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[ncsm-members] Unraveling the myths about teachers
Posted:
Oct 14, 2011 4:55 PM
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******************************
>From
http://socialistworker.org/2011/10/10/unraveling-myths-about-teachers,
Monday, October 10, 2011. Reference to this piece by Guy Brandenburg
- our thanks to him.
******************************
Unraveling the myths about teachers
A new documentary, though not without its flaws, is portraying the
truth about teachers--including how hard they work and how badly paid
they are for it.
By Brian Jones
-----------------------------
SIDEBAR: Columnist: Brian Jones. Brian Jones is a teacher, actor
and activist in New York City. He is featured in the new film The
Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman, and his commentary
and writing has appeared on MSNBC.com, the Huffington Post, GritTV
and the International Socialist Review. Jones has also lent his voice
to several audiobooks, including Howard Zinn's one-man play Marx in
Soho, Wallace Shawn's Essays and Noam Chomsky's Hopes and Prospects.
-----------------------------
IN THE fall of 2010, NBC launched "Education Nation"--a televised
summit on the state of American education. It was a veritable Who's
Who of corporate education "reformers." The film Waiting for
"Superman" was premiering in theaters nationwide, and received
wall-to-wall acclaim and publicity from NBC.
I was one of the only teachers to appear on a panel discussion. I
spoke out against charter schools and privatization. [see
http://socialistworker.org/2010/10/08/what-i-learned-at-the-summit ]
So maybe it's no surprise that I wasn't invited back to Education
Nation 2011. But I returned anyway with the help of a press pass.
It hasn't been a good year for the "reform" crowd. Former Washington,
D.C., schools chancellor Michelle Rhee went into hiding from the
press after her "miracle" performance turning around test scores in
the District was exposed as the result of widespread cheating
(similar scandals are popping up nationwide). [see
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/22/education/22winerip.html?_r=1 ] In
a related development, the current U.S. Department of Education's
obsession with high-stakes standardized test scores is producing a
backlash among parents and students, who are choosing to "opt-out" of
the tests altogether. [see
http://fairtest.org/get-involved/opting-out ]
Meanwhile, politicians and hedge fund managers alike continue to
promote the proliferation of charter schools. But on the whole,
charter schools have not outperformed their public school
counterparts, even while drawing criticism for pushing out students
with special needs. [see
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/11/nyregion/charter-school-sends-message-thrive-or-transfer.html
]
One year later, many of the same education "innovators" (Bill Gates,
Geoffrey Canada, Michelle Rhee, etc.) and same corporate sponsors
(University of Phoenix, Microsoft, Broad Foundation, etc.) were back
under the big tent outside of 30 Rock for the summit.
But this time around, there was a noticeably different vibe. This
year, NBC brought not just one or two, but several teachers up to the
stage to speak (parents are still waiting for their turn,
apparently). Once again, there was a movie to tout, but this, too,
had a different tone. "Education Nation" hosted the world premiere of
American Teacher, a film produced by Ninive Calegari and Dave Eggers,
directed by Vanessa Roth and Brian McGinn, and narrated by Matt Damon.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
WHEREAS WAITING for "Superman" was anchored by the stories of
students, American Teacher follows the struggles of teachers.
Superman left audiences with the distinct feeling that
teachers--especially, the unionized variety--are, on the whole,
selfish and untrustworthy clock-punchers. American Teacher, on the
other hand, leaves you with the impression that teachers are
passionate, hard working and grossly underpaid.
The filmmakers do some pretty simple on-screen calculations--about,
for example, how long it would take a teacher to read and comment on
the essays of a single, average-sized class of students (5 minutes
per essay x 25 essays = over two hours of grading for a single
assignment). On this basis, the film concludes that between classroom
time, preparation and grading, teachers can easily work 50 to 65
hours a week or more.
That is, of course, only if we presume the teacher doesn't have to
work at another job.
The American Teacher filmmakers show us a teacher in Texas, Erik
Benner, who is doing his best to inspire his students, to bring
history to life and make his lessons relevant to their lives. We're
not shocked when he changes into sweats to do some after-school
coaching. But there's something startling about the sight of Benner
operating a forklift at Circuit City until 10 p.m., knowing that
he'll have to rise the next day and do it all over again.
Jamie Fidler, a teacher in Brooklyn (and, I should disclose, my
colleague) lights up this film with her warmth and dedication. The
movie's footage of her was taped nearly three years ago, when she was
pregnant with her daughter Charlotte.
Fidler says that in her first year of teaching, she spent $3,000 of
her own money on school supplies, and it took her two days just to
clean her classroom before the start of the school year. "I thought
about quitting," she admits. While pregnant, she has to use her
precious free periods to try to get information about maternity leave
(a paltry six weeks) from the school officials. And once her child is
born, Fidler has to race around the building during those periods
desperately looking for a place to pump breast milk. Fidler, too, has
another job--she tutors children after school for extra money.
These (and countless others) are the daily struggles of teachers
nationwide. To see them highlighted on the silver screen is
refreshing.
Furthermore, the filmmakers discuss the issue of teacher
turnover--nationwide, nearly 50 percent of teachers leave the
profession within their first five years on the job, a figure
unmatched in any profession. In urban school districts, 20 percent of
all teachers quit in a given year. "We need to show that we trust
teachers, and that we value them," Fidler told me. "This movie is
about making teaching a sustainable profession."
The film contains other personal stories. Jonathan Dearman, an
African-American educator in San Francisco, reluctantly quits after
five years of teaching because he couldn't afford to continue. He
joins his family's real estate business and doubles his income in a
single year.
