Editor's Letter: Reforming America’s public schools

last updated 8 January 2015

At the conventions of the two national teachers unions this month, President Obama was persona non grata and Education Secretary Arne Duncan was denounced in absentia. The Obama administration is seeking to expand charter schools, magnet schools, and public school choice, and has called for other changes including merit pay for teachers and diminished tenure protections. “This is not the change I hoped for,” said National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel, whose union endorsed Obama in 2008.

Teachers are understandably weary of being fall guys for bad schools. Trouble is, research confirms what every sentient parent knows—teacher quality correlates decisively to student achievement. My kids’ favorite elementary teacher was a battle-scarred veteran. But despite a keen intellect and eons of experience, she still put in 12-hour days. Such selflessness is not easily reproduced. But reformers insist that best practices can be replicated and mediocre teachers upgraded with the right tools. Citing the threat from a “rising tide of educational mediocrity,” a landmark federal report in 1983 conjectured that had a foreign power attempted to impose America’s public schools on the populace, the nation might well have deemed it an act of war. Schools have been battlegrounds ever since. With a reform-minded Democrat in the White House, the political pressure on teachers has ratcheted up. No doubt many educators are preparing to embrace proposed changes. But this month’s conventions suggest that others may be hunkering down in their classrooms, girding for war by other means.