![]() AN UNUSUAL SNORT! McWhorter made a remarkable claimand TNR put it in print: // link // print // previous // next //
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2009 Columnists dont seem to need it: Those Wall Street tycoons should stop dishing out bonuses! This has to be the easiestand least instructivecolumn a pundit could proffer these days. We chortled when Maureen Dowd typed this high-minded piece from inside Dear Jacks former Georgetown crib. We snorted today when the Posts Gene Robinson typed up the very same column. These columns offer us little instruction, at a time when we need a whole lot of same. But for a pure/perfect know-nothing column, we recommend the twenty-minute wonder typed today by the Posts Richard Cohen. For some reason, Cohen has gotten it into his head that the pending (emergency) stimulus package would provide the perfect way to drive education reform. Of course, Cohen knows nothing about such issues, except what he hears at cocktail parties. As you can see from his column, his ideas reflect an emerging consensusand by this phrase, he actually means whatever Joel Klein and Michelle Rhee have said in the past few weeks. In our view, Klein and Rhees ideas are well worth considering, though we think they paint from a limited pallette. But to Cohen, Klein and Rhee are the final word. He starts to describe that emerging consensus in this know-little graf:
Abolish tenure, Cohen advises, assuring us that columnists lack it. In fact, Cohen has lasted so long at the Post, through so many comical blunders, that his career seems to stand as clear proof that big pundits simply dont need it. Ensure that teachers teach at the most challenging schools, he further lectures Obamawithout explaining how we can ensure such a thing, especially once weve removed their tenure. After all: For decades, the best teachers have been leaving urban systems in favor of suburban districts. Question: Might that exodus increase if these best teachers are forced to teach in schools theyd rather avoid? Further question: Could Obama possibly deal with a problem like that as part of an emergency measure, one he hopes to complete in two weeks? And by the way: Are the best teachers in one school setting necessarily the best teachers somewhere else? If Teacher X is great in an upper-end AP program, will he necessarily be the best when it comes to teaching low-income kids who are years below grade level? Such questions have never occurred to Cohenyet he somehow thinks they can be addressed as part of the two-week stimulus effort. Just a guess: Because his columns take fifteen minutes, he may believe that quandries like this can be settled by this time next week. Things dont get better as Cohen proceeds. Here are a few more reforms we can work out by Valentines Day:
Extend the school day? Extend the school year? Those are perfectly valid ideasand Cohen has heard that Klein and Rhee more or less advocate them. But: While such ideas arent exactly radical, there would be a giant eruption if Obama suddenly required such changes before a school district could receive federal revenue from the stimulus program. Beyond that, well guess that Cohen knows nothing at all about the benefitsand pitfallsof annual testing, as is mandated by NCLB. For ourselves, we strongly favor annual testing; school districts can tell the world that down-is-up without something resembling an objective measure. But the architects of NCLB didnt seem to foresee the unfortunate things some states might do if forced to establish such programs. (Example: Absent oversight, states can make their reading tests easier, artificially inflating their statewide passing rates.) Presumably, Cohen doesnt know such things. But he did know he had a column due, and he gave it a good fifteen minutes. The weakness of this mornings column highlights a wonderful irony. Cohen is a very poor spokesman for dumping weak performers by killing their tenure. During Campaign 2000, he authored two of the most ridiculous errors ever seen in the annals of typing; a few years later, he rushed into a long line of pundits, eager to say tell us how wonderful Powell had been in his UN performance. Heres paragraph 2 from that masterwork. History hangs from this blunder:
Je ne possess tenure, Cohen explains. His work makes it clear: Some dont need it. Our favorite Cohenism: Uh-oh! Just as a simple matter of fact, Candidate Bush had actually said it. But Bush had said it to Bnai Brith; perhaps for that reason, Cohen got it into his head that Candidate Lieberman was the one who had said it! So Cohen spent an entire column trashing Al Gores running-mate for something Bush himself had said! (Liebermans statements were preposterously false and downright repugnant, Cohen thundered. A well-masked correction appeared the next week.) By the way: Bushs actual statement was nowhere near as kooky as Cohen had made it sound. In accordance with standard pundit procedures, the non-tenured gentleman doctored the statement before he dumped it off on poor Joe. And yes, this really did occur. See THE DAILY HOWLER, 9/7/00.
