10 HAMODIA

8 ADAR 5773

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2013

Ed-Op

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EDITORIAL

Johnnys Teacher Cant Teach

For the last several decades, the question surrounding plunging American education performance has been Why cant Johnny read? Now, more educators think they know the answer: Johnnys teacher cant teach. The recognition that too many American teachers are not qualified to stand before a classroom has been recently expressed by such luminaries in education as former New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and president of the American Federation of Teachers Randi Weingarten. Both Klein and Weingarten are calling for more rigorous entry standards into the profession by way of tougher standardized tests, stricter entry requirements to teacher programs and more time spent training in the classroom. Raising the bar for our teachers is an initiative we fully support, and such sweeping reforms cant come too soon. American public education is in a dangerous tailspin. A 2012 report by the Thomas Fordham Institute along with a review by the National Association of Education Progress on the state of science education in the U.S. painted a dismal picture. The report gave 26 states a grade of D or lower when it came to implementing a modern science curriculum. When compared to 15-year-olds in 62 countries, American students ranked only 23rd. Only 21 percent of American 12th-graders were deemed proficient in science. American students were handily beaten by such countries as Slovenia, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Students from Shanghai scored the highest. Only 30 percent of American high-school students are academically equipped to enter college. The report cited too little emphasis on math and a pervasive atmosphere of mathophobia in schools, where teachers avoid mathematics when teaching science. Little wonder. Even the math teachers dont know math very well. Fully onehalf of American math teachers dont have a degree in math. The report doesnt only fault teachers for the terrible state of science education. It also blames fuzzy and incomprehensible state standards, making it virtually impossible for teachers to know what they should be instructing. Teachers should be the top academic performers, not the worst. Unfortunately, many American teachers are coming from the bottom of the academic barrel. Half of all public school teachers graduate at the bottom third of their college class. Contrast that with Finland, where teachers comprise the top 10 percent of all college graduates, and where its a fiercely competitive and respected field. Currently, 99 percent of those taking New York States certification exam pass. A teacher certification exam should be more challenging than writing ones name on top of an examination booklet. But it isnt only about raising the bar for entry into the profession. The bar also has to be lowered for principals and administrators to dismiss incompetent teachers. In any other profession, incompetence isnt tolerated. If someone doesnt perform competently, he or she is fired. Not so with teachers. Firing a teacher has become a virtually impossible task in New York City. Out of New York Citys 55,000 teachers, only 11 were dismissed in 2012. It takes the city years, hundreds of thousands of dollars and reams of testimony from supervisors and independent observers to have a tenured teacher dismissed, causing principals to flinch from initiating dismissal hearings. Case in point: Amy Woda, a teacher in P.S. 62 in Queens, who consistently received unsatisfactory ratings, dragged out her case for four years until she was finally dismissed. While battling the attempts to dismiss her, Woda didnt set foot into a classroom from May 2008 to November 2010, yet the Department of Education kept paying her full salary and benefits, ultimately costing taxpayers a total of $172,000. Or consider the case of Ken Ping Teoh, a math teacher in Francis Lewis High School, Queens, who was paid $332,000 while out of the classroom and fighting charges of incompetence. The argument for giving so-called educators such slack and demanding an overwhelming burden of proof before they can be dismissed is that teachers are underpaid and overworked. True enough. Teachers dont earn very high salaries and teaching in an inner-city school can certainly be challenging. However, New York City teachers earn benefits and pensions unheard of in the private sector. Hundreds of retired city teachers are already raking in six-figure pensions for life, exempt from New York State tax. In addition, retirees are granted life-long health benefits. A private-sector worker would have to squirrel away more than two million dollars to have that kind of post-retirement income. NYC teachers are extremely well-compensated when retirement benefits are factored in. If the United States wants to restore its global competitive advantage, its educational system needs some shock therapy to bring it out of the catatonic state in which its been languishing since the 1970s. It needs the same kind of change that the federal government implemented after the Sputnik launch jolted our nation to undertake a dramatic educational system upgrade. Weingarten said that a new educational standard could be launched in five years. That may be too long a time frame to recover from a massively dysfunctional system. As a nation, the United States cannot afford to be left back.

