Hello Kitty

Yesterday I was coming home on the subway. Sitting in the seat next to where I was standing was a cute woman with blond hair and blue eyes. She was using a hello kitty calculator to correct tests on "Julius Caesar". Of course I started talking to her. She said that she was a teacher at a small school in the Bronx. We started talking about what she was teaching. She was not in love with the books she was teaching. I asked her how much input she had in the choice. She said none. That seems strange. Why would someone who had been teaching high school for eight years not have any input into what she taught. I said she was blond, not dumb.

Recently there have been people writing about what is wrong with the military. One of the things they write about is a system that does not encourage people to innovate. Eventually you end up with leaders who aren't innovative. I think this starts at the bottom. I think that the DoE starts out dealing with teachers as if they are not capable of making decisions. They do not dialog with teachers. Eventually they end up with leaders who don't know how to make decisions. The DoE also ends up with leaders who treat teachers like idiots because they were treated that way when they were young.

Newsweek has a list of the top 100 high schools in the country. Their conclusion is that these schools got that way because they had strong committed principals. This is probably true. The DoE seems to recognize this on one level. The problem is that they interpret strong as anti-teacher. When my daughter was in fourth grade she had the best teacher I have ever met. She was truly awe inspiring. I later saw her as a principal. She was a tough principal who had lots of grievances filed against her. She also had an incredibly loyal staff who adored her. This seems like a contradiction but I don't think so. I think she respected teachers who did good work and had little tolerance for the coasters. She eventually became a much loved district superintendent and then the head of curriculum for the DoE. Her name is Carmen Farina and she only lasted a short time. She retired and was replaced by a guy with a law degree who had only taught for a few years. I guess Joel is more comfortably surrounding himself with lawyers than educators. Particularly those who love education.