Nine years later, Cohens still here, arguing that strong performers simply dont need no stinkin tenure. The irony ran all through todays column. The analysts said: Let it be heard. PART 2AN UNUSUAL SNORT: To the best of our recollection, erasing the achievement gap became a familiar national goal during the civil rights/Great Society era, in the late 1960s. In 1967, Jonathan Kozol published Death at an Early Age, the story of a year he had spent teaching in a minority school in Boston. (The book won a National Book Award.) That same year, Herbert Kohl published 36 Children, the story of two years hed spent teaching sixth grade in Harlem; it too was widely read and discussed. (Kohl had taught in a different New York City school for most of the previous year.) In the first of the two school years described in 36 Children, Kohl said he was assigned 6-1, the top sixth-grade class in a very large public school. (The school seems to have had at least seven sixth-grade classes, perhaps as many as ten.) Early on, Kohl described what he found at the start of the year. In this passage, he describes the second day of school in a Harlem sixth grade in September 1962:
[M]ore than half the class had to be forced to use books they couldnt read, Kohl wrote, a few pages later, describing the way this school year began. Again, Kohl was describing the highest-achieving sixth-grade class in what was a very large New York City grade school. (Note: The data suggest that things have improved in schools like this since those inglorious daysthough a gap persists.) Back to our hazy recollections: During that periodin part because of those widely-read booksthe liberal world began to buzz about the problem described in that passage. (Although the familiar phrase, achievement gap, wasnt in wide use at the time.) Within a decade or so, it became fairly clear that erasing this gap wasnt going to be as easy as some had assumed at the start; at that point, wed have to say that the liberal world began to walk away from low-income schools, and from the children inside them. Kohl described a sorry state of affairsa gap with which many teachers have struggled, with an apparent degree of success. And yet, a recent piece in The New Republic makes a rather peculiar claim about that punishing, much-discussed gap. The piece was written by John McWhorter, a conservative-leaning Berkeley linguistics professor. McWhorters basic claim is implausible on its facebut no, we wouldnt call it impossible. As he starts to lay out his claim, he describes a recent New York City Schools forum about that lingering gap. And good grief! A solution was discovered long ago, he explains. We just havent bothered to use it:
We wouldnt call those claims impossiblebut on their face, theyre truly remarkable. According to McWhorter, a solution for the reading gap was discovered four decades ago, around the time Kozol and Kohl were struggling in those low-income schools. That solutionthe solution to the reading gapis the instructional program known as Direct Instruction. According to McWhorters clear suggestion, the use of Direct Instruction sends low-income, four-year-old preschoolers on to kindergarten reading at a second-grade level. It first did so in the late 1960s. Educators have always known this. Since the 1980s, there has been overwhelming evidence of this programs effectiveness, in the three cities McWhorter names and in other districts besides. If you read McWhorters piece on-line, youll see that he links to studies from the three big cities he has namedstudies which are supposed to support his remarkable claims. (Example: For the evidence from Houston, you can click right herethough youll see its eleven years old.) Presumably, these studies show that Direction Instruction still works its miracle cures, even after all these long years. Shorter McWhorter: Weve always known how to erase the gap. We just havent chosen to do it.
Weve referred to those claims as Shorter McWhorter, but you might call their author Snorter McWhorter. As he continues along in his piece, McWhorter snorts at the very idea that erasing that gap is perplexing or hard. He explains why schools have refused to erase it; he links to this intriguing piece from the conservative-leaning Manhattan Institute. (The piece makes some claims which strike us as strangeothers which sadly do not.) But sitting right there, for all to see, is McWhorters remarkable snort: Weve always known how to erase the gap. We just havent chosen to do it. Truly, thats a remarkable claim. Its stunning if its actually true; in some ways, its equally stunning if not. Wasting our time as we constantly do, we clicked and clicked on McWhorters links, examining the proof hed compiled. So is it true, what McWhorter said? Is it true that weve always known how to erase the achievement gap? With all due respect to the fiery lads who wander the halls at The New Republic, we thought we found a familiar old taleafter wed wasted a lot of our time trudging off where McWhorters links led.
Tomorrow: A tale of three cities.
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