The martyrs
Clearly, it’s struck a chord and it’s worth unpacking: Why do so many teachers lean so heavily, when criticized, on the “you’ve never yourself been a teacher” argument? As I noted here, it’s logically baseless. Imagine lawyers, doctors, oil-company executives mounting such a defense. If one may judge the performance of only those whose occupations he at one time or another shared, then he is prohibited from judging the performance of almost everyone—the lazy sales associate ["Barista," I mean] at Starbucks, for example, or the incompetent dentist who leaves his patient’s mouth feeling as if it were invaded by those particularly nasty African bees.
But perhaps the one in question has, in fact, worked as a waiter. And so he feels assured that his critique of the poor service he received at dinner last night is quite within bounds. Alas, no. He is mistaken, you see, because the restaurant at which he once delivered entrees to customers cannot be considered very busy, whereas the restaurant at which he dined last night certainly is. (The restaurant analogy is here used to demonstrate the further silliness of teachers who trumpet their work in urban schools, as opposed to the cushy schools across town.)
I’m familiar with no other profession that so often trots out this crutch. I was just discussing with others in the office why teachers, in particular, pledge such allegiance to this martyr mantra. And no, it’s not because teaching is a tough, unrewarding job—rarely have I heard gentlemen who ride on the backs of garbage trucks, when upbraided for not collecting the refuse, respond, “Well, you haven’t ever been a sanitation worker, now have you?”
Furthermore, the teachers who evoke this lame excuse are typically lightyears behind the wonks they vilify in realizing what actually works for public schools. We already know, for instance, that carrying on about the disadvantages that plague one’s pupils is a bridge to nowhere. The high-school teacher is upset that his students didn’t receive a solid middle-school education, the middle-school teacher upbraids his elementary-school counterparts for the same, the elementary-school teacher wonders why his students didn’t go to pre-K, the pre-K teacher complains about his students’ lack of nutrition... and so it goes, all the way back until we reach the moment of conception and realize that the world is just an unequal place.
Lots of teachers have realized that. Lots of schools enroll kids with every disadvantage under the sun and still manage to teach them well (see the Education Trust website for a comprehensive list). Those teachers that make excuses, that complain that their critics have never taught in an urban classroom, do not live on the moral mountaintop they think they do, nor are their apologias needed in any school—urban or otherwise.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
July 1st, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Unbelievable!
I wasn’t going to rise to the bait, but then you put that last comment about the Ed Trust data base. You think that a school with a poverty rate of 50 or 60 or even 70% is a high poverty school? Quick, what do you think the average poverty rate is? If you are off by a mile, don’t feel to bad. Charlie Barone goes on and on about drafting NCLB, and he didn’t have a clue about the answer.
OK you claim to be a policy analyst or a writer or whatever. If you had actual teaching experience, it would have been easier to see the flaws inherent in the Ed Trust approach. Without that shortcut, maybe you need to become a better, harder working social scientist.
You said teachers are lightyears behind wonks in understanding what works? How old are you? How dare you write something so arrogant? What sort of real-life experience do you have to back up that staement.
If you won’t temper your book-learning, such as it is, with the discipline of life’s experience, then you need to more intellectual discipline. In a flippant aside, you basically asserted that some of the most established conclusions in the history of social science, including the Coleman Report, are being negated, based on a political web site.
I don’t think your problem is the lack of experience or immaturity or even your shoddy social science. Your problem is a lack of respect. When I was a snot nosed kid researcher, I could be excessive. But I had respect for the canon.
I had respect for learning.
July 1st, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Some kids aren’t as smart as others and we “realize that the world is just an unequal place.”
Doesn’t this address your “teachers aren’t cutting it” criticism?
July 1st, 2008 at 5:24 pm
I think one aspect of this that gets lost is that teaching and policy wonking (for lack of a better term at the moment) actually require very different skill sets. What makes someone a good teacher may not translate to the education policy arena. And, because this clearly needs to be spelled out, what makes someone a good policy analyst may not make that same person a good teacher. The similarities here are: wanting to do right by kids and looking for the best ways to do that.