OPINION

Bostons Commuters Could Learn Something From Tokyos

BY JEFF JACOBY

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is the nations oldest subway system, with traditions so enduring that the memory of Boston commuters runneth not to the contrary. Like campaigns urging passengers not to be such thoughtless [boors]. Last week the MBTA rolled out the latest such campaign a Courtesy Critters advertising blitz starring animals in the role of etiquette instructors. The 2,400 posters going up on trains and buses feature pigs reminding riders not to hog a seat, horses telling them not to cause a stampede and a trio of elephants imploring, Dont spray your germs. Another shows a flock of parrots in a subway car. Dont squawk on the phone, it admonishes T users. We hate to clip your wings, but not everyone wants to hear your conversation. Sound familiar? It was only 15 months ago that the T launched a campaign to go after seat hogs, open-mouth sneezers and cell-phone blabbers with mock headlines reporting instances of polite behavior as if they were big news. Man Gives Up Seat for [Expectant Mother]! announced one. Marveled another: Couple Takes Own Trash From Blue Line Train! A year before that, the MBTA had enlisted [a basketball] star to record announcements chiding passengers to show common courtesy. When you see someone who is elderly, disabled or [expecting], dont just sit there offer them your seat, he urged. Courtesy counts, and thats the truth! Earlier still had been the attempt to encourage more thoughtful behavior by handing out Dunkin Donuts gift cards to passengers who gave up their seats to the elderly or performed other acts of kindness. The bad manners of Boston commuters is an old story (the Boston Elevated Railway was distributing a pamphlet on courtesy back in 1912), so Im probably not going out on a limb by predicting that the new campaign isnt going to make much of a difference. But I have been wondering what Mr. Oka would make of it. I met Mr. Oka, who is in his 80s and walks slowly with a cane, during a visit to Japan in January. He had arranged to show me some historical sites in Tokyo, and we used the citys vast subway network to travel distances too far to cover on foot. Several times, as we boarded a crowded train, I pressed him to take one of the few available seats. Invariably he refused, insisting that I take the seat.

You are a visitor and my guest, he told me. It wouldnt be right for me to sit while you stand. But, Oka-san, you are much older than I am and you have difficulty walking, I remonstrated. (Indeed, before we met in person he had warned me by e-mail that he was elderly and infirm.) It would be disrespectful for me to take a seat and leave you without one. I remonstrated in vain. I tried a religious argument, telling him that the Bible enjoins believers to stand up in the presence of the aged and show respect for the elderly as a sign of reverence for G-d. Mr. Oka, a nominal Buddhist, wasnt persuaded. On one train we actually had this debate in front of a row of seats designated for senior citizens there was even a little sign depicting someone with a cane. Still he wouldnt sit, so strong was his notion of what proper manners required. Of course not every strap-hanger in Tokyo takes politeness quite so far. But based on my observations, courtesy and consideration for others are ingrained there to a degree that Green Line regulars would find astonishing. In a 10-day span, I must have boarded a subway, bus or commuter train at least 50 times. Cellphones were ubiquitous, yet I never heard a ringtone and only once did I see someone violate the taboo against talking on a cell in a public vehicle. Nor did I see passengers sprawl across three seats or leave sandwich wrappers and coffee cups in their wake. And though the rush-hour crowds in some stations were enormous, they managed to avoid the wrestling matches caused when riders insist on shoving their way onto a train before departing passengers can get off. MBTA officials regularly observe that courtesy cant be compelled, only suggested. Its unfortunate, Transit Police Superintendent Joseph OConnor said last year, but there is no mechanism to force people to have good manners. Yet there is such a mechanism, one that operates with striking effectiveness in the worlds busiest subway system: strong social pressure. Japanese commuters expect each other to be polite, mindful and quiet. As a result, Japanese commuters mostly are polite, mindful and quiet. Courtesy really is contagious, even without cutesy animal posters. Alas, discourtesy is too, even with them.
(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe)

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