Outta Here

I just wanted for formally announce that I'm outta here. Where? The public school classroom.

I'm just going to up and go into a completely new sector of employment where I have no formal education, training, or experience. Why? Because I'm a pretty damn superstar teacher and I have shown exemplary success in getting kids who are stubborn, defiant, low-leveled, and downright nasty how to write an essay to pass the New York State Regents Exam, how to act and enjoy a play, and how to analyze literature. I know how to differentiate content, process, and product. I know how to work with multiple learning modalities. I am trained in the new National Core Curriculum Standards. I also know how to deal with a kid who calls me a "Fucking White bitch" in class and I know how to gently talk to a student whose grandmother--who raised him after his dad abandoned the family when he was five--is dying of cancer. I know more about the Bloods and Crips than your average White person; I know the neighborhoods of Brooklyn and how gangs and neighborhoods affect the in's and out's of daily school life. Oh yeah, and I have a Masters in English Education and almost a doctorate in Education. I have eleven years of teaching experience in low-performing urban schools with students who are socio-economically struggling. So, why the hell shouldn't I be able to do anything?! Right?

That seems to be the logic of our mayor, Mr. Michael Bloomberg, who has once again demonstrated that he believes educators are unfit to run the education system.

Bloomberg's appointment of Cathie Black, Hearst Magazines chairwoman, to become the Chancellor the New York City Public Schools is illustrative of how he feels about educators. The New York City Department of Education has over 100,000 employees--classroom teachers, assistant principals, principals, regional employees, city employees--and out of ALL of these individuals who have classroom experience, formal education IN education, and management experience he could not find a single person to fill Klein's position as Chancellor? Forget the City and look outside the system, too. But the problem isn't that there are not qualified people; the problem is that he didn't look for anyone with experience in education.

Like any shamelessly self-promoting zealot, Bloomberg believes that his business model that has effectively made him ridiculously rich is the only model for education. The students are clients. The teachers are worker bees. The administration is middle management. Honestly, I don't take issue with this business-like hierarchy. What I do find problematic is that the new Queen Bee for our educational hive--the largest public school system in the nation--is not an educator, is not trained in education, nor has ever personally experienced life in any public school as a student or a parent. How is that even possible?

Along those lines, I'm going to go run my husband's well-established and respected architecture firm. Sure, I don't know anything about city codes, the politics of developing urban spaces, building budgets, or even how a building gets built from the ground up without falling over, but I manage about 80 students a day and am responsible for the professional development of my 80 fellow co-workers (as their Master Teacher), so, shoot, I'm qualified enough. Right? The same goes for any profession. Maybe I'll skip over architecture (not really enough money) and run an investment firm, or car manufacturing plant, or decide to perform some surgeries at a hospital...The options are endless when your education and experience in no way determine your employment trajectory.

Education needs to be run by educators. Any chancellor needs to have spent time in a classroom. Even if s/he spent five years in a classroom, then got her/his MBA and ran Citibank for 15 years and then returns to education--that's legitimate. But hiring someone from publishing, for god's sake, who has no education experience is ludicrous. And it's disrespectful to those of us who have spent our lives both working in and studying about education, poverty, immigration, curriculum, policy, race, literacy, and the history of education in order to make ourselves better teachers and leaders in schools.

Cathie Black, a reluctant welcome to the jungle to you. May you all prove of us wrong, but somehow I doubt you will.