Chris Christie's Pronoun Problem: Lessons for Teachers and Education Leaders from Bridgegate

"I am not a bully." When I heard these words come out of the mouth of the Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, I had the same reaction as I did when I heard Richard Nixon say, "I am not a crook." I thought, "Oh, yes you are." I served for several years as the Anti-Bullying Co-Ordinator for a suburban New Jersey school district, and if there is one thing I learned from that experience, it is that Mr. Christie fits the bully description.

Last Sunday I read an excellent column by Frank Bruni of the New York Times entitled, "The I in Christie's Storm." Bruni's premise is that Christie has a pronoun problem. Even in his two hour apologia on Bridgegate, Christie was focused on "I", unable to see beyond his own nose. Bruni says that effective political leaders need a strong ego (certainly Christie qualifies there), but they also need to be inclusive; they need to address the issues related to the pronouns "you" and "we." The "you" in the political equation is a genuine concern for others. As a leader I serve "you." That is what Christie is trying to do with his hugging of Superstorm Sandy victims: see, I care about you. The "you" message is undermined by Christie's boorish bullying tactics and certainly by Bridgegate. The "we" in the leadership equation is the ability to convince others that what I want to accomplish is our mission: "we" are in this together. For Christie the "we" too often comes across as me, me, me. As he said to a New Jersey teacher who voiced a concern, "I am tired of you people." Ultimately, Bruni says, a politician's obsession with "I" leads to another "i" word - isolation.

I believe that classroom leaders (teachers) and education administrators can learn a lesson from Christie's pronoun problems. Let me explain.

When the Bridgegate scandal broke, I was in Honolulu, Hawaii (I know, poor me) visiting my friend, colleague and former boss, Earl Kim. Born and raised in Hawaii, Earl is currently the Head of School for the Kamahameha School, a large private school dedicated to the education of native Hawaiian children and the preservation of Hawaiian culture. Previously, Earl had superintendent positions at two school districts in New Jersey. He left New Jersey because he could not continue to work in the educational environment that was being engendered by Christie and his minions. To me, Earl was and is the finest representation of the balance of the I, you and we in education leadership.

As all leaders must, I believe, Earl had a well developed sense of "I." He had studied economics and public policy and public education. He had worked as a teacher, assisant principal, principal and superintendent. He was confident in his understanding of schooling and what was best for teaching and learning. This sense of "I" allowed him to set a vision for his leadership and a direction for the school district he was leading. But Earl realized that his expertise and his vision were not adequate for leadership. He worked very hard at the "you" of the leadership equation. His concern for the children entrusted in his care was exemplary. He was hyper-diligent in attending student activities. He often started meetings with stories about individual students he had met and what they were experiencing. The only time he exhibited impatience was when others did not seem to put the children first.

Finally, Earl embraced the "we" of this leadership pronoun troika. He valued and truly listened to the advice he received from others. His cabinet had his ear. So also did union leadership and individual teachers. Earl could admit he was wrong and change course when the evidence indicated it. He received criticism with equanimity. When teachers complained they did not see enough of him, he went on a "listening tour" in the various buildings. He was moved by these discussions and what he heard helped frame subsequent plans for the district.

In short, Earl Kim embodies the balance of "I", "you" and "me" necessary for great leadership. Christie, stuck with his overabundance of "I" is less leader and more demagogue. I have addressed Christie's demagoguery in another post here, for now suffice it to say that Christie's verbal abuse of teachers, attacks on teacher unions, efforts to undermine public education, and rhetoric about failure factories are all a result of an excess of "I" type self-aggrandizement. All this is about the self-styled truth teller, Christie, and not about the parents, children and teachers of New Jersey. The people of New Jersey, the "you" and "we" are left out of the isolated Christie's vision.

What can educators learn from Christie's excess of  "I?" First of all, unlike Christie, most educators suffer from too little "I." Those of us who go into the profession are generally team players. This can be dangerous when what we are doing is under attack. The truth is that as a profession we are very well-prepared and dedicated people who are out to do the very best for children. The education reform movement has managed to brand us as incompetent feeders at the public trough. The Common Core, teacher evaluation based on standardized tests, charter schools and vouchers are all direct slaps in the face of our profession. We need a sufficiently developed "I" to fight back at this lunacy, stand up for our profession and our professionalism and reclaim the high ground.

