Trying to decide who wins with the new teacher-evaluation ruling is like trying to read divine intent through the entrails of a slaughtered goat. It’s all in the eyes of the beholder.
For a smarter insight, I prefer the acquired wisdom of two former city chancellors who tried to make sense of unions and students. Joel Klein, who wanted to whittle the teachers’ contract from 200 pages to eight, believed the United Federation of Teachers was wedded to ideas about work better suited to assembly lines and 19th century craft unions.
One of his predecessors, Rudy Crew, saw another problem. Crew was such an ardent proponent of longer school days and after-school programs that I asked him why. His answer was, as always, blunt: The longer most kids are away from their parents, the better off they are.
Klein and Crew were both right, and still are, which is why it is hard to get either euphoric or outraged over the new evaluation ruling by state Education Commissioner John King.
At best, it will help on the margins, and, at worst, it will perpetuate union obstructionism that is so extreme as to be immoral. Union bosses never met a teacher, no matter their performance or criminal record, they didn’t demand be kept in front of children and paid handsomely.
King’s ruling has the potential to pierce that shield, but only the potential. It spells out timetables on teacher appeals, and even includes the forms to be filled out after supervisors visit classrooms so there is no dispute. That he went to such detail shows the union’s wide reputation for bad faith.
King’s ruling may also provide an incentive for administrators to help mediocre teachers get better. Or, it may do none of those things, and so leave the status quo intact.
We won’t know for years, because it takes two consecutive “ineffective” ratings for a teacher to face the ax, and even then, it’s far from automatic or fast. Try to imagine a private job where you have to fail two years in a row to face dismissal.
And no matter what the rules say, it’s still up to principals and the educrats above them to decide whether and how aggressively to enforce those rules.
But, ultimately, King’s ruling is no silver bullet because it can’t be. As Rudy Crew believed, and as the failure of most reforms demonstrates, the biggest problem with education isn’t the union, the politicians, the money or the kids — it’s the parents. Everything else matters, but it is secondary in most cases.
Consider a study on absentee rates among third- and fourth- graders in New York. It found that about 20 percent were chronically absent, meaning they miss at least a month of school.
But attendance wasn’t uniform, with nearly a quarter of black and Hispanic students chronically absent, while 12 percent of whites and only 4 percent of Asians were. The achievement gap starts with attendance, and it starts early. Other studies show a link between children born out of wedlock and performance.
Given the correlation between home life, attendance and academic progress, students who miss a lot of school in early grades are unlikely to catch up. Today’s truants are tomorrow’s dropouts.
Yet when elementary children don’t show up for school, whose fault is that? While Mayor Bloomberg’s truancy-prevention program shows some success, it’s largely despite parents, not because of them.
Should bad teachers be fired? Absolutely. And there’s zero argument for leaving crooks and sexual predators in the classroom.
But we spend so much time and energy focused on these obvious things because the union is absolutist and because nobody has the guts to talk about the elephant in the room. If we want better students, we must demand better parents.
Let’s see if the mayoral candidates dare touch that one.
Therein ‘lies’ the tale of holder
Washington ain’t what it used to be: The quality of lies is in steep decline.
Former Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska once damned fellow Democrat Bill Clinton with faint praise by saying he was “an uncommonly good liar.” Now we have Eric Holder.
Despite lots of practice, the attorney general remains an amateur with whoppers. His claim to Congress that he never heard of the Justice Department’s “potential prosecution” of a journalist for reporting classified material wasn’t just misleading — it was provably false.
We know now that Holder approved the subpoena for the telephone and e-mail records of Fox News reporter James Rosen and the affidavit that called Rosen a potential “co-conspirator” in violation of the Espionage Act.
Yet Holder is sticking to his story, and had a flunky write to Congress to split hairs. Since there was no ultimate prosecution, the flunky wrote, there was no foul.
For Holder, this is business as usual. He lied in his confirmation hearings about whether he knew who Marc Rich was before greenlighting Clinton’s 2000 pardon of the fugitive financier. And Holder amended two other congressional testimonies, including one about his knowledge of the botched gun-running case known as Fast and Furious.
Whether Holder can keep his job depends solely on how much it damages President Obama. The president is stubborn and wants to protect his friend.
But Obama is not suicidal. If Holder can’t soon shake the view that he’s a liar, and a bad one at that, he’ll have lots more time to spend with his family.
Christie: Me, too? No, me 1
There they go again — fellow Republicans are blasting Chris Christie, this time for calling a special election in October to replace Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who died on Monday.
GOP gripers wanted Christie to appoint a Republican to fill the seat and let the election happen on schedule, in November 2014. But they just don’t get the Big Man.
Christie’s Rule No. 1 is to look out for No. 1. He gave the keynote speech at the party’s convention and barely mentioned Mitt Romney. Just before the election, he invited President Obama to deep-blue New Jersey to see Hurricane Sandy destruction and famously praised Obama, widely seen as helping the president defeat Romney.
But Romney was collateral damage — Christie was only helping in his own re-election. And it worked, with his strongest potential opponent, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, scared off by Christie’s soaring poll numbers.
The election timetable is more of the same. While Christie claims the October election puts voters’ choices first, in reality, it’s a good move for him. Had he spared the $24 million expense of a special election and waited until November, a large turnout for the Senate race might damage his re-election prospects.
In other words, see Rule No. 1.
Hold the details of bacon makin’
Amazing fact of the week: Stories about a Chinese firm buying Smithfield Foods Inc. report that Smithfield’s plants can butcher up to 110,000 hogs a day and turn them into ham, pork and bacon.
The gory image certainly kills my appetite.