"When you see a great teacher, you are seeing a work of art"

That quotation is heard in this trailer for Waiting for Superman, which opens in the next few weeks:



I just hope, even with the presence of Michelle Rhee, that they don't blame it on the teachers. It's a general social problem, compounded by post-Reagan conservatism, which hates public education and is taking steps to destroy it. Perhaps it's because public education is the greatest challenge to entrenched and unearned privilege we have. Without 1st-class free public education, democracy is impossible.

I just wonder if Waiting for Superman doesn't overlap with The Lottery, released earlier this year (not to be confused with The Lottery Ticket):



And of course, ramping up schools of choice (which is something I believe in) should not be done at the expense of standard geographic-based schools.

The existence of these two films is some indication that people are stoked about this issue and that perhaps the tidal wave is building which will make true postive change politically possible.

On the Record

I really didn't mean for this to become a political blog, but Gov. Christie has forced teachers into the political spotlight. Just wanted to confirm, that yes, this letter to the Editor appearing the Record today is written by me.

Among friends, I would like to note a corollary to what I said in the letter: the NJEA completely bungled the politics of the pay-freeze proposal. The union is now being pushed farther and farther out on the ledge of intransigence and its position is rapidly becoming untenable to the public.

Approaching this situation as a negotiator, one can always sacrifice a negotiated benefit, in this case, an annual pay raise. There is no law that says you can't give up something, no matter what it cost. But the wise negotiator makes SURE to GET SOMETHING IN RETURN. So instead of saying, "absolutely no pay-freeze never never never" holding its breath until it turned blue and kicking its legs in the air, the NJEA should have said, "Hmmm, interesting. Pay-freeze. What do we get for it? What will you GUARANTEE US IN WRITING we will get in exchange for forgoing a raise? How about promising no teacher lay-offs? Guarantee to save jobs and we will give up our raises. That's a fair bargain."

Now, of course, the governor can't promise that. Head counts are the province of local school boards and municipal governments. And everyone knows that. BUT the politics of the matter would have put the Governor on the defensive. It would have put it in his court to do what he could to offer the teachers some compensatory benefit--be it saving jobs or whatever--in exchange for the teacher sacrifice.

Instead he demanded something he couldn't get and couldn't enforce and began dictating terms of surrender for a war that hadn't yet been fought.

Both the governor and the union may get an A in Drama, but they get an F in problem-solving.