But while we need to assert the "I" in the equation, we also must remember the "you" and the "we." In education, if you are a teacher the "you" is the children. If you are an administrator the "you" is the child, teacher and the public. As teachers we must be sure to always give our best to the children. This is the essence of professionalism. If our lessons are not the best, we work to improve them because we serve "you" the children. If an individual child struggles we try to determine why, because we serve "you" the individual child with a particular need. If parents don't understand why we gave a particular assignment, we communicate with them as best we can because we serve "you" the parent. As administrators we serve the teachers by making sure that "you" the teachers have the resources and feedback you need to be the best possible teacher and we serve "you" the public, by insuring that we hire, retain and develop the very best educators we can find.

The "we' in classroom and education is the profession. As Ben Franklin said, "We must hang together, or most assuredly we will hang separately." We need to support each other in our profession. This means teachers helping other teachers, administrators helping other administrators, teachers helping administrators and administrators helping teachers. This "we" means never saying to a parent or community member, "Your child should have learned this last year." It means working collegially to improve our practice. It means presenting a picture of a profession that respects all the members of that profession and works at the top levels of its capabilities.

So there it is. Chris Christie has made his pronoun problem a problem for the people of New Jersey and for all who serve public education in New Jersey. Let's fight back by balancing our own "I", "you" and "we."

Why Tenure Matters: The Teacher as Advocate and Innovator

Tenure is a necessary component for achieving the kind of schools we all want.

Teacher tenure is under attack. Some states have already done away with tenure through executive or legislative fiat. Other states have severely limited tenure rights. Still other governors and legislatures are in the process of revising tenure laws.

By now you have heard all the arguments against tenure. It makes it too hard to get rid of “bad” teachers. Tenure creates complacency because teachers know they are unlikely to lose their jobs. Tenure is not earned, but virtually given away after two or three years of teaching. The process is too cumbersome and too costly, so many administrators do not even bother to try to remove under performers. For a good discussion of the pros and cons of the tenure debate please see this article.

For the education reformers, tenure is a major hurdle in their quest to create schools in their market driven image. In order to put children first, they say, we must get rid of tenure. This argument has great resonance with many in the public who do not have such protections. The problem is that the reformers have this entirely wrong.

While Walmart, Ford and Microsoft may desire dutifully compliant workers who do what they are told and perform their functions as prescribed by their supervisors, that is the last thing we want in education. Tenure is a necessary component for achieving the kind of schools we all want. The kind of schools that take to heart the interests of every child, that have a rich and varied curriculum and that provide engaging instruction for all children. Here’s why.

Think of the very best teacher you ever had. I am willing to bet that that teacher was an innovator, constantly bringing new ideas into the classroom. I am willing to bet that that teacher took risks by creating a variety of engaging and sometimes out of the box lessons that were fun and exciting, if a bit noisy. I am also willing to bet that that teacher was a child advocate, going to bat for kids who might be a little different or a little odd or a little non-compliant themselves. When I was a supervisor, I worked with many very good teachers. The very best of these teachers were innovative risk takers who advocated for students.

Innovation, risk-taking and child advocacy only happen in a secure environment. One way that educational leaders can provide for this environment is by being open to teacher curriculum ideas, supportive of risky lessons created with student engagement in mind and by listening when a teacher advocates for a child. The other way is by providing the protections afforded by tenure.

Innovation is a hallmark of American education. In September 2013, the New York Times, ran an article that discussed how China, that world class test performer, is looking to the US to improve its science instruction through innovative and hands on approaches. Chinese students, it seems know the right answers, but they don’t know the right questions to ask that might lead to scientific advancement. Secure teachers have the freedom to design curricula that will challenge the status quo, get students out of the textbook and encourage critical and creative exploration of a wide variety of topics. Sometimes these topics may be controversial.

I once had my students in a Problems of Democracy class research why the words “under god’ were in the Pledge of Allegiance. The students’ research and their attempts to square those words with the constitutional protections of the separation of church and state made for a lively and open discussion of McCarthyism, the Cold War and religion in America. Some parents were not pleased with my chosen topic and they complained to the administration. Fortunately, my administrators handled the controversy well and the kerfuffle passed by without much notice, but I can certainly imagine a scenario where this did not go well and where, without tenure protections, I would never do the lesson again.