Please don’t assume that because you are teacher in a classroom — “on the ground,” as it were — that you can do my job as an education policy analyst. And no, it’s not always the easy, cushy, think-big-thoughts kind of job that it has been portrayed as. By the same token, I know I would make a miserable K-12 teacher. Why should I have to subject a class or two of kids to my teaching just to satisfy some sort of illogical prerequisite before diving into policy and research? I am good at my job, but I know I would be bad at yours. So I will do my job and let you do yours.
But my job does, in fact, require some judgment on my part of your job. Not yours, specifically, but the big picture, look-across-the-city/state/nation-to-find-out-what-works, analytical-and-quantitative-skills-using view of teaching or education writ-large. Or even less general ideas like whether differentiated instruction works, and how that answer actually depends on the teachers who use it, how they were trained, how resources were allocated, what kind of professional development they received, etc. These need to be 30,000-feet questions answered by people who are trained to see issues from 30,000 feet rather than on the ground, in one school, in one classroom.
And good analysts do actually step foot inside the classroom. They do observe teachers and students interacting. They sit down and talk with teachers, students, principals, parents, whomever to get a better understanding of how the 30,000 view translates and effects the on-the-ground work.
So really, don’t tell me (or Liam or any other policy wonk) that I can’t do my job because I’ve never taught. It’s a red herring. And don’t assume that since you teach, you could be a successful policy analyst. Apples and oranges. Both fruit, both nutritious, and I don’t know for sure about you, but I can’t make orangesauce or zest an apple rind.
July 1st, 2008 at 5:28 pm
I’ll bite (it’s a slow day, I guess).
I read your article again carefully, and I think you are right that much (most? all?) of what’s going on at Douglass is a travesty. But you miss the contexts this takes place in, and I’m not just talking about socioeconomic/racial ones here. For something as catastrophic as what’s going on in that school to happen, it’s not just incompetent teachers. Maybe they’re there - I’m sure of it, in fact. You end your article saying “good intentions alone will not yield good results.” Duh - nothing alone will yield good results. But since your article says outright that what’s happening at the school is the fault of incompetent staff, it follows that your solution is to replace that school with all new staff. And that solution, to anyone who’s spent time in the classroom, is absurd.
I started following Fordham’s work because I was impressed by what seemed like a very cogent theory of education policy: national standards, rich academic curricula, school choice, capable teachers, and putting children’s needs above adults. I think you guys are right on when it comes to what we need nationally. But when it comes to the school level - and forgive me if this is too low a blow, but as Fordham’s foray into running Ohio charter schools has shown - you all aren’t hitting it.
To answer the specific question about why teachers complain so much about non-teachers, I think I have a few other answers. Part of it is simply that since teachers do have a hard and complex job, they aren’t terribly inclined to hear from someone who’s never been successful what they should do. The garbageman analogy doesn’t work because while that job is hard, it’s not complex. The garbageman is well-paid for unskilled work, and if he is doing a poor job, there are less demanding jobs out there. Teaching is somewhat unique in that it’s hard, complex, and has relatively low competition and pay.
While your specific example of the dentist is taken, I don’t think the American Dental Association would appreciate being told how to practice exclusively by non-dentists. While most dentists, like teachers, are reasonable people, and will take thoughtful outside advice, a think tank made up of people who have, say, studied health policy, might not seem terribly relevant to the practice of dentists who must deal with wisdom teeth and gum disease daily. The metaphor is straining (we’re talking applied vs. social science for one), but I think the reason you hear so much hemming and hawing about non-teachers talking about teachers is due to the number of both, and not solely to the particular fussiness of teachers. For better or for worse people generally don’t like being told how to do their jobs.
If you’re going to make comparisons about a lazy barista or incompetent dentist, let’s make it a more even one. How about a poorly-running Starbucks and a dental practice with a high-number of cavities? It’s possible that the Starbucks has hired chumps and the dentist is bad. But it’s not excuse-making to try and find out why that institution is performing so poorly- and hard as it is for a small business, that’s an infinitely more complicated question for a school. This is something you learn from experience. This is partly the genius of TFA - get smart people a few years experience in the classroom and let that inform their future work on behalf of poor communities.
And perhaps I’ll flip the question, for the sake of continuing an argument that probably should have died already: why is it that so many education policy folks have such a hard time getting teachers to care about what they’re saying? If what the policy wonks are saying is worthwhile, and teachers care about education children well, where’s the breakdown?
