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Not Whether, but How to Civilize
Douglas Sears
I n 1995, through an unlikely chain of events, I found myself working as the superintendent of schools in what was then the poorest city in Massachusetts. Education was not my professional field and even now--years later--people are surprised to learn that, prior to entering the superintendency of the Chelsea Public Schools, I had never taken an education course or taught in a primary or secondary school. I had been a Foreign Service Officer and then a member of the president's staff at Boston University. I had several degrees, but nay most significant management experience was supervising a visa-processing unit at the American Embassy in Manila.
I waded into the world of public education, daunted but enthusiastic, because the public schools of Chelsea, Massachusetts, which had been managed by Boston University since 1989, were in need of a new superintendent, and the job fell to me. Shortly after I started my work in Chelsea, the University's president, Jon Westling, an individual with wide intellectual interests and a great gift for the written word, suggested (strongly) that I interview every teacher we hired. Knowing whatJon's "suggestions" meant, I did this. Since the public education world was new to me, I didn't know that this was an unusual practice.
I am not sure, to be retrospectively candid, whether my doing this actually improved the district.
I had a habit of reading through transcripts and asking questions about weak grades. After awhile, prospective teachers recommended for hire by principals-mostly graduates of education programs--began to be prepared to explain why they had done poorly in required language or math courses. Many interviewees, when confronted with a polite query about a particular grade, would explain--sunnily and un-self-consciously--that they didn't have a knack for language or math. ! was also interested in how prospective teachers had performed on standardized tests. So I would ask about either the GRE's or SAT's. An unapologetic "Oh, 1 don't test well" was a common response.
It won't surprise people in this room to learn that hundreds of mostly young would-be teachers arrived on my doorstep prepared to speak enthusiastically about the "best practices" or "research-based" methods they had learned about in education school. Quite consistently, I...