Against School Reform

by Peter S. Temes

In the midst of the continuing controversy over the right ways to bring change to American schools, Peter Temes's book is a firebell in the night. In Against School Reform Mr. Temes sets out a straightforward prescription for our schools which centers on the life of the individual teacher and rejects the billion-dollar school reform industry. He argues that enormous monies and millions of hours of effort have gone into reforming American schools in the past ten years, and we have precious little to show for it. As we enter a critical period in American history―a growing population, an uncompromising demand for well-educated workers, and the complexities of world politics impacting ordinary people every day―there is not more time or money to waste. In Mr. Temes's view, great teachers are the secret to making better schools. Forget the macro issues of school reform, he advises, and focus on recruiting, retaining, and supporting the very best teachers. Teaching will once again become an elite profession, and school problems will go the way of the trolley car. Against School Reform digs deep into the qualities of great teaching, with stories from real schools and with practical advice for parents, teachers, and students who want to celebrate and support great teachers. It also takes a serious look at what our schools must do to recruit and reward the best teachers in the coming era of teacher shortages. Finally, the book celebrates the power of individual teachers to make a difference in their schools and communities, as forces for bottom-up change. More tests won't fix our schools, Mr. Temes writes. Bigger, better ideas about education won't fix things either. But great teachers can fix our schools, one classroom at a time.

224 pages, Paperback

First published July 9, 2002

Reviews

[Graham Seibert · Rating 5 out of 5]

The difference is the teachers. Duh!!

Temes' central thesis is that nothing succeeds with any kind of student, from the most brilliant to the slowest, like devoted and intelligent teachers.

It isn't the curriculum, it isn't how many hours of sex ed they get, it isn't the standardized tests. It's the amount of time and effort the teacher spends working to inspire young minds.
Not surprisingly, a top-down approach "designed by geniuses to be implemented by idiots" is bound to fail. Teachers are idiosyncratic human beings. Each one will have his or her own approach to teaching, and if they are any good they will never teach the same class twice. The subject matter evolves, the teacher keeps learning, and the personalities in each class are different.

Temes' plea is for administrators to see their role as protecting the teachers from bureaucratic intrusion and hiring the best possible teachers. The role of education schools ought to be, as much as anything else, getting smarter people into education. Education majors today are at the bottom of the heap intellectually, about 100 points below the median on SAT scores. It is perverse that teaching is a job from which it is hard to get fired, and from which the only promotion paths lead out of the classroom. Temes quotes many administrators on the reality of the situation: 20% of classroom teachers are total losses, another 60% are capable of being inspired but often aren't, and maybe 20%, in a good system, are truly dedicated.

A short anecdote. I listen to the lunchroom conversation in my stints as a substitute teacher. In private school the conversation is usually about kids and curriculum. In public school it is about benefits and retirement.

[Esther · Rating 3 out of 5]

I cannot in any way argue with Temes' assertion that trickle down doesn't work for education any better than it works for economics. However, while I liked his distillation of what good teachers do and don't do, I didn't care for the fact that his approach only ever considered the setup we have, without any reference to experimental and other sorts of schooling experiences that take place outside the public school framework, ranging from small private schools to homeschooling to open classrooms to tutoring. I also found that there was no acknowledgement of the basic purpose for which the public school system was both founded and been reformed, over and over: not education, per se, but ordering children into the sort of adult citizens wanted. One of the great ironies of the current debate on the education system in the US is that it is so fiercely focused on tactics which give us many of the sorts of citizens we don't want.