July 1st, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Damn. I almost had it. Before anyone flames me for not knowing the difference between “effects” and “affects” please allow me to apologize. It was a typo, I promise. That sentence should read: “...whomever to get a better understanding of how the 30,000-foot view translates and affects the on-the-ground work.”
July 1st, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Liam Julian wrote that the principal and teachers at Douglass High aren’t “cutting it.” I assumed he meant they’re not meeting the enormous challenge of teaching students who enter high school with very poor skills and work habits. Superman and Wonder Woman would have trouble teaching effectively at Douglass High.
Many teachers are very defensive. Some assume that no criticism of our schools is justified unless it comes from a fellow teacher — and often not even then. While teachers bring a lot to the discussion, they’re not persuasive when they adopt an adult-to-child tone. It’s effective to write: “I disagree with you and here’s why.” It’s not effective to write: “Your opinion is worthless unless you share my set of experiences.”
July 1st, 2008 at 6:52 pm
I am laughing aloud, Mr. Julian!
One of my readers linked me to your page, but don’t worry...I will not be coming back. After reading a second article, penned by Yours Truly, I am beginning to realize that you truly have a lot of work to do. Please follow the instructions I gave you on your prior post and conduct a bit more research (lol) before writing another one of your ill-informed articles. Either someone is paying you to write this crap, or you are just that obstinate! You are giving researchers a bad reputation. Go do some MEANINGFUL research!
Sincerely,
Ms. Friendly
http://www.msfriendly.wordpress.com
July 1st, 2008 at 8:13 pm
The point is not that Liam Julian is a policy wonk - but that he was extremely condescending and patronizing in his NRO piece. Flippant comments about people who had the balls to take part in a fly on the wall documentary. Why not acknowledge that some parts of the NRO piece were out of line?
July 1st, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Joanne is right. The Douglass High teachers were dealt a very bad hand thanks to the failures of their middle and elementary schools.
But this doesn’t excuse the logical fallacies being spouted by these thin-skinned teacher commenters.
If you are going to claim that you speak with some authority, it helps if you have some authority. Not being able to teach at-risk students is no claim to authority or expertise. If you can’t do something successfully, you can’t claim to be an expert. You might have some expertise pertainingto educate affluent kids and other easy-to-educate kids, but that expertise doesn’t extend beyond that. The only thing you learn from failure is what not to do. Failure doesn’t give you any special insight on what you should have or could have done.
I have plenty of expert teachers who are very successful teaching at-risk kids who comment on my blog. These expert teachers think it is possible to educate at-risk kids with the present level of resources. Perhaps the rest of you teachers should start listening to the real experts who speak with some authority.
July 1st, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Can anybody think of another profession that’s criticized so frequently by people who aren’t in the profession? Politicians, probably. Anybody else?
July 1st, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Corey, is there another profession with such a high failure rate?
Actually, teaching isn’t a profession per se. They have no professional responsibility and cannot be sued for malpractice. Luckily for them.
July 1st, 2008 at 11:54 pm
Actually, I was asking a sincere question.
July 2nd, 2008 at 1:06 am
I thought I gave you a sincere answer.
July 2nd, 2008 at 9:44 am
Actually, I’d venture to say teachers have some of the thickest skins in the working world. The abuse they have to endure on a daily basis from the students, administrators, and parents can be massive in some places. Throw in an armchair quarterback with delusions of superiority, and they tend to strike back.
As I said before, Julian’s criticisms bother me far less than the way they’re delivered, with a snub-nosed smugness that only damages his own credibility. How can someone who seems to have so much disdain for the teaching profession responsibly recommend educational policy?
I think the most cogent argument that “book learnin’ ” alone is not sufficient to draft good policy is from John: above he mentions the Ohio charter schools affiliated with Fordham that haven’t quite made the grade. Is this lack of success the teachers’ faults, too? Because, according to Mr. Julian, the philosophy behind them is spot on, yes?
Every professional’s work should be scrutinized. But I can say that, in every career I’ve had - from teaching to advertising - the most constructive criticism I’ve received has come from my peers and colleagues, folks who intimately grasp the context. They have a nuanced understanding of how difficult the job is and, more importantly, can provide meaningful, real world advice distilled from firsthand successes.