A strong educational system also requires teachers who are passionate advocates for the children they teach. This advocacy can take many forms. It might be the advocacy that gets the ESL student the needed services, an abused child protections from abusive adults, an athlete a chance to compete despite lackluster classroom performance or academic assistance for a hard working student with a learning disability.

Often times advocating for students involves risk. Perhaps an administrator is attempting to keep down special education costs and does not want to add to the growing disabilities roll. Perhaps the school board is thinking of eliminating the elementary music program and the teacher must go to a public meeting and advocate for every child’s need for the arts. Whatever that advocacy situation might be, it is a vital role for the educator to take on. The classroom teacher and the coaches know the children best. They are in the best position to advocate for the child. Tenure protections allow the teacher to provide that advocacy without fear of reprisal.

Yes, removing an under performer should not be as time consuming and costly to a school district as it is currently. That problem can be solved without throwing out the needed protections of tenure. Job insecurity breeds compliance and compliance does not lead to the best teaching. Tenure allows the education professional to fill his/her vital role as innovator and advocate.

Wendy Kopp Goes to the Doctor (or Does Certification Matter?)

I have a recurring dream. In my dream Wendy Kopp, founder and chair of the board for Teach for America (TFA), is visiting a remote part of the country preaching the TFA gospel, when she is stricken with a mysterious ailment causing severe headaches. Rushed to the nearest clinic, she is greeted by a young man who asks a few questions, takes her blood pressure, examines her eyes, ears and throat and declares that Wendy is suffering from a brain tumor and must schedule immediate surgery. Alarmed, Wendy asks the young man, “Are you a doctor?”

“Well, no, not technically, but I did graduate from an Ivy League school and I took a five week training course this past summer. One of the lectures was on brain tumors. I am here to make up for the doctor shortage in this rural area.”

The next scene shows Wendy running away screaming while googling “Board Certified Neurologist” on her smart phone.

In professional fields other than teaching, few would question the need for proper credentialing. In the profession of teaching, however, questions about the need for certified teachers in the classroom have been raised for the last two decades. If you read the research, as I have been doing for many years, and more intensively lately, you might get confused. Not surprisingly, the reform types have found lots of research that supports their concept that teaching preparation is not a predictor of teacher quality. Perhaps the most important of these was produced for the Abell Foundation by noted reformer Kate Walsh (no relation, thank goodness). Walsh concludes that the certification process is “neither an efficient nor an effective means by which to ensure a competent teaching force. Worse, it is often counterproductive.”( http://www.abell.org/pubsitems/ed_cert_1101.pdf)

Just as many, if not more, studies demonstrate that teacher certification does indeed matter. Here the most important voice has been Stanford professor, Linda Darling-Hammond. In her landmark 2002 study, she and her co-researchers posit that “teacher  effectiveness appears strongly related to the preparation they have received for teaching.”  (Darling-Hammond, L. et al. Does Teacher Preparation Matter? Evidence about teacher certification, Teach for America and teacher effectiveness)

As a proud possessor of teaching certificates from two states, I would like to think that certification does matter. I know other things matter, too: intellectual ability, content knowledge, experience. But if I am hiring a new teacher, as I did in my last position as Director of Human Resources in a suburban school district, I am going to hire the certified candidate over the non-certified candidate every time. Why? Certainly not because I was required to in these days of alternate routes to teaching, but because I knew that I was reasonably sure of some critical qualifications when I hired a certified teacher. I was assured that the candidate had some understanding of child development, had the ability to translate content knowledge into lessons that would help children learn, and had the knowledge and ability to adapt instruction to different learners' needs. I also had some confidence that the candidate understood how to manage a classroom.

Most importantly, however, I knew that the certified candidate was likely to still be teaching in the district 3, 5 even 10 years from the hire date. Candidates who commit themselves to a teacher certification program have committed themselves to the profession. With experience and professional development, they will get better at what they do, and the district’s investment in them in recruiting, training and retention will be rewarded.

Are there outstanding teachers coming out of programs like Teach for America? Undoubtedly. Is every certified teacher coming out of a teacher training program destined to be an outstanding teacher? Of course not. But ultimately, our schools, our parents and our children are better off with a committed, well-prepared, professional educator in the classroom.

And Wendy Kopp is better off with a certified physician.