paper of record."

NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof is demanding we pay teachers more. Sounds good, doesn't it? Which teacher couldn't use more money? It kind of makes you think he's pro-teacher. And it would be true, if it weren't for the fact that no one is actually offering teachers more money, and the priority in these United States is not compensation for teachers, but lowering taxes for Steve Forbes.

Nonetheless, you'd think the man who declared qualifications for teachers were so onerous that Meryl Streep and Colin Powell couldn't get classroom jobs (despite the fact that neither had expressed the remotest interest in them) had finally come to his senses.

But like the Republicans, who claim it's in the public's best interest to strip working people of bargaining rights, Kristof tosses out misleading headlines and saves his real message for later:

Look, I’m not a fan of teachers’ unions. They used their clout to gain job security more than pay, thus making the field safe for low achievers. Teaching work rules are often inflexible, benefits are generous relative to salaries, and it is difficult or impossible to dismiss teachers who are ineffective. 

In fact, history dictates that teachers did even worse before the advent of unions. Of course, history is neither here nor there to teacher-bashers. The media devotes enormous attention to a charter with a handful of teachers that are allegedly paid more. Never mind that its track record is miserable, that there is no research whatsoever to support its methods--that's what you'll see on 60 Minutes, rather than what's really happening in the overwhelming majority of American schools.

Kristof knows nothing of what's really happening in most schools, can't be bothered to research it, and seems to pull his opinion directly from his hind quarters. Despite his apparent sympathy for teachers, there's no indication he remotely understands what people in Wisconsin are fighting for--the right to come together and fight for what's in their best interests.

In fact, the non-union utopia of Kristof's vision already exists, in non-union and union-lite charter schools. And guess what? Such teachers, despite dubious exceptions like the one mentioned above,  are not paid more than union teachers. They are subject to arbitrary and capricious dismissal and do not seem to remain on the job as long as their public school counterparts.

But at the New York Times, you can propose ideas with no research, no basis in practice, no vision for realizing them, and still make many times more than any public school teacher.

Kinda makes ya think we're in the wrong business, doesn't it? Of course, educators, unlike American journalists, are supposed to deal in truth.

And that's one more reason the big money, disingenuously dangled by faux-liberals like Kristof, consistently eludes us.

In the Times today, Nicholas Kristof suggests American kids need first to learn Spanish, and then to learn Chinese. Kristof, notable for his outrage that Meryl Streep and Colin Powell  couldn't become NYC school teachers (never mind that neither has expressed the remotest interest), leads with a joke:

If a person who speaks three languages is trilingual, and one who speaks four languages is quadrilingual, what is someone called who speaks no foreign languages at all? 

Answer: an American. 

Last time I heard that, the Dead Sea was still sick.  Kristoff says everywhere he turns people are asking how their kids can learn Chinese. This is what happens, I suppose, when you breathe the rarefied air of a NY Times op-ed columnist. Everywhere I turn, people are asking how the hell they can get their cars out of the snow.

There is one reason, and one reason only, why Americans are such notoriously awful language learners--we live in a big country where English is spoken by almost everyone. For our kids, there's little obvious practical advantage to speaking a foreign language, so we have to work very hard to encourage them. It's true Spanish is very popular and practical, with something like 20% of Americans speaking it. For that reason, Spanish is an awful lot easier to learn and practice. That's why even a gringo like me can pick it up with a little effort.

But to get kids to speak Chinese we'll need more than Kristof and his preposterous billionaire-sponsored notions about "reform." We'll need to move away from the drill and kill, math and English-focused test prep being inflicted on our children by Kristof and his likes. We'll need small classes where kids can get individual attention, and trained teachers rather than Streep or Powell. We'll need experts who can motivate kids to not only study, but also practice a language. And we'll need to set up regular opportunities for kids to do so, ideally with native speakers with whom they can identify and relate to.

As for Kristof, he gets to not only sit around and pontificate on topics about which he knows nothing, but also get paid for it.

Surely it must beat working for a living.

Check out Mr. Kristof's column in which he posits that experts (like himself) don't actually know what they're talking about. Of course, we knew that a long time ago.

NYC Times columnist Nicholas Kristof is pontificating once again on the awesome difficulty of getting certified as a teacher. He's rolled out at least three variations of his proposal, but he's unaware of the thirty-year city flirtation with hiring anyone with a pulse, in order to keep providing city kids with teachers paid the lowest wage in the area. That tradition continues, though the pay difference is not quite as egregious as it once was. Of course, in these dire economic times, it's easier to find people than it once was.