Perhaps Mr. Julian, in lieu of any real teaching experience, should allow his 11th grade English teacher to check over his work before submitting blogs. Not for grammar, but for common sense and substance.
July 2nd, 2008 at 10:24 am
Liam and others,
Yesterday I was drafting a post,when I got an important phone call. I thought I saved it, and when I returned I discovered that I had inadvertantly posted mid-thought.
I was still mad, but even so I hope I would not have asked about your age. Instead I would have asked about your generation. The late Bill Strauss says that Baby Boomers were the last generation, across the board, to recall unambiguously good experiences in public schools. We need to acknowledge that market forces are not going away, but we Boomers need to be the defenders of liberal arts, and a full democratic education for all.
I was cut off as I got to the heart of the issue - respect. When I was a kid, in sports we learned to run out every hit, to show “respect for the game.” Similarly, we were taught respect for the “Great Chain of Being, the tradition of intellectual exchange, and the educational institutions that provided a buffer essential for the life of the mind. (What MC called the 30,000 feet perspective, we called “the hedgehog and the fox.”)
When being taught the fundamentals in sports or school we were taught about balance. When you and the Ed Trust present your nostrums, for instance, you are basically saying that teachers could wipe out the effects of stigma and peer pressure and class if we really want to. When you repudiate the Coleman Report, based on the educational equivilant of Supply Side Economics, metaphorically you need a “knock out punch.” You won’t defeat social science’s Heavyweight Champion of four decades on points - especially if your points are just political slogans. (When the average poverty rate for public school students is 47%, you don’t get many points for showing that schools with a poverty rate of 50% can beat the odds.)
In sports, its OK to be wrong, especially if you “go to school on that.” (when baby boomers made a mistake on the field and a parent or coach yelled, “go to school on that,” the community was teaching us how to “learn to learn.” Our challenge is to create comparable learning community dynamics for today.)
But its not OK to be “loud wrong.” Maybe its the dynamics of blogs, and the Rovian politics of today, but now is normal to shout the most outrageous insults and mis-statements at educators. And like with Bush, there is rarely an apology. Had the Ed Trust followed the old fashioned values of intellectual discourse as opposed to scourch and burn politics, they would have acknowledged Richard Rothstein’s evidence and apologized.
Education is a people business. If you just want to fight, why go into education?. When you became a policy analyst, were you looking for a job as an educational analsyt, or did you just take the best job offered? Would you have been just as happy to take your skills to the stock market or any other field? If so, you need to be patient and learn the ethics of two sets of institutions - education as well as social science.
Paradoxically, if you celebrate the wonderful things and the wierd things that happen with people in schools, you will also learn to anticipate where people go wrong. We teachers could have predicted plenty of areas where NCLB would go wrong.
The issue really isn’t how much teaching experience that you have as an individual. The issue is how much teaching experience is on your team at Fordham (or at the Ed Trust or the Ed Sector, or whatever) I know you guys do politics. But you need to remain true to fundamentals of social science.
In sports, you need to box out on every play, and to follow your shot on every play. In educational research you need to consult teachers on every step along the way. If you don’t have teaching talent fully integrated into your team, if you don’t have a bunch of hedgehogs who know how to posthole into the depths of realities, your team will be fundamentally unbalanced. A team full of foxes will always have a tendency to be “loud wrong.”
Lastly, was it you who started the day saying that poor people aren’t hurt by high gas prices? Talk about loud wrong! In 1973, then you could have argued that the energy crisis and deindustrialization won’t hurt the poor. Unless you can admit a mistake, you are going to be blind-sided by the economic distress that is hitting. Now is the time when you should be especially concerned with learning from educators who have experienced the effects of 1973, 1983, and the late 80’s, 2001, and the other downturns, and get a realistic appraisal of what can be accomplished in the classroom alone.
July 2nd, 2008 at 10:45 am
It was Matt Yglesias, the teacher-basher on The Atlantic blog, that said that gas prices are a middle class concern and don’t hurt the poor.
Sorry about that.
I guess any mistake on the web can be called loud wrong, so I’ll go to school on that.
July 2nd, 2008 at 11:29 am
kderosa,
Teaching isn’t a profession? Teachers can’t be sued? You are sadly mistaken! Yes, we must be ceritified by the state! And yes, educators can be sued!
