Janet Mayer has just written a wonderful book that is an antidote to the sham that education "reform" has become. "As Bad as they Say?" combines Janet's own story as a teacher with the inspirational, sometimes tragic stories of nine of her students at that Bronx High School. It's exciting to read a commentary on education written by an actual experienced teacher, and not by one of the cacophony of non-educator voices who have lately drowned out educators with vapid and ill-informed critiques.
The assault on public schools and teachers has been building for years, and the worst part of it is that now it comes from all sides. It is no secret that fundamentalists - both religious and free-market - have long sought to kill public schools in order to privatize and parochialize education. The attack has taken various forms, for example, legislation to permit government aid to religious schools or vouchers to funnel money from public to private schools. These efforts have run up against Court challenges and opposition from parents and teachers that held off the charge, at least for a while.
The passing of NCLB in 2001 signaled a different tactic - using mandatory testing to demonstrate that public schools are "failing," justifying closing schools, firing teachers, killing unions and expansion of charter schools -- quasi-private schools funded with public monies.
Tragically, this time the market and religious fundamentalists found liberal allies, like Ted Kennedy, a co-sponsor of NCLB. Education "reformers" now come from all points on the political spectrum, and well-intentioned billionaires like Bill Gates pour money into testing and other programs with dubious effects on instruction. Moderate Republicans like Mayor Bloomberg purport to change the schools by using a purported "business model." And yet the same pattern occurs everywhere - initial "miraculous" results turn out to be short-lived or fraudulent, like the phony success of the Texas schools in the and more recently, the Chicago and New York schools. Programs such as "Teach for America" - at best, a modest effort to have some high achieving college students choose to teach (at least for awhile) - are inflated into education panaceas, with their executives attaining grossly undeserved power in education policy. Teacher-hating administrators like Michelle Rhee (who had only three years of teaching experience) are proclaimed as education giants on magazine covers, and now make common cause with the right wingers who openly seek to destroy public schools.
That's why it is so refreshing, even thrilling, to read the story of a dedicated teacher who fought for kids for 40 years, undeterred by the incredibly difficult setting most of the kids came from, the demoralizing physical condition of the schools, the top down useless "reforms" and the blame heaped on teachers by all varieties of know-nothing critics.
Janet Mayer starts by telling her own story. She knew she wanted to be a teacher from age 8, and writes warmly of the love and support in her family that helped her achieve that goal. Her teaching career began in 1960, spanned the many tumultuous events of the next forty years - the formative years of the UFT (United Federation of Teachers), the racially charged teachers' strike in 1968, the New York fiscal crisis and teacher layoffs in 1975, countless educational fads imposed from above, the imposition of standardized tests before and through their use and misuse in the "No Child Left Behind" program.
She writes compellingly of the horrendous physical conditions of the schools in which she taught - conditions to which I can attest, having worked in the same building as Janet for ten years. (Another answer I sometimes give to why I left teaching is that in ten years, and despite my infinite requests, there was never hot water in the men's teacher's bathroom.)
Through all of this, there were two constants: Janet's love of teaching, and her undying respect, even awe for the heroism of her students. The heart of the book is her account of nine students she calls her heroes. There is Marion, an immigrant from Central America, who had to learn English as a second language, only to suffer a terrible six story fall, which she survived and still managed to come back and graduate. There is Pedro, who had sporadic attendance until Janet discovered his gift for the piano. He had no piano at home, but Janet and arranged for him to be able to play for ten minutes a day on a dilapidated, unused piano stored in a classroom closet. Eventually, Pedro was able to transfer to the Manhattan School of Music and pursue his dream.
Janet devotes a chapter to Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences, and notes that most education today, including most egregiously, the NCLB, addresses only the first two of the eight intelligences (linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, bodily-Kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal and naturalist). Pedro's awakening through music reveals the shortsightedness and lack of imagination in education "reform," which is merely a bludgeon, disguised as a policy.
The past and present assaults on teachers rarely permit responses from actual teachers. As Bad as they Say? is an uplifting rebuttal to the cascade of abuse poured down on teachers, as well as their students. Like the kids she describes, Janet Mayer is a true education hero.