Despite what the likes of Kristof and Gates say, I don't believe teachers fail to improve after two or three years. I'm always learning better ways to deal with kids. You can't help but do that if you're paying attention. How many parents do a better job with their second child, or their second teenager, than with their first?

I replied to Mr. Kristoff the first time I saw his idea, and I see no reason not to answer him exactly the same way. Here's my response as it originally appeared May 5th, 2006:


Mr. S. came into our school with a doctorate in mathematics. That's right. A doctorate. I haven't got one, and I'm duly impressed by those things--I kid you not.

He could make the slide rule sing. He could calculate pi to the umpteenth decimal. He understood all that trig and calculus that eluded the likes of me in high school.

Mr. S. walked into his classroom, started writing on the board, and an egg mysteriously appeared on it. Pop! Just like that. Mr. S. turned and asked who threw the egg, but received no response. It was an inauspicious beginning, particularly for someone who'd gone through NYC's most recent response to the 30-year teacher shortage, the Teaching Fellows program.

So why, his AP pondered, couldn't this fellow teach? Perhaps it was that he could not relate to the kids. Perhaps it was that he had no sense of humor. Perhaps it was because he'd never been in front of 34 kids before. Who knows? But after repeated conferences, repeated suggestions, and repeated calls from irate parents, nothing changed.

A student of mine, a Spanish speaker with a nice personality, asked if I would talk to Mr. S. Apparently, she had always been good in math, but was failing his class. I found him in the teacher's cafeteria. He apologized profusely, as though I had some sort of authority over him (I did not, nor was I pretending to).

I tried to ask how we could help this girl, my student, and he looked like he was holding back tears. In fact, I wondered whether he was going to take the fork he had in his hand and suddenly drive it into his heart. Mr. S. looked like the unhappiest human being I'd set eyes on in some time.

I thanked Mr. S., hightailed it out of there, and later discovered that all the students in his class were failing. That's too much to attribute to juvenile delinquency, and I was sure at least one of his students was trying. My efforts to get my kid transferred to another teacher were in vain, unfortunately.

Why am I telling you this? Nick Kristof, op-ed writer for the New York Times, thinks that teacher certification is preventing ($) Colin Powell and Meryl Streep from becoming teachers. While that may be true, the fact is they have not expressed the remotest interest in this pursuit. Kristof is happy that women have other options (so am I), and feels that results in a decline in quality. He's right. But despite impressions to the contrary you may have gleaned from watching Sex in the City, women are not deserting the profession because they hate kids. The only way is to lure better teachers, regardless of sex, is to pay them. It works like a charm in Nassau County.

Furthermore, it's idiotic to suggest we'll draw better teachers by lowering standards. We need to cut the nonsense, rid ourselves of self-absorbed education professors who wouldn't know an urban high school if they worked across the street from it for twenty years, offer practical instruction, and raise standards.

How on earth is lowering standards going to get us better teachers? New York City's been doing precisely that for thirty years, and during that time it's gone from one of the best systems in the world to one of the worst.

We need people who actually know how to reach kids. Without that, all the doctorates in the world won't make a difference.

Lowering standards, unfortunately, does not draw Meryl Streep, or Colin Powell, Jr.

It draws Mr. S.

Do you want him teaching your kid?

Related: EdNotes Online, Gotham Schools, Schools Matter, Diane Ravitch

The entire teaching staff just walked out of a Bronx charter school. Since they're not planning to return, I don't suppose there's any danger in revealing this is the school that allowed their health insurance to lapse.

It will be tough to soldier on through June with no teachers, but this may be a golden opportunity to experiment with Nick Kristof's idea of doing away with credentials entirely. Doubtless the charter director can round up enough people off the street to teach those kids.

Well, after reading Nicholas Kristof, I momentarily despaired of encountering voices of reason anywhere. But lo and behold, Diane Ravitch went and wrote something that made perfect sense. Rather than simply dropping teacher certification and recruiting disgruntled employees from Kentucky Fried Chicken, Ms. Ravitch proposes the following:

First, let's figure out why so many students are unwilling to behave in the classroom and do the work that is assigned to them.
Second, let's review the laws and court decisions that make it difficult to maintain a culture of high expectations and good behavior in the schools.
Third, let's make sure that schools have a solid curriculum in science, history, the arts, literature, and math so that teachers know what they are expected to teach and are well prepared to teach it.
Fourth, let's ease up on the testing mania and put the emphasis where it belongs: on providing a great education.

