Nattering nabobs of negativism

I have been bothered lately by the nattering nabobs of negativism. You know the ones. They are education experts who have never sullied themselves by actually working with students in a classroom. If they did spend a few years teaching, they might actually learn something.

I serve on the State Investment Board, and regularly attend education conferences on institutional investing. I am never shy about what I do, and while at a session this summer, education reform came up as an informal topic of discussion at dinner. I held my own as I pointed out the flaws in the logic my tablemates were using as they attempted to “fix” something they were unfamiliar with. After about 20 minutes into the discussion, a fellow from New York joined the discussion. He related how he wanted to do something to make a difference, so he was granted a sabbatical from his employer and spent two years teaching English in a high school. He said his biggest shock was how dedicated and hard-working the teachers were, how much they really cared, and the lengths they would go to in order to provide the best education possible for the students. He had expected to find dedicated teachers, but assumed they were a minority. Instead, dedication, teamwork and quality were the norm, and the less than stellar teachers — he called them coasters — were a tiny minority. He said maybe two out of 90 teachers at his school fit this category. He agreed with me that the real education world was not what was described in the media and if we really wanted to improve public education, we would provide the resources and leave the task to the teachers.

The sticking point is that people are looking for excuses to avoid paying for what they say they want — a quality education for all students.

That is the real hurdle — the resources, also known as funds, or the money. There is lots of big talk about rewards and bonuses, but never a whisper about how to fund them. The only talk about funding is how much to cut, while at the same time increasing requirements and, as a distraction, criticizing those who give their all for their students. And through it all, dedicated educators, both certificated and classified, continue to do more with less.