The education debate continues
The education debate continues
The interviews with Michelle Rhee '92 and Randi Weingarten '80 were interesting, enlightening, and disturbing ("Pop Quiz," March/April 2011). I have worked in union and non-union manufacturing facilities, and have seen an evolution in the attitude between labor and management over the past fifty years. In those environments—industrial, academic, and governmental—in which a collaborative attitude is fostered, the organization prospers. And it does not matter what services or products are produced. Everyone from the CEO to the janitor has a stake in the health of every organization. Many of us have learned that the poor working conditions in the early twentieth century that led to the powerful labor union movement and continual confrontation between labor and management is ancient history. Cooperation is now the name of the game. Everyone wins when everyone works toward a common goal. If Rhee believes that the union workers in the automobile industry do not have the responsibility to help produce a cheaper and better car, she does not belong in any position in which it is essential to work jointly with everyone to produce a better product (improved reading, mathematical, and thinking skills).
I have a second career, teaching chemistry in a community college. I see every day the results of our failing school system. Students cannot read and cannot think, and too many of them have no understanding that learning anything requires time and effort. Many of us agree on the definition of the problem. What none of us can agree upon are the root causes. I do not really know if I am a good teacher, because I do not know how to evaluate my performance. I learn a little more each time I stand in front of a class, but how do you measure that? This past fall I gave an exam and the average grade was 75; I gave virtually the same exam two weeks ago and even made it a little easier (or so I thought)—and the average was 64. Who was responsible? Me? The students? When either Rhee or Weingarten has an answer for that, please let me know. Until I have an answer, my frustrations will continue, and I will still look for ways to convince students that chemistry is important.
William Eisen '56
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
I have tried and failed to find an idea in your interview with Michelle Rhee. I do, however, find a dubious assertion that a great teacher can as a general rule overcome the dreadful effects on children of extreme urban poverty. No evidence is cited and rural poverty is ignored, but these "great teachers," however defined, are presented almost as saviors of society. This kind of thing diverts attention from our country's serious ills by positing cheap and easy cures. I find, too, a repeated assertion that children come first, but I cannot find what this is supposed to mean. I note, however, that most of what Ms. Rhee has actually done as a school system official is to indulge in corporate-style top-down governance at its worst.
As one who spent thirty years at a state college known for its teacher-ed programs, let me make a few positive suggestions: Revise certification requirements so that undergraduates preparing to be public school teachers spend far less time in education courses than they do now; many of these courses are of doubtful practical or intellectual value. Along the way, abolish P-12 certification and with it the idiotic notion that someone deemed competent to teach chemistry to high school seniors should at the same time be licensed to introduce elementary school pupils to the rudiments of science. Treat teachers like the professionals they are, professionals involved in a curious activity that creates no product but is itself a process. That process must indeed have results, some immediately tangible and hence subject to testing, but others, often more important, that are lodged deep within students' minds and are thus impossible to identify, much less quantify, on the spot.
Teachers' pay must, of course, be on a par with that of similarly qualified people in roughly analogous professions. It is disgraceful that this should still need to be said. And the right to unionize is fundamental. As unionized faculties in public universities have long demonstrated, unions and the most rigorous professionalism can easily coexist.
No one, not even Michelle Rhee, really knows what makes a "great teacher." (Identifying a truly poor one is much easier.) Because it is so difficult to evaluate teachers beyond the most superficial characteristics, serious evaluations, however desirable they may be considered, are exceptionally dangerous; it is largely for this reason that peer review within a system of shared governance is as essential to schools as it is to universities.
Finally—and this is a positive point though I begin by expressing it negatively—let us stop behaving as if we considered the public schools the sole agency of society and demand that they bring us to a sort of secular New Jerusalem. We might then be more motivated to get to work on what really ails us.
Donald Mintz '49, PhD '60
Trumansburg, New York
Partial Eclipse
One of my fondest memories of the good old days on the Hill was the sight of the distinguished English professors Arthur Mizener and M. H. "Mike" Abrams heading across campus together to various Cornell games, notably football, in the early Fifties. So it was neat to see former President Dale Corson's fine photo of Mike along with the report that Athletic Director Andy Noel and his staff had honored Mike with a plaque in Bartels Hall on the occasion of his ninety-eighth birthday (Currents, March/April 2011). Alas, the photo eclipsed the portion of the plaque that named Mike Cornell's #1 fan.
Jim Hanchett '53
New York, New York
Not Coming
I thought about going to the 50th Reunion of my class in June, but decided not to after receiving the program. It was mostly hoopla of a kind that I—and, I suspect, many other graduates—would not care for. My idea of a reunion would be to make it primarily a learning experience. I would welcome getting together with other majors in my department from years past, along with any available professors and instructors from that time, to informally discuss and evaluate our learning then and what we have learned since that could make future courses better. The rest of the time would be unscheduled leisure to tour in and around campus, and join with other graduates as we pleased to further converse and socialize. I am sorry that is not the case.
Gerald Schneider '61
Kensington, Maryland