Yesterday, for most of two hours, MS-NBC held a national Teacher Town Hall as part of its Education Nation national education summit. I watched and tweeted - the hashtag #educationnation was VERY busy during that time, with yours truly being I am told the 3rd most active tweeter.
I will not attempt to recapitulate the entire event. This is just a few of my strongest impressions some 16 hours after it ended (I began writing this shortly before 6 AM).
If asked for a general overall impression, it looked as if NBC was trying to push the conversation in a particular direction, yet despite an imbalance in the teachers on stage and who were given access to the microphone, got some major pushback from teachers and a few principals.
That said, I am doubtful that this did all that much to improve and inform the overall quality of the national conversation on educational policy, which still remains dominated by the views of self-described educational reformers. If one had any doubt, consider just this: on the 8 PM event with Joe Scarborough, Michelle Rhee, who spent 3 years as a TFA member and now less the 4 years as a controversial head of DC Public Schools was promoted as a "leading educational reformer."
Now for my impressions/reactions/reflections.
The participation was unbalanced. I noted this with the first group of 3 teachers on stage. One after a very brief time as a teacher (who had allowed NBC to film in her classroom, which admittedly took courae) was now a dean at a charter school, one other was a charter school teacher, and only one taught in a traditional public school. That was symptomatic of what we saw.
Overall, something around 30-40% of those invited to sit with Brian Williams were from charters, as were around 25-30% of those given access to the floor microphones. But even cut those figures in half if you want, and it would still be unbalanced. FACT: only 3% of our nation's students are in charter schools, so even that proportion would be an incredibly balance in favor of charter schools.
We heard some from charter schools who had absolutely no knowledge of the history of education, which perhaps is why they do not understand the purposes of either tenure or unions. The audience did get to here some pushback, but too often it was from older teachers so a false impression was given that this was a generational issue. In my school, those now most actively interested in the union activity are the relatively young - all 3 of my co-reps have been teaching less than 10 years.
Further, we were somewhat falsely presented with a contrast between some charters that MAY be working quite effectively as compared against what may be the worst examples of public schools. But that is a misrepresentation of the overall effectiveness of public schools - see Laura's front page post last night which referenced the CREDO study which points out only 17% of charter perform significantly better than public schools, while 37% perform significantly worse.
Some charter advocates tried to argue that charters WERE public schools. Not really - they get to operate under very different rules, including a lack of protection for teachers, an ability to impose ridiculous hours such as additional work on Saturday and being on call by phone until 11 PM with no additional pay. Few of those in charters have been teaching all that long, and I wonder how many have the responsibilities of family, or the ability to purchase their own homes.
At one point, Brian Williams put up a statistic from "Waiting for Superman" about comparative discharge rates of lawyers, doctors and teachers - losing their licenses/credentials was the point of comparison. As shown on MS-NBC, the data was presented as if it were national, when in fact it was not. It was only from Illinois, where one in 57 doctors lose their medical licenses; one in 97 attorneys lose their law licenses; but for teachers, only one in 2,500 have ever lost their credentials.
But even that is deceptive. Depending upon what source you use, nationally we lose about 30% of new teachers within 3 years, close to 50% within 5. Some we wish we weren't losing, as they get discourage by working conditions or the lack of support. But a good chunk of that loss, perhaps 40-50% of it (meaning at least 15% in 3 years and around 25% in 5) simply do not get invited back (remember, beginning teachers do not have tenure even in the states that offer it), or are discharged. That no one bothers to go through the effort to cancel a certificate is meaningless, because they are no longer teaching.
No one offered this data. Yet it is key to countering the false impression given by (mis)stating the statistics in isolation. I could not help but think of the aphorism by Mark Twain that the three great untruths were lies, damn lies, and statistics.
When Brian Williams asked one teacher on the stage about the supposed number of bad teachers his response was that in part he had entered teaching to make up for the bad teachers he thought he had had, but now looking around at his colleagues, he really doesn't find them.
We did have one person at least one teacher point out that the purpose of review and evaluation should be to help the teacher improve. Let me say this bluntly - there are very few teachers who are stars when they first step in the classroom. I came in during December, and I thought I was doing horribly, until the teacher next door told me I was already making a difference, she could hear it by the decreasing volume through our common wall. Still, it took me at least a few months to get my sea legs, and I worked hard and continued to improve, benefiting from the advice and counsel of fellow teachers and my administrators.