I haven't got all the answers, but one reason kids don't behave in the classroom (far from the only one, of course) is a weak teacher who doesn't know how to control kids. I think opening up the classrooms to anyone who feels like walking in will draw many weak teachers (and many far, far worse teachers, actually).

I suggest Mr. Kristof, to demonstrate his sincerity, visit unlicensed doctors when he's not feeling well. He ought to hire unlicensed lawyers to handle his business affairs. I personally volunteer to serve as Mr. Kristof's accountant, as I am nothing if not totally unqualified.

An emailer suggested Mr. Kristoff take his next flight to Africa with an unlicensed pilot. I think that would show true commitment.

I only hope he advises his fellow passengers. Truth be told, not everyone is equally open to innovation.

This piece was originally posted here on May 5th 2006, in response to a Nicholas Kristof column. Mr Kristof has now written another column ($) suggesting we eliminate teacher certification--apparently anyone can do this job.

I've met many, however, who can't, and shouldn't. While it's true certification does not guarantee a good teacher, I've met many who've repeatedly failed basic competency tests. Many people don't know that Chancellor Joel Klein went to Albany to win the right to retain and hire such candidates.

Perhaps Mr. Kristof would like to have them teach his kids. But I don't want them teaching mine. Or yours.

I agree that tenure should not be automatic, as it's been in this city for the past thirty years. The idea of bonuses for teaching in high-needs schools may be a good one too.

Despite what studies say, I don't believe that teachers fail to improve after two years. I learned long ago to expect nothing of administrators, and I'm always learning better ways to deal with kids. You can't help but do that if you're paying attention. How many parents do a better job with their second child, or their second teenager, than with their first?

Generally, though, my response to Mr. Kristof hasn't changed at all, and here it is:


Mr. S. came into our school with a doctorate in mathematics. That's right. A doctorate. I haven't got one, and I'm duly impressed by those things--I kid you not.

He could make the slide rule sing. He could calculate pi to the umpteenth decimal. He understood all that trig and calculus that eluded the likes of me in high school.

Mr. S. walked into his classroom, started writing on the board, and an egg mysteriously appeared on it. Pop! Just like that. Mr. S. turned and asked who threw the egg, but received no response. It was an inauspicious beginning, particularly for someone who'd gone through NYC's most recent response to the 30-year teacher shortage, the Teaching Fellows program.

So why, his AP pondered, couldn't this fellow teach? Perhaps it was that he could not relate to the kids. Perhaps it was that he had no sense of humor. Perhaps it was because he'd never been in front of 34 kids before. Who knows? But after repeated conferences, repeated suggestions, and repeated calls from irate parents, nothing changed.

A student of mine, a Spanish speaker with a nice personality, asked if I would talk to Mr. S. Apparently, she had always been good in math, but was failing his class. I found him in the teacher's cafeteria. He apologized profusely, as though I had some sort of authority over him (I did not, nor was I pretending to).

I tried to ask how we could help this girl, my student, and he looked like he was holding back tears. In fact, I wondered whether he was going to take the fork he had in his hand and suddenly drive it into his heart. Mr. S. looked like the unhappiest human being I'd set eyes on in some time.

I thanked Mr. S., hightailed it out of there, and later discovered that all the students in his class were failing. That's too much to attribute to juvenile delinquency, and I was sure at least one of his students was trying. My efforts to get my kid transferred to another teacher were in vain, unfortunately.

Why am I telling you this? Nick Kristof, op-ed writer for the New York Times, thinks that teacher certification is preventing ($) Colin Powell and Meryl Streep from becoming teachers. While that may be true, the fact is they have not expressed the remotest interest in this pursuit. Kristof is happy that women have other options (so am I), and feels that results in a decline in quality. He's right. But despite impressions to the contrary you may have gleaned from watching Sex in the City, women are not deserting the profession because they hate kids. The only way is to lure better teachers, regardless of sex, is to pay them. It works like a charm in Nassau County.

Furthermore, it's idiotic to suggest we'll draw better teachers by lowering standards. We need to cut the nonsense, rid ourselves of self-absorbed education professors who wouldn't know an urban high school if they worked across the street from it for twenty years, offer practical instruction, and raise standards.

