Just when you thought all hope was lost for print journalism, along come issues of Newsweek and Commentary that prove there’s still a glimmer of hope. Both publications ran stories about the state of American education. Former Washington, D.C., schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee made the cover of the Dec. 13 edition of Newsweek.
“I’m not done fighting,” a smiling Rhee says. “The Real Battle For School Reform Begins Now” is the title of an article inside the magazine. The author? Some woman named Michelle Rhee.
“After my boss, Washington, D.C., [M]ayor Adrian Fenty, lost his primary in September, I was stunned,” Rhee said in her article. “I had never imagined he wouldn’t win the contest, given the progress that was visible throughout the city — the new recreation centers, the turnaround of once-struggling neighborhoods, and, yes, the improvements in schools.”
Rhee is a Korean-American who was chancellor of a school district that is not only predominantly African-American, but also Democratic. So she may not understand what Fenty’s — and, in a sense, her — real offense was: not telling black Democrats what they want to hear. That’s a sure prescription for losing an election in a heavily black and Democratic district every time.
That was the bad news in Rhee’s article. Now here’s the good news: She’s not done yet. Rhee is now determined to be more involved in school reform than ever.
“I’ve decided to start Students First,” Rhee wrote, “a national movement to transform public education in our country. We need a new voice to change the balance of power in public education. Our mission is to defend and promote the interests of children, so that America has the best education system in the world.”
I get the feeling that the anti-Rhee faction in D.C. will rue the day they got this woman started.
Rhee wants to “defend and promote the interests of children.” In the November issue of Commentary, Emory University professor Mark Bauerlein asks what should be done with those students who don’t want their interests either defended or promoted.
Bauerlein, the author of “The Dumbest Generation,” wrote a review for Commentary about another book, Robert Weissberg’s “Bad Students, Not Bad Schools.” Weissberg has a theory about what causes the pathetic state of American education.
To quote Weissberg: “It’s the students, stupid, not the facilities or the curriculum.” Bauerlein seems to agree with him.
“Millions of lazy, incurious, disruptive, unintelligent and nearly illiterate youngsters flood classrooms every day,” Bauerlein writes, “and none of the popular and hugely expensive initiatives and ideas peddled by ‘education mayors,’ well-meaning foundations and professors of education will change them.”
Hey, somebody had to say it. Weissberg and Bauerlein are right. If you doubt their word, what they say has already been confirmed, and by the most unlikely of sources.
Anybody remember Audie? He’s the Baltimore kid who appeared in the 2008 documentary “Hard Times at Douglass High.” When Weissberg and Bauerlein talk about “bad students” making “bad schools,” Audie’s the kind of student they’re talking about.
“This is what we do,” Audie said in the documentary. He was talking about himself and a bunch of other students who roamed the halls all day and learned nothing.
“Just walking the halls all day, baby. [Bleep] class. That [bleep’s] for clowns, man. Don’t nobody go to class around here, man. Man, [bleep] academics. Academics? We gon’ leave that to them nerd-[bleep-bleeps]. We gon’ keep it straight hood. All my [bleeps] out here, we gon’ keep it gutter.”
Want to really reform American education? Get guys like Audie out of our schools.
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
