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I was at parent-teacher conferences when one of my very best students walked in with her mom. I can’t speak Chinese, but a former student of mine, also from China, was in the room and volunteered to translate for me. I told Mom her daughter was wonderful, that she was learning fast and doing great. I told her if she were my daughter I’d be very proud. 

But Mom was not happy.

She asked, through my ex-student, why I didn’t teach like they did in China. Why wasn’t I giving extensive vocabulary lists for her daughter to memorize? Why wasn’t I giving her daughter the SAT words she’d be tested on? Why wasn’t I giving books full of those words? Well, I said, she’s only just arrived here, and I don’t think that’s what she needs just now. 

“You can’t tell Chinese parents anything,” confided my young translator, her hand covering her mouth. (more…)

I was lucky enough to get an advance copy of Diane Ravitch’s new book, “The Death and Life of the Great American School System.” It is, frankly, a revelation, and anyone interested in education, particularly New York City education, needs to read it right now.

For anyone who’s wondered where on earth Joel Klein dreamed up his “reforms,” look no further. A substantial source of inspiration appears to be a three-stage process — a New York City experiment that gave a false impression of success, a San Diego experiment that eluded success altogether, and a stubborn determination to replicate both in overdrive.

As both Bloomberg and Klein were business experts using business models, they used a “corporate model of tightly centralized, hierarchal, top-down control, with all decisions made at Tweed and strict supervision of every classroom to make sure the orders flowing from headquarters were precisely implemented,” Ravitch writes. It appears they didn’t squander their valuable time on troublesome input from teachers, parents, or any contradictory voices whatsoever. In fact, Ravitch points out that though the mayor had promised increased parental involvement, it was actually reduced. Parent coordinators were hired, but in fact, they actually “worked for the principal, not for parents.” (more…)

I’m marginally astonished at the city’s contract demands, the ones that Mayor Bloomberg says are not demands. As I review the demands that are not demands, the one that really jumps out at me is the lowering of standards for dismissing teachers. Apparently, the city now has to show “just cause” but wishes to lower the standard to “arbitrary and capricious.”

One of the social studies teachers in my school, trained as a lawyer, could not believe I’d gotten the term right. But there it is, in GothamSchools, the most reliable source for education news and opinion in the known universe. So basically, they can fire you for stealing pencils, and you’d have to prove to them that you didn’t do it. After all, it’s “Children First” in New York City. So if you’re an adult, falsely accused, too bad. No salary or health benefits for you. And when the children who “came first” grow up, the hell with them too. They get the same 19th-century-style jobs we just took away from their parents.

The DOE, of course, is now two years into its quest to fire more teachers. So far, they’ve only been able to build successful cases against three. It’s remarkable that, led by a noted attorney, that’s as far as they got. I’m sure they could’ve done better if they weren’t expending so much energy on personal vendettas and utter nonsense. Still, you’d think someone who so reveres accountability and spurns excuses, like Chancellor Klein, would have a better explanation than the one he’s got — that the rules and regulations are neither arbitrary nor capricious enough. But those are the sort of results you can expect when you send people to the rubber room for bringing plants to school or reporting administrative malfeasance. I personally worked with someone who spent time there largely for the offense of not wearing a tie.

As a chapter leader, I’m particularly fascinated by the clause demanding that chapter leaders do all their work outside school hours. (more…)

That’s a popular saying. Basically, it means you’ve got to get tough with the kids when they first see you, and stay that way for a good long time. After all, every parent knows it’s the sacred duty of every kid to test every adult every minute to find out precisely what can be gotten away with.

I’m up to the challenge. On the first day of class, I might phone the homes of every kid who looked at me the wrong way. Doubtless that will be the talk of the classroom. “This teacher is crazy!” That’s music to my ears. They prevailing platitude states a good lesson plan is the single best factor in classroom control, but I’d say a bad reputation trumps the good lesson plan every time. After all, if the kids are tying you to a post and setting fire to it, your excellent lesson plan is likely to go up in flames with you, no matter how good the instructional objective may be, or how much praise it’s garnered from your supervisor.

Actually, I like kids a lot — working with them is by far the single best part of being a teacher. As an ESL teacher, drawing them out and making them comfortable enough to speak freely is a major part of what my job entails. So, much as we all treasure peace and quiet, I don’t have the luxury of simply telling them to sit down and shut up the entire year. Nor would I want it — I don’t think I’d like that any more than the kids would. (more…)

It’s scary when schools close. No reasonable person wants to see that happen. But look at the closing schools and you’ll notice they all have certain things in common. The one that really stands out is the large population of students with special needs. Now don’t take this the wrong way — I make my living teaching kids like that, and I adore them for the most part.

But whose fault is it, really, if it takes my kids longer to graduate? I mean, most kids pass my beginning English classes. I always hope to pass 100 percent of my students, and I sometimes come very close. But when I see a kid who came from Korea 18 days ago carrying around a two-inch thick biology text, I’m not optimistic. How on earth is that kid gonna differentiate between enzymes and hormones? I just spent 10 minutes showing him the difference between “kitchen” and “chicken,” and I count myself lucky he got that far.

