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Interview with an English Teacher
by Joel Chaffee
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010
New York, NY
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In light of the charter school movement recently initiated by Mayor Bloomberg, and the increasing pressure on teachers for students' results, I interviewed someone who has been teaching high school English in New York state for over a decade: my brother, J. Emerson. Forgive him, he has so many good ideas.

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JC: What do you think of teacher accountability for students' performance?

JE: Why do we always talk about teacher accountability and not student accountability or parent accountability? There are so many factors that go into student "success" and the truth is teachers are only a small part of that.

JC: But isn't a teacher's job to educate?

JE: Where else is a worker held accountable for another person's performance? Sure, if I were a manager I might be held accountable for my workers' performance, but then I can fire people who are not good at the job. A teacher can't fire lazy students.

JC: What do you think of the firing of 93 teachers in Rhode Island?

JE: Where is this school board and superintendent going to find 93 new teachers to fill those vacancies? First of all, do they really think there are 93 great teachers who will vastly improve their school just waiting around to be hired? And secondly, who would want to get hired there now? Who would take a job at a school that just fired every single teacher? It's a stupid strategy.

And if more schools start doing this and firing everyone, it will just set up a wheel where fired teachers who were "underperforming" just end up hired at another district where they fired everyone. Despite what some may think, great teachers are not growing on trees somewhere. In fact, it is a difficult job which burns out thousands of even young teachers every year. The rate of teacher burnout is rising. Soon there may be a teacher shortage.

Also, I find it interesting that the community protested the firings. Even the citizens see what an idiotic plan this is.

JC: Do you think it is right to ask teachers to recommit themselves?

JE: If the superintendent wants the teachers to "recommit" themselves, is she asking the same of students and parents? How are students and parents held accountable?

And by the way, if low test scores are the teacher's fault and not the student's, then why should the student bother to work any harder? I thought test scores were where students were held accountable.

JC: Where do you see the union in improving schools?

JE: I agree with Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, that teachers are being scapegoated. But the unions need to give a little. My experience with unions is that everything is a labor issue and they can be rather obstructionist. There is a small part of me that sympathizes with the reaction of "let's just fire them all!"

JC: You think it is a bad idea to reform the lowest performing schools, as the White House has suggested?

JE: I love how the White House spokesman says it isn't political but it is "about reforming the lowest-performing schools." Why don't we ever reform the "lowest-performing" Congress or executive branch?

The firings in Rhode Island are just more proof to me of two other things I have thought for a long time: 1. Teaching is a thankless job. 2. Despite the fact that most people in this country went to school for at least a few years, nobody really knows how hard a job it is. They think our lives are cushy because of the vacations, but they don't know how hard it is to be a good teacher. Of course, anyone can be a bad teacher, but then anyone can be a bad manager or a bad president, or a bad student. There is so much more I could say, but I have to grade papers and change my son's diaper.

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It goes without saying (or repeated listens to The Wall) that there are many lousy teachers in the world. But as a lousy student, I never bothered to blame the teachers for their inadequacies. I didn't care for the whole thing, and sort of felt sorry for the jerk standing up there, teaching some mumbo about the white man's burden or telling us to read more Fitzgerald. (Sorry, brother.) But in a city and country focusing more and more on private investment to fund education, our schools will become increasingly "goal oriented" and "results driven," or whatever phrase we give to mask the myriad problems so that we can see only one.

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Last updated by Joel Chaffee - Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 - New York, NY