About the movie "Waiting for Superman" (W4S)- there were several moments of real pushback. One teacher described Davis Guggenheim (who created the film) as the Leni Reifenstahl of education. I realized how few got the reference: she was the director of "Triumph of the Will" - a great propaganda film on behalf of Hitler. It is powerful, as many will find W4S powerful. This teacher also wondered about the lack of voices of a different perspective, specifically naming Diane Ravitch (who told me she was not asked to be in the film).
The other pushback was from a former NY State teacher of the year, now retired, who praised two people in the film: one a teacher who took kids n field trips and another a parent who refused to subject her child to the lottery so that he would not fail as if he were marked for failure because he failed to get in.
PEople listening closely heard about teachers spending more than $1,000/year for things their kids needed (the national average is a bit less than half that), from a principal who described offering a job to a physics teacher which would mean that she (the teacher) could never buy her own home. Those watching would have heard in no uncertain terms that mos of them have no idea what a teacher really does, that they do not understand the myriad tasks of classroom management, pedagogy, ability to adjust on the fly, etc.
I had one other major takeway, which in my mind is symptomatic of what is wrong with the entire summit. It was not 2 hours, it was far less. Why? Because MS-NBC kept taking commercial breaks. I remember how angry I was at the first one. If the subject of education is so important, why are commercial breaks necessary? Either NBC should have footed the entire cost on its own, or else thanked sponsors at the beginning and at the ten, for a total of 2-3 minutes. We did not need 2-3 minutes of breaks to have products and services pushed at us every 15-20 minutes.
I was one of the most active under the hashtag #educationnation. I saw much of the traffic besides my own. My overall impression is that despite hearing voices contrary to the meme being pushed by the self-described reformers, most of those actively posting on the twitter feed were not happy with what they were seeing. There was a fair amount of criticism of NBC.
Having since heard from people who tried to participate in the online portion of the Town Hall, I know there were problems over there as well.
Rather than let my impressions be the sole experience for those who did not see the program, let me point you at the blog post (of what was recorded as a live blog but which did not become available online until after the event was over) of Nancy Flanagan, a former Michigan Teacher of the Year, and like me a member of both the Teacher Leaders Network and the steering committee of Teachers Letters to Obama. Her blog post can be read here.
The short takeaways:
- The 'reformers' will not be happy with how much the voices of teachers made it clear that their agenda is neither popular nor is it likely to be effective
- The event was unbalanced, with a disproportionate number of charter teachers as compared to their numbers in the whole body of teachers
- It was not well-structured, and some key issues were not explored well
- For those who paid close attention, you would have gotten a real sense about the rising anger among teachers - this was particular true in the portion of the event that dealt with teachers being under attack.
Today the President is being interviewed live - at 8 AM on a school day. Most of the teachers on the East Coast will not be able to watch, although of course we can take the time to view it later. Similarly, yesterday's event began at Noon on the East Coast, which meant that many in other time zones had a conflict with religious services. And by its end at 2 PM it was conflicting with the early NFL games which may have cause some household conflict.
Remember, not everyone has access to MS-NBC, or to viewing it online in real time.
It this town hall is of such critical performance, and especially since NBC was taking breaks for sponsors, why was it not in Prime Time, broadcast over the air on the main NBC network? Does that mean it really is not all that important?
I give credit to NBC for at least providing this one forum where the voices that differ from the 'reform' agenda were given some opportunity to be heard. It is not enough, and I am afraid that any good will be more than outweighed by the rest of the summit, which is not structured in a way to allow an honest discussion. I am told that the event on W4S with Morning Joe last night had real problems. Hear I note that except for those who got into early previews, only people in NY and LA have as yet had access to public showing, so having a discussion like that seems to do little more than promote the film. Further, there was only one voice not supporting the film, Randi Weingarten of AFT, who is not all that effective a speaker/debater, and on top of which I am told she kept getting cut off.
I retain the skepticism with which I have been perceiving this event since it was announced.
I watched yesterday because I felt people in this community would want to know my reactions.
If you want to see how I reacted in realtime, go to Twitter and scroll back through @teacherken - and you will have to do a lot of scrolling.
One last note, between my diary here yesterday, which has been widely distributed (and which I am told is being forwarded to people in the White House) and my twitter feed, I picked up something like 70 new followers over at twitter. Apparently some people decided what I had to say was worth reading.
I don't know about that. I only know that I am willing to be outspoken, to offer perceptions.
And then?
Do with it what you will.
Peace.