How on earth is lowering standards going to get us better teachers? New York City's been doing precisely that for thirty years, and during that time it's gone from one of the best systems in the world to one of the worst.

We need people who actually know how to reach kids. Without that, all the doctorates in the world won't make a difference.

Lowering standards, unfortunately, does not draw Meryl Streep, or Colin Powell, Jr.

It draws Mr. S.

Do you want him teaching your kid?

Related: See Miss Malarkey's response, and thanks to Schools Matter for reminding me.

Those goshdarn New York City liberals are so unreasonable. I mean, here’s a disbarred New Jersey lawyer, who’s clearly got a great deal of life experience, who just wants to help the kids, and they not only fail to thank him, but they flat out give him the boot. Why?

Because the guy needs to go up the river to do a little stretch. So what? That’s just more life experience he can share with the kids. And really, what's it all about? So he bilked a few elderly women out of a million bucks. Honestly. What were they gonna use it for anyway?

I mean, how are we going to get teachers if we have these ridiculous standards? You gotta pass a test, you gotta take a course, you gotta have a clean criminal record, blah, blah, blah. Let’s stop depriving our kids of sorely-needed role models.

Like Nicholas Kristoff wrote, those and other troublesome regulations are the only things that stand in the way of Meryl Streep and Colin Powell teaching New York City kids. Obviously the multi-million dollar pay cut is neither here nor there.

Doubtless Mr. Kristof would quit his well-paid job at the Times and teach high school if it weren't for all that nasty red tape.

Thanks to Schoolgal.

Mr. S. came into our school with a doctorate in mathematics. That's right. A doctorate. I haven't got one, and I'm duly impressed by those things--I kid you not.

He could make the slide rule sing. He could calculate pi to the umpteenth decimal. He understood all that trig and calculus that eluded the likes of me in high school.

Mr. S. walked into his classroom, started writing on the board, and an egg mysteriously appeared on it. Pop! Just like that. Mr. S. turned and asked who threw the egg, but received no response. It was an inauspicious beginning, particularly for someone who'd gone through NYC's most recent response to the 30-year teacher shortage, the Teaching Fellows program.

So why, his AP pondered, couldn't this fellow teach? Perhaps it was that he could not relate to the kids. Perhaps it was that he had no sense of humor. Perhaps it was because he'd never been in front of 34 kids before. Who knows? But after repeated conferences, repeated suggestions, and repeated calls from irate parents, nothing changed.

A student of mine, a Spanish speaker with a nice personality, asked if I would talk to Mr. S. Apparently, she had always been good in math, but was failing his class. I found him in the teacher's cafeteria. He apologized profusely, as though I had some sort of authority over him (I did not, nor was I pretending to).

I tried to ask how we could help this girl, my student, and he looked like he was holding back tears. In fact, I wondered whether he was going to take the fork he had in his hand and suddenly drive it into his heart. Mr. S. looked like the unhappiest human being I'd set eyes on in some time.

I thanked Mr. S., hightailed it out of there, and later discovered that all the students in his class were failing. That's too much to attribute to juvenile delinquency, and I was sure at least one of his students was trying. My efforts to get my kid transferred to another teacher were in vain, unfortunately.

Why am I telling you this? Nick Kristof, op-ed writer for the New York Times, thinks that teacher certification is preventing ($) Colin Powell and Meryl Streep from becoming teachers. While that may be true, the fact is they have not expressed the remotest interest in this pursuit. Kristof is happy that women have other options (so am I), and feels that results in a decline in quality. He's right. But despite impressions to the contrary you may have gleaned from watching Sex in the City, women are not deserting the profession because they hate kids. The only way is to lure better teachers, regardless of sex, is to pay them. It works like a charm in Nassau County.

Furthermore, it's idiotic to suggest we'll draw better teachers by lowering standards. We need to cut the nonsense, rid ourselves of self-absorbed education professors who wouldn't know an urban high school if they worked across the street from it for twenty years, offer practical instruction, and raise standards.

How on earth is lowering standards going to get us better teachers? New York City's been doing precisely that for thirty years, and during that time it's gone from one of the best systems in the world to one of the worst.

We need people who actually know how to reach kids. Without that, all the doctorates in the world won't make a difference.

Lowering standards, unfortunately, does not draw Meryl Streep, or Colin Powell, Jr.

It draws Mr. S.

Do you want him teaching your kid?