It’s hard to say that you played and lost. It is particularly hard when you cared so much. It is even harder to admit that the “bean-counters” won. Today, after a year and a half outside of public education, I admit that.

I was a public school teacher and administrator for twenty years. I played with the “big boys.” I worked with the most hated man in public education in two states. In every one of the numerous positions that I held, I worked to make sure that my students learned. They learned reading, writing, and math, but, more importantly to me, they learned how to be strong people. They learned how to be critical citizens. They learned that someone in the system cared for them.

When I had the honor of hiring teachers, those were the qualities I recruited. Did they care for children? Did they know how to communicate the ability to think about problems, and use the knowledge that they had acquired in meaningful ways, to the students with whom we would be jointly responsible. That’s what education is about --- finding the blend between the cognitive and the affective; teaching the mind, body, and spirit.

I still do these things in the Roman Catholic, private school in which I teach. I search now for ways to teach young, middle-class students their roles in a just society. That is what the middle, and even the upper, class insists upon for their young people. I still don’t understand why the “public” doesn’t insist on the same level of education for students in its care.

In my last years as a public school administrator, I was more and more frustrated by my inability to motivate the students and teachers with whom I worked to care about state and national tests and their consequences. As unreliable as the old MSPAP was as an indicator of a school’s performance, it did have the benefit of driving instruction in the right direction. It made teachers work with students in creating understandings instead of telling students what to do. It created a feeling of solidarity in the school community as students strove to show their abilities on this test.

As the years passed, growth in scores became more and more an end in itself instead of a means to an instructional end. Test scores had to increase and increase rapidly. If they did not, we all would be held “accountable.” The meaning of this was clear. The lower level workers (teachers, principals, middle-level managers) would be removed. I saw what that pressure did to my supervisor, to my colleagues in administration, to the teachers with whom I worked, and, most directly, to me. More importantly, I saw what the stress did to my relationship with our students. They were becoming numbers to us all. They were only important if they could pass the test. Those who couldn’t were tutored, cajoled, retained, and, in rare cases, dropped from the rolls. Reminiscent of Vietnamese body counts, schools were interested in producing statistics, not caring for people.

Today I read a series of articles published by newspapers around the country in which governors, and that American idol, Bill Gates once again criticized American public schools. The titles in my professional association info-brief read:

• Governors call for toughening of high school standards
At the National Governors Association education summit meeting yesterday, the governors of 13 states announced they had formed a coalition to require more rigor in high school courses, testing and graduation requirements. The network, which is expected to attract more states during the next few weeks, also plans to publish more data on dropout and graduation rates. The Boston Globe (2/28), The New York Times (free registration) (2/28), Education Week (free registration) (2/28)
Gates calls high schools "obsolete": In a speech to the governors' education summit, Bill Gates said high schools must undergo "radical institutional change" to fulfill their mission of preparing all students for tomorrow's workplace. The Seattle Times (free registration) (2/27)
(citation: ASCD Smartbrief, February 28, 2005)

I am furious. Not so much that the analysis wrong, but because of the hypocrites who forwarded the criticisms. Let’s take the governor’s first.

Since 1983, when Reagan’s Carnegie commission first attacked public schools, governors called for more rigor in schooling. When they met again in 1989, they insisted that testing all students would address these problems. Here we are fifteen years later, and these people, most of whom were products of upper middle-class, or private, schools are still calling for it. Why? In my estimation it is because they were products of a school environment that stressed more than numbers. They, like our Governor Erlich, attended the Gilman School, or, like our previous chief executive, sent their children to DeMatha High outside D.C. Like over twenty-five percent of public school teachers they looked for more than the “three r’s.” for themselves and their children.

Are they students in “successful schools” smarter than our urban youth who score so poorly on tests? From my experience no; however, our ruling class choose not to give these children an equal shake. Why? Like all things in America, it’s all about differences in economic and social class.

Bill Gates, our supposed model of American success, calls high schools obsolete. His vision of public schooling is that it fulfills the “mission of preparing all students for tomorrow's workplace.” He wants to create future employees for Microsoft. If these students can pass the rigorous tests that the governors are demanding, they will be better workers in Bill Gates’ America. Corporate America will no longer have to “train” these workers. It will cut costs. It all comes down to numbers. It’s a business, just like our military.

In the end, these representatives of the American will destroy public schools. In their victory, they will break public school teacher unions because these antiquated institutions serve the needs of the failing system better than they do the teachers and children they pretend to help.

I’m sorry, but I can only be glad to be out of that vision of education. Children are so much more than products to be assembled. They are citizens to be nurtured and people to be respected. But that’s not measurable, so, to our rulers, it is unimportant