Maybe, just maybe, the failures in education has a little more to do with the policy-making than the educators that are in the class room everyday! When the policy makers endorse changing failing grades and social promotion in order to pass along kids who “aren’t cutting it”, of course the SYSTEM will fail.
Educators are part of a SYSTEM. Sometimes that SYSTEM is the problem! Oh, don’t the policy researchers and makers form the backbone of the SYSTEM? Now you tell me who is failing! If it was just the teachers, it wouldn’t be a nationwide epidemic, wouldn’t it? It would be just a school or class room here and there! But NO! We have a nation of failing schools...a SYSTEM of failing schools! There are more than just class room teachers making up that failing system. There are administrators, policy makers, and politicians all intertwined in that system. So please tell me why all the failures are blamed on the teachers. If this was the military, the teachers would be the frontline, the grunts, following the orders of the officers.
July 2nd, 2008 at 3:24 pm
saneandsingle,
Manicurists have to be certified in most states as well. And, no, you cannot be sued outside of very narrow IES contexts.
I agree that educational failure is a systemwide responsibility and that classroom teachers have little say over what is taught.
Nonetheless, the issue here is whether teachers with a high failure rate teaching at-risk students speak with any special authority. I maintain they don’t. Nothing you’ve written rebuts that assertion.
July 3rd, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Why do so many teachers lean so heavily, when criticized, on the “you’ve never yourself been a teacher” argument? As I noted here, it’s logically baseless. Imagine lawyers, doctors, oil-company executives mounting such a defense.
However, there aren’t at the moment “medical policy” blogs blaming lazy, inept doctors and the AMA for all the unhealthy people in the country.
July 3rd, 2008 at 12:58 pm
I have heard that John Kennedy was asked, while campaigning, what he had done for women. He response was “not enough, I am sure.”
Let me begin by saying that my time in front of a class, in an urban district, has been not enough, I am sure. I seldom refer to it while blogging just because it always seems to be a false issue. It only comes up when a teacher disagrees—and it doesn’t matter the amount of time spent, or where. The issue is that we have a different point of view.
My point of view—whether or not it brings with it sufficient classroom time to bring me in line with the viewpoint of somebody else who has been in the classroom—brings along with it a raft of other experiences that I consider to be extremely relevant. I am a parent, in an urban district. I parent a child with special educational needs. I live in an urban neighborhood. I have worked extensively with families in an urban neighborhood. I have studied administration, as well as education and a core content area. For my own personal reasons (to “feed my soul”) I perform volunteer work that allows me to “keep my hand” in having contact with children (from an urban neighborhood). I work with, and study, public policy.
Because of the magic of the blogosphere I can be privy to the conversations of teachers—the kind I heard in the teacher’s lounge when I substitute taught—who disparage their students, and their students’ parents, in ways they would not do in front of my face. From my point of view, many of these teachers have not gotten close enough to the day to day family life and experiences of these people to have a valid opinion. Yet they do have an opinion. And frequently that opinion is along the lines of believing that the parents don’t care enough, about their children, about education, about employment. Their values are different. Their knowledge and skills are substandard. For these reasons, their children will never learn as much as others.
Yes—the system allows this and reinforces this. But teachers are a part and parcel of the system. It’s about time to lead, follow or get out of the way. If the viewpoint is that teachers are professionals, then responsibility for the system comes along with that. If there is not a sense of responsibility for the system, then accept the reality of being contract workers and allow others to make the decisions. I have listened for over a decade to teachers complaining that they are not adequately trained to deal with students having special needs. During that time I have not seen a single demand during contract negotations asking for additional professional development in this area. I have seen multiple demands for ways to get high needs kids out of the classroom and moved somewhere else.
In roughly the same time, health care workers have gone from being inadequately trained to respond to HIV/AIDS to having the appropriate training. This is a professional response.
Education—from my point of view—is starving for the influx of skills, expertise and viewpoints, from many others. As John rightly points out, the boomers were the last generation of Americans to experience education of a certain quality. Not only was American deep into a competition with the Soviets, but there were some basic inequities of opportunity that fed the school system. Teaching was one of only two professions widely open to women. The best and the brightest came in because so many other doors were closed. As women have gone on to become lawyers and doctors and accountants and presidential candidates, the quality has suffered. The same case may be made for the segregated schools that were denied parity in other resources—the best and the brightest of black teachers did not have a choice of any position, only those in black schools. The system supported this. It no longer does. This is a good thing and we need to move on and find other ways to support teacher quality. Bringing in expertise gained in other places is certainly one way, but one that is viewed with open mistrust (not enough classroom time). In my district teachers become principals and principals move on to become labor experts, transportation experts, customer service experts, funding and strategic planning experts. All because they are from the inside—the people with classroom experience.
