Monday, September 20, 2010

The Educated Reporter: What’s Tony Danza’s value-added score?

The Educated Reporter: What’s Tony Danza’s value-added score?

What’s Tony Danza’s value-added score?


If you have ever wanted to hear an ’80s-era sitcom star utter the phrase “professional development workshops,” then A&E sure has a show for you. “Teach: Tony Danza” debuts October 1, with the first of seven one-hour episodes about the actor teaching—for real—tenth-grade English in a Philadelphia public school.

Naturally I am all in favor of bringing viewers/readers/listeners as deep into the classrom as possible, so they can better understand the challenges, successes and failures of American education. And as an avid gatherer of useless celebrity tidbits, I was happy to collect some about Danza: He is extremely bow-legged; he is obsessed with hand sanitizer; he sweats through his clothes a lot, which a student points out to him. But wow—I feel really bad for the 26 kids in Danza’s class.