Some things I’ve learned

In his lovely piece announcing my transition from my full-time role at Fordham, my friend, colleague, and now-former boss Mike Petrilli calls me a contrarian. This is one time I won’t argue with him. But I came by it honestly. Unlike a lot of people in this game, I was an indifferent student who might do his homework if there wasn’t something good on TV (or in front of it if there was). I was a B-student on my best days, and took a “semester off” from college that lasted twenty years. Even when I became a teacher, it was supposed to be a two-year, public-service stint, not the start of a second career in education.

But after two decades, and as I start my next phase, there are a few things I think I’ve learned about teaching, writing, and education reform. And please forgive me if I’m being contrary:

• Every conversation about education either gets quickly to “it’s complicated” or it’s not worth having. There are always trade-offs in any program or policy. Always.


• If you’re not serious about literacy, you’re not serious about equity.


• The best classroom management advice for elementary school teachers is “never reward attention-seeking behavior with attention.” It works surprisingly well with adults, too.


• Schooling is conservative; education is progressive. This paradox explains why our biggest fights occur when we stray too far from familiar models of schooling, or get too prescriptive about long-term goals.


• No field has a worse grasp of its own history than education.


• The most important relationships to cultivate are with people who disagree with you vehemently. They give you the honest feedback your friends and colleagues often won’t.


• There are nearly four million teachers in America. A number that large means, by definition, a workforce comprised of ordinary people of average abilities. Teaching must be a job that they can do well. There aren’t enough saints and superstars to go around and never will be.


• The best writing comes not when you’re trying to persuade others, but when you’re persuading yourself.


• There is no such thing as a magic bullet in education, but there might be magic buckshot—a powerful blast of small projectiles all headed in the same direction. This is why you get better results from changes at the school, district, or CMO level: Buckshot is effective at close range. The further you get from the target, the more it scatters.


• I’d rather my child’s teacher be a devoted disciple of a curriculum or pedagogy that I cannot stand than be forced to use one that I love, but do it half-heartedly.


• There is someone in your movement who damages your cause or issue by being obnoxious or pugnacious, alienating people who might otherwise help advance your program or policy. Taking that person aside and telling them, “You’re not helping,” is a good use of your time.


• It never would have occurred to parents of previous generations to blame teachers for their children’s lack of interest or effort. We’ve reversed this almost entirely, making student motivation and engagement the teacher’s job. That change was needed, but the pendulum has swung too far.


• The soft bigotry of low expectations is still with us. We just apply it to parents when we assume they are not capable of choosing the right school for their children, or that we know better than them when they support schools that we want to close.


• You will never regret not engaging with someone on social media.


• If you are asking schools and teachers to take on a new initiative or priority without taking something off their plate, you’re making things worse. Pay no attention to those who blithely say, “we should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.”


• The most addictive drug in the opinion-making business is applause. Once you’re hooked on it, you’ll say anything to get your next fix.


• “Innovation” is an overrated virtue. If the basic model of school—kids in classrooms; teacher in front of the room—hasn’t changed in 100 years, it’s not because we can’t innovate. It’s because we like it that way and that it serves an important purpose.


• If your child goes to a school where you don’t worry about her physical safety, count your blessings. You have no business judging parents for whom safety is their number one concern—including getting to and from school safely every day.


• Successful movements seek converts; unsuccessful movements hunt heretics. Ed reform was at the peak of its prestige and moral authority when it had a youthful, optimistic, energy. Disappointing results damaged its confidence. Angry wokeness and purity tests are destroying it.


• Ed reformers used to insist “demographics isn’t destiny.” We’re getting dangerously close to promoting exactly the opposite belief. Both morally and politically, it’s poisonous.


• Jefferson famously said that he would not hesitate to choose newspapers without government over a government without newspapers. The same is true of schools without sports versus sports without schools. Coaches teach the habits and skills that matter most: showing up, hard work, commitment, personal accountability, and teamwork. They are among the best and least-heralded teachers we have.


• The most valuable experience you can have is to see a school or teacher doing exactly what you want and realize it’s awful. That’s the day you stop blaming implementation and learn humility.


• There should be term limits (at least self-imposed ones) on education activists and advocates. If you spend half your life banging the same drum, you’re either ineffective or you’ve become too deeply invested in the problem to see or acknowledge progress. Beware becoming the person you signed up to replace.


• People who describe themselves as thought leaders, change agents, innovators, or influencers aren’t. Some titles you can’t confer on yourself.


• E.D. Hirsch, Jr. is still the only educational theorist whose work described exactly what I saw in my South Bronx classroom every day: children who can “read” but struggle to comprehend. The issue wasn’t student engagement, child-centered pedagogy, or culturally-relevant curriculum. It was lack of background knowledge. Period.


• Everyone gets the reputation they deserve. Just give it time.