Unfortunately, school report cards are serious business nowadays. And don’t fool yourself into thinking they mirror report cards your kids get. If my kid, for example, came home with a D, it might be a long time before she’d see her iPod again. (more…)

In New York City, schools live and die by statistics. If statistics take a nosedive, schools are closed, no ifs, ands or buts. Of course, everyone knows the old saying about liars, damned liars, and statisticians. So you’d think before taking the draconian step of closing a school, statistics would be checked with great care.

You’d be wrong, of course. But if you were relying on the local papers to inform you, you’d never know it. In fact, it appears Secretary of Education Arne Duncan gets his info straight from Mayor Bloomberg’s PR machine, and that appears good enough for President Barack Obama as well. Amusing though it is to watch politicians jump like trained seals, doing whatever it takes to grab the money Obama and Duncan dangle before them, their utter lack of vision and common sense is unsettling, to say the least.

One of the most vexing aspects of this administration’s frenzy to close schools is its absolute willingness to accept and propagate explanations like this one. While the much-ballyhooed statistics are outrageous and inaccurate, it appears true that no one’s actually planning to bulldoze Jamaica High School, as far as I know. Of course, that’s only as far as I know.

Still, even if the building will remain, does that mean residents will still get what they’ve always gotten? (more…)

Jamaica High School is a magnificent building — a beacon on a hill that stands out in a distinctly middle-class neighborhood in Queens. It is majestic and elegant — a literal landmark that exudes history.

Walk the halls and you will see black and white pictures of tweed-suited principals. You can see one of them appearing on “Open End” with David Susskind, discussing some important issue or other. When was the last time you saw a high school principal interviewed on a news show?

Walk further and you will see photos of the doughboys who died in World War I. This one died of malaria. That one perished from pneumonia. Then comes the World War II vets. They’ve all passed through these halls, and why not? Jamaica High School has been an integral part of the community for 118 years.

Alas, Chancellor Joel Klein has passed a writ of execution on Jamaica High School, threatening an abrupt halt to its rich history. (more…)

I grew up in Long Island, and I’ll never forget the construction of a local park, named for a spectacularly corrupt local politician. For years, we rode our bicycles past the park, watched piles of dirt move from one side to the other, and nothing of consequence happened. As long as they kept shuffling back and forth, it gave the appearance of progress. When I hear talk of “reform” from Tweed, I always think of those ever-shifting dirt piles.

For example, snow is falling, and that can only mean it’s school-closing time again in New York City. According to Tweed, these schools are failing and must be replaced ASAP. It’s not their fault the schools are failing, because nothing is their fault, and anyway, it’s not their job to fix schools.  What is their job? Nobody really knows. And anyway, why should they bother fixing schools when they can simply rename them, fill them with different kids, and pretend the old ones never existed?

If schools they started specifically to replace closed schools don’t pass muster, that’s not their fault either. The folks at Tweed are ready and willing to close the schools they opened, and take no responsibility whatsoever. The important thing is they’re going to open even newer ones, and whether they end up closing is not their problem. It isn’t Tweed’s fault, it isn’t Chancellor Klein’s fault and it isn’t Mayor Bloomberg’s fault either. Here in New York City, that’s called “accountability.” (more…)

That was the topic of a recent lesson I taught my level 2 ESL class. Actually, I was teaching them to use past progressive, e.g., “What were you doing at 9:18 p.m. last night?” But if I’d told them what they were really doing, they’d have risen up en masse and tossed me out a window.

I was using a book called American Streamlines, which offers illustrations of an unfortunate high school principal being hit over the head with a blackjack or something. At first blush, the kids enjoyed it. But the story specifically stated that the police thought the attacker was a student, and that all students would be questioned, be they male or female.

The male/ female distinction is an important one, particularly when you’ve got a large group of Chinese speakers. In Chinese, they tell me, they do not distinguish between male and female in third person pronouns, so many of my kids call everyone “he.” I’m forever drawing stick figures and explaining how dangerous it can be to refer to women as “he.”

As far as dangerous women go, I have one right next door, in the adjacent trailer. That would be Ms. Rena Sum, Chinese teacher extraordinaire. (more…)

If you work for the NYC Department of Education, getting small things done can often be a large task. But I’ve been doing it since its inception, and I have some advice for those who are bewildered, or simply discouraged. Even if you’ve been exiled to the most filthy, decrepit, and crumbling trailer in Mayor Bloomberg’s New York, you can do it. Just follow these simple steps.

A trailer at Francis Lewis High School. By Arthur Goldstein

First, try all the normal channels. Go to the custodian and explain how cold, how wet, how malodorous and revolting the trailer is. When that fails, go to administration. Fill out the forms, make the requests, and do whatever official policy dictates. Go in every now and then to remind them when nothing gets done. Demand luxury items, like soap.

Repeat every year, as necessary.

Don’t give up when you discover bar soap instead of liquid soap, even if it grows a curious oozing black crust the kids refuse to touch. Just pick it up with a piece of paper and interrupt a Very Important Meeting to show the assistant principal. The soap bars will soon disappear. While no new soap will replace it, you can make yourself feel important by boasting to the kids about how you got rid of those grungy soap bars.

After the fifth year or so, you may find your trailer’s desk filled with fast-food garbage. (more…)