Don’t Blame Me

The British historian Antony Beevor, in his history of the Spanish Civil War, The Battle for Spain, 1936-1939, writes about the Communist Popular Front’s attribution of blame for its failure in a fight against the Falangist forces of Francisco Franco:

“The report of the political department of the People’s Army listed numerous causes: the strength of the enemy air force, its combined effect with artillery, the reduced republican strength, their inferiority in weapons, the decline in morale and so on. Nothing was said about the ineptitude of the plan or the incompetence of commanders.”

The need to blame is certainly not the property of any one political, occupational, ethnic or racial group; as humans we just may be genetically wired to attribute blame everywhere except where it belongs or it just may be easier that way. So too, Chancellor Joel Klein, in his recent “Bold, Common-Sense Plan to Create Great Schools for all Children” rolled out a series of usual suspects to blame for low graduation rates, flat test scores and less than praiseworthy data about student achievement in general. But he didn’t mention one person.

(Note: In all fairness, he blamed no one for unsafe schools, hazardous buildings, parent and teacher dissatisfaction with his administration, a disturbing growth in martinet style leadership, large class size, lack of services for students with special needs, the cuts to and elimination of art, music, physical education, foreign language and career and tech programs, etc. etc. etc.)

But who and what are to blame?

There’s the various cultures: The culture of excuses, the culture of compliance (not as in compliance with federal, state and city regulations and mandates, compliance as in “following one-size-fits-all directions from administrators–not his administrators or his one-size-fits-all directions–the other ones) the culture of top-down bureaucracy. (See previous parenthetical comment.)

Then there’s the status quo crowd, the incrementalists (great name for a rock band) the special interests, defenders of the old ways. (Weren’t they in a Star Trek episode?) I wonder who he can mean. Oh, he does get specific about where to place blame. Here are some of the culprits.

Tenure. Enough has been written here and elsewhere about tenure, what it is and what it isn’t. Knowing how to pick his battles so there will be someone else to blame when he looses, Klein focuses on the probationary teachers, many of whom he recruited through programs such as Teach for America and the Teaching Fellows with glitzy ads on the Internet, in the subway and at bus stops. He made promises to them and praised them to the heavens and then left them to find their own positions, often in some of the most challenging or newest schools where mentoring and other forms of support, even if from an experienced teacher-colleague are non-existent. (Many of our most dedicated, experienced and knowledgeable teachers have left rather than deal with the daily insult of “following one-size-fits all directions from administrators, many of whom never spent a day teaching). Now he blames them for the shortcomings of his administration because despite overwhelming odds, those who make it to their third year demonstrate they have what it takes, according to the principals who observe and evaluate them.That can’t be right. But there’s the same disdain for the principals who rate those probationary teachers. He doesn’t trust their judgment either, so he’s preparing to send out teams of retired principals and administrators (so much for a smaller bureaucracy) to second guess the professional judgment of his “empowered principals.” (By the way, does anyone know where that African-American male with the dreads looking determined in Yankee Stadium teaches these days? The ad is about three years old–is he getting tenure in June?)

Tenure Then after three years of formal and informal observations, mentoring, real professional development, support and assistance, (sometimes but don’t bet on it) a degree or two and under-the-belt and under-the-collar day-to-day learning about how to teach in any number of situations (snow flakes outside a window can unsettle any class, K-12) the teacher and millions like him, slips through the cracks and gets a lifetime job guarantee. But that canard has been spoken to on this blog and elsewhere. But it still sounds good if one doesn’t dig too deeply or speak to people who know something about our schools. It sounds as good a place to place blame as

The lack of a fair funding formula. It’s a fair funding formula,as in let’s scatter the scraps fairly, not adequate funding. Much has been written here about the fair funding formula although you may have seen it described as weighted student funding. In true Orwellian fashion the ever diminishing numbers of Tweed bureaucrats have changed it to “fair student funding.” Well there’s little fair about it. And finally,

The lack of accountability. You certainly can’t blame Joel Klein for that, can you? He’s trying to hold someone or something accountable.