in the country will have something to say about yesterday’s article in the New York Times on Teacher Preparation. Like most folks I was annoyed.

My biggest issue with the essay was that there was no sense that the purpose of education remains contested. Defined here, teaching is about improving test scores, something you can measure. You can easily judge whether or not teachers can improve scores. But such an approach ignores all of the structural factors that shape student lives and assumes that they are irrelevant if teachers could just teach better. And it ignores the things I want teachers to demonstrate to children, including my own:

humility: the ability to fail and keep trying

curiosity: the desire to keep learning

creativity: the willingness to try lots of different approaches to problems

I’m not sure these can be quantified, although I’m sure there’s someone out there trying.

It looks like the trash bill is going to go before council. I’m thinking I’m going to write to the Mayor and say:

Listen, I’ll happily pay the bill when you can demonstrate that the slumlord all-stars who own half of the homes on my block, whose home addresses range from Lower Merion to Gladwyen, who have nearly defaulted on several of their properties, have paid their bill.

The Mayor understands, even banks on, the folks who do the right thing while failing to address why so many neighborhoods continue to fall apart. Landlords get a pass, year after year.