Teachers Get Little Say in a Book

Can an educational reform movement that degrades and trivializes teachers succeed? It's hard to imagine, but that is what is happening in some parts of America today.


Steven Brill, in his Manhattan office last week, gives his views on the educational reform movement.
Related

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      Sunday Book Review: "class warfare" by Steven Brill (August 21, 2011)
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      Block ArtsBeat: Book Review Podcast: Steven Brill "class struggle" (August 19, 2011)
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      Sometimes Topic: Steven Brill

In Steven Brill's new book is celebrating the movement, "the class struggle within the struggle to fix U.S. schools," teachers are literally the least. Of the three million who work in traditional public schools, three were interviewed by Mr. Brill in the record, his ideas hold six of 437 pages of the book.

Neither charter school teachers better. In Harlem Success Academy 1, which produces the best scores on state tests, Mr. Brill describes how teachers work all day are burned continuously. As kitchen appliances that will last several years and then have to be replaced. A teacher describes how "overwhelmed, undervalued and underpaid" and tells Mr. Brill, "There's no way I can do this beyond a year or two."

Mr. Brill has little positive to say about teachers. Veterans' hanging in 20 to 30 years taking care only of their pensions and protection of tenure are toxic. " While admitting that there are thousands of teachers who are trained and highly motivated, "every time" some people put in an 8 ": 15 am to 3:15 pm work day with a civil service mentality." (Like Mr. Brill would know if the number of these teachers is the increase is unclear, because it provides no statistics or attribution.)

Until this project, Mr. Brill, 61, had rarely written about education. Do not even familiar with the public schools - graduated from Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts and sent his three children to private schools.