While corporate reformers relish the opportunity to replace senior
educators with cheaper, inexperienced teachers, American Teacher
shows the real cost of this churn. It's truly heartbreaking to listen
to Jonathan's former students talk about how much they miss him. One
student uses the word "devastated" to describe how he feels. "We want
to stop the revolving door," American Teacher producer Ninive
Calegari told me on the phone. "This is not charity work, it's a
profession. We need to give teachers a livable wage."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
AMERICAN TEACHER walks a careful line, though, and frankly, there's a
reason that it premiered at "Education Nation."
For one thing, the "u" word (union, that is) is not uttered a single
time in the entire film. The filmmakers consciously chose to avoid
any discussion of teacher unions so that "no one crosses their arms"
before seeing the film, as Calegari put it. "Unfortunately, some
people don't have a textured understanding of unions," she said.
But the filmmakers missed an opportunity to give people a more
textured understanding by avoiding the issue altogether. After all,
aren't teacher unions dedicated to (among other things) raising
teacher pay and the other goals that the filmmakers would like to see
achieved?
Unfortunately, the film gives ground to the corporate reformers by
accepting their framework for the discussion. We are, from the start,
told that "the quality of the teacher is the single greatest
in-school factor that affects student achievement." Bill Gates says
so, so does Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and so does President
Obama.
A lay audience may pass over this apparently benign statement. It
seems to elevate the status and importance of teachers. Teachers are
the most important factor--it seems intuitively true!
But those of us who have been in the trenches fighting to defend
public education know different. Ask any teacher who has experience
working in a variety of different schools, and they'll tell you:
there are countless in-school factors that determine what you, the
teacher, can and cannot do. A "great" teacher in one setting might be
a suffocated and stifled teacher in another.
Curriculum, administration and collaboration are among the variables
that can alter a teacher's performance dramatically from one school
to another. Furthermore, we have extensive research confirming again
and again that class size is one of the most powerful factors in
student progress. [see
http://www.classsizematters.org/topics/benefits_of_smaller_classes/research_and_links/
]
To its credit, American Teacher lets us hear from progressive
educators like Linda Darling-Hammond, who explains that teachers
historically have had low pay because of sexism--teaching has been a
female-dominated industry, so the work has been undervalued.
But the filmmakers splice Darling-Hammond together with
archconservative economist Eric Hanushek, who claims that "effective"
teachers can impart a year and a half of material in a single school
year, as compared to their less-effective colleagues. Furthermore, he
claims that this amounts to a $20,000 difference in future earnings
per child.
Yes, we concede that teachers can have a powerful impact on a child's
life. But the certitude with which Hanushek isolates one factor (a
single teacher) and connects it to another (future earnings),
separated by decades of time and millions of other life events,
reminds me of biological reductionists who perpetually claim to have
discovered the gene for stealing, or the gene for generosity, or the
gene for playing poker.
"It's for Eric Hanushek to defend his methodology," Calegari told me,
"but we put him in the film because we think we need to have
different voices saying that the work of teachers is important. Right
now, it's critical to have a movie that doesn't seem one-sided."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
AT THE summit, when the film was over, and the lights came up,
several of its stars took the stage for a panel discussion moderated
by Al Roker. In a row of teachers, I was surprised to see former
Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter, but it didn't take long to
understand why NBC set out a chair for him. Alter's role was to state
explicitly what the film does not.
He applauded municipalities that have entered into a "grand bargain"
with teachers--pay increases in return for greater accountability. In
other words, merit pay. After all, we can't just hand out raises to
all teachers, only to the "great" ones!
Fortunately, Jamie Fidler had the temerity to challenge Alter. "We
have to be careful when we talk about accountability," she said,
"especially when it's based on high-stakes standardized test scores."
Fidler hit the nail on the head here; the movements of those test
scores are precisely what "accountability" means today. [see
http://chronicle.com/article/Education-Dept-to-Propose-New/129220/ ]
If the theme of last year's "Education Nation" was teacher bashing,
the theme of this year's forum is teacher praising. But make no
mistake--it's the same agenda either way.
Another educator featured in the film, Rhena Jasey, argued that the
whole discussion was too narrowly focused on small investments (i.e.,
puny pay increases) when huge sums are needed. She told the crowd
outside 30 Rock, "There's plenty of money in this country. If we
valued children, we would put the money there."
It's a good point, and as I listened, I started wondering what a less
politically constrained American Teacher would have looked like. "We
know that family income is the single greatest factor determining
success in school," Calegari told me. "The fact is, we're not good
caretakers of children. We don't have universal health care. We send
children to school with toothaches and earaches."
Yes, it is refreshing to see a documentary with major distribution
that shows teachers in a sympathetic light. Unfortunately, American
Teacher tiptoes around the big issues in order to avoid offending the
powerful people who are attacking our public schools. And as a
consequence, it's just been announced that Microsoft Partners in
Learning is going to help organize thousands of screenings. As an
unexpected benefit, teachers and activists who want to organize a
screening and discussion of this film can get a free copy of the DVD.
[see
http://www.dynamiceventsregistration.com/americanteacher/host-screening.asp
]
Many educators will feel vindicated by American Teacher after the
ugly scapegoating of the last year, and rightly so. The film mounts a
necessary defense of K-12 teachers, but beating back the corporate
reform attacks will, ultimately, require a confrontation with the
powerful people carrying them out.
--
Jerry P. Becker
Dept. of Curriculum & Instruction
Southern Illinois University
625 Wham Drive
Mail Code 4610
Carbondale, IL 62901-4610
Phone: (618) 453-4241 [O]
(618) 457-8903 [H]
Fax: (618) 453-4244
E-mail: jbecker@siu.edu
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