Tenure haters’ big delusion: Why Campbell Brown and co. are wrong about teaching
Fixing our schools doesn't work like that Hilary Swank movie. Here's why it's way more complex than firing teachers
Talk to some educational “reformers,” and fixing the problems with our educational system sounds a lot like it does in “Freedom Writers.” It’s your classic nice-white-lady-meets-inner-city-school flick. Plopped into a classroom of “untouchables” from poor, minority backgrounds, our hero Hilary Swank is shocked to discover that the administration has given up on the kids to such a degree that they aren’t even allowed to use books (the department head doesn’t want them stolen or damaged).
Swank fights the system, having her students “toast for change” at the beginning of the semester. She gives them each a journal to write in and uses a racist chalkboard drawing as a pretext to teach about the Holocaust, organizing a trip to the Museum of Tolerance to complement her students’ reading of “The Diary of Anne Frank.” Naturally, the other teachers are none too keen on this overeager upstart making them look bad, and try to get her fired. In short, they fail and the movie ends with a joyful scene of Swank’s kids graduating.
The notion that all troubled kids need is an amazing teacher — and its corollary: that students fail because they have bad teachers — has become the animating force behind the school-reform movement. It’s also the idea behind a forthcoming lawsuit brought by former television anchor Campbell Brown on behalf of six New York City students and their parents. With newly launched advocacy group Partnership for Educational Justice and a coordinated media campaign behind her, Brown is taking aim at teacher tenure in New York.
“Failed education laws here in New York promote seniority over performance and fail to remove ineffective and dangerous teachers from the classroom,” says Reshma Singh, executive director of the Partnership. “Our bipartisan group will give these families — and families across the state — the support they need to make sure New York students have access to quality teachers.”