July 3rd, 2008 at 6:25 pm
John Thompson wrote:
The late Bill Strauss says that Baby Boomers were the last generation, across the board, to recall unambiguously good experiences in public schools. We need to acknowledge that market forces are not going away, but we Boomers need to be the defenders of liberal arts, and a full democratic education for all.
I’m one of those Baby Boomers with a good public school experience (which followed a rather stifling 1st-3rd grade private school experience). But the funny thing is, in many ways, at least through elementary school, I would say my daughter’s schooling has been better than mine. Possibly not in curricular depth/richness, but in terms of the willingness of teachers to meet kids where they are and take the job of teaching them seriously. I think part of what has changed in 40 years is our expectations of what education can do.
It’s nearly 30 years since, at a dinner party given by friends of my parents, one of the guests argued that many students in NYC high schools were unteachable (at 23 I hadn’t come face-to-face with that level of adult cynicism before...). And the violent urban high school has been a fixture of pop-culture for longer than that.
July 4th, 2008 at 1:24 am
KDeRosa wrote: Nonetheless, the issue here is whether teachers with a high failure rate teaching at-risk students speak with any special authority. I maintain they don’t.
Alternatively, the issue is whether a 20-something blogger, just out of college, with no classroom experience whatsoever (it appears), should flippantly lay the blame of the failures of a high school squarely on the shoulders of front-line classroom teachers? Which he (Liam Julian) did in his NRO article. No one is offended by properly conducted research. But this article was a smug, drive-by piece of crap by someone who is presumably just starting his career.
Do you, KDeRosa, now having seen the documentary and read the article, think that Liam Julian was fair to the Douglass High classroom teachers? Or rather was he slandering individuals and by extension frontline urban teachers - who are not responsible for the system they teach in. And who wish to see it reformed. And who respect quality research and ideas which can contribute to this end.
July 7th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Another case of a REMF telling the grunts that he knows how it is in the thick of battle—and in many urban schools, make no mistake, it is a battle.
July 10th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
There are examples of urban, high poverty schools (like Douglas) who have made drastic improvements. Usually a set of very drastic measures is required to turn around a school of this nature. Unfortunately, many of these drastic measures are not sustainable for long within our current national mentality and herein, I believe, lies part of the problem.
Teachers and administrators who work for 12-14 hours a day to give their students the additional educational tutoring and resources they need can only sustain this working style for x amount of years before burning out. A school can only fund so many creative ventures to get overburdened parents involved, to get students and their families additional resources they need (ie: counseling, school supplies, etc) before running out of, or having to reallocate funds. The public is not going to keep voting to have their taxes raised so that additional money can go into schools that are not currently performing. The American public is not going to elect people who pass legislation that pours even more money into what seems like an already sinking ship.
We all want results. But they don’t happen overnight. Our quick-fix mentality isn’t going to work in the field of education. And quite frankly, if we’re afraid there aren’t going to be enough resources for ourselves, we’re not going to give to others.
We need a paradigm shift of how we think about and value education. It needs to happen on a national level. It needs to happen in more than one sector. It’s not just the teachers or adminstrators, nor is it just the kids and their parents who need to change the way they think about education. It’s the policy wonks and policy makers too. It’s the average joe and the politician. We need a long-term plan that we are willing to commit to and that we are willing to fund. It needs to have enough uniformity to maintain accountability and enough flexibility to be successful.
We have a hard time thinking long-term about things in this country. When I see so many Americans with no long-term plans to pay off their debts, or save for their pensions, how can I expect them to be willing to fund-with tax dollars- a 15 or 20 year education reform plan?
A paradigm shift is needed for all of us. Until then, I will go back to what I do best, which is trying to make part of this paradigm shift by teaching in an inner city middle school in Atlanta, and occassionally reminding the policy wonks with whom I am well acquainted, that the blame game won’t get us very far.