A historian capable of telling stories and explaining why those stories matter. Robert Caro’s brief editorial in yesterday’s Timeswas powerful stuff.

His conclusion:

“Abraham Lincoln struck off the chains of black Americans,” I have written, “but it was Lyndon Johnson who led them into voting booths, closed democracy’s sacred curtain behind them, placed their hands upon the lever that gave them a hold on their own destiny, made them, at last and forever, a true part of American political life.”

LOOK what has been wrought! Forty-three years ago, a mere blink in history’s eye, many black Americans were unable to vote. Tonight, a black American ascends a stage as nominee for president. “Just give Negroes the vote and many of these problems will get better,” Lyndon Johnson said. “Just give them the vote,” and they can do the rest for themselves.

All during this long primary campaign, after reading, first thing every morning, newspaper articles about Barack Obama’s campaign for the presidency, I would turn, as part of the research for my next book, to newspaper articles from 1965 about Lyndon Johnson’s campaign to win for black people the right to vote.

And I would think about Johnson’s great speech, when he adopted the rallying cry of black protest as his own, when he joined his voice to the voices of all the men and women who had sung the mighty hymn of the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King cried when he heard that speech. Since I am not black, I cannot know — cannot even imagine — Dr. King’s feelings. I know mine, however. To me, Barack Obama is the inheritor of Lyndon Johnson’s civil rights legacy. As I sit listening to Mr. Obama tonight, I will be hearing other words as well. I will be hearing Lyndon Johnson saying, “We shall overcome.”

Barack Obama speaking last night:

And it is that promise that forty five years ago today, brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln’s Memorial, and hear a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream.

The men and women who gathered there could’ve heard many things. They could’ve heard words of anger and discord. They could’ve been told to succumb to the fear and frustration of so many dreams deferred.

But what the people heard instead – people of every creed and color, from every walk of life – is that in America, our destiny is inextricably linked. That together, our dreams can be one.

“We cannot walk alone,” the preacher cried. “And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.”

There was an article in yesterday’s Times about a proposed testing program for kids in kindergarten. Kindergarten. The most telling lines:

Mr. Liebman also pointed out that kindergartners and first and second graders are already evaluated by their teachers. Most schools use a system called the Early Childhood Literacy Assessment System, which takes teachers a long time to administer because they must meet with every child individually.

The new testing methods combine results to create a single score for English and a single score for math for each child, he said, making comparisons across classrooms and over time easier.

Purposeful misunderstanding, I think. If you think that a standardized test is the same thing as a lengthy assessment conducted by a teacher on a one-to-one basis, then you have a total misunderstanding of early literacy.

I was at a meeting last night where someone declared that “we know what works in American education, “that research based best practices” are the answer.

There are 38,100 exact hits in google for this phrase. This phrase is embedded in the No Child Left Behind Act and occurs throughout the National Reading Panel’s work.

Despite the apparent consensus that these practices not only exist, but that they are the solution, do schools continue to fail because:

of improper implementation?

They (local school districts, teacher unions, communists) won’t let us do it?

Bizarre.

I’ve ranted before about how the writers and creators of “The Wire” have as a good an understanding of urban life as I’ve encountered. We’re watching season five now and there’s a scene where Daquan (dookie) and Dennis are talking about what it means to live where they do.

Dookie asks, “How do you get from here to the rest of the world?”

Exactly right…

I loved and hated this movie — what up with the Richard Gere scenes — but the moment where the young Bob Dylan visited an ailing Woody Guthrie while the song Blind Willie McTell played in the background…superb.

So I’m re-reading Lawrence Block’s Matt Scudder novels and I can’t quite think who I’d want to play Scudder in a film. It’s a futile exercise — they’d screw it up anyway — but I’m at a loss. What actor could make you believe that they spent their time in church basements drinking cruddy coffee?

I still believe that someday, someone will write the perfect Patrick O’Brian adaptation, and that Nick Nolte will play Aubrey and Ben Kingsley will play Maturin.

There’s a silly article in today’s Washington Post describing the conflict over a potential salary schedule. One group — generally younger teachers is portrayed as in favor of it — while another — older teachers — is described as being against it. And the older teachers have a point that younger teachers, perhaps those who haven’t been there long enough to realize that they no longer can leave, don’t quite understand: without tenure, you can lose your job overnight. In an urban system where leadership turns over every three years, and where individual schools have a new principal every year, this is a scary prospect.

The article also offers the usual shots at union leadership — unresponsive, protective of senior members — which are undoubtedly true but seem somewhat gratuitous.

The problem is that there’s no description of how student success and therefore teacher success will be measured. Is it a complex value-added system? Is it purely based on test scores and how, then, will these scores be measured? Do current principals have an evaluative role, i.e., would principles be able to weigh in on a teacher’s performance?

I don’t envy Chancellor Rhee. Designing a system that’s both transparent and measures what it’s supposed to will be difficult.

So I get the regular updates from TCR in my inbox and this morning there was a thoughtful essay addressing program coherence within teacher education. The structural elements preventing this are legion: faculty vs. adjuncts, program designs with multiple vestigial tails, theory vs. practice, foundations vs. methods… there are many reasons why teacher ed programs splinter.

I hope someday to be involved in a high school where teacher education takes place inside the building. Coherence would be provided by the daily rhythm of the building — what do you have to do to succeed as a teacher? How does your practice need to evolve in order to meet the needs of your students? How do the readings you’re doing with fellow faculty members and students help inform your practice?

It’d be an authentic kind of coherence, where students would see an immediate link between their coursework and their teaching.

Keep dreaming, I guess.

Kids and I were listening to Sandinista today. I hope they memorize these words:

It’s up to you not to heed the call-up
‘N’ you must not act the way you were brought up
Who knows the reasons why you have grown up?
Who knows the plans or why they were drawn up?

It’s up to you not to heed the call-up
I don’t wanna die!
It’s up to you not to hear the call-up
I don’t wanna kill!

For he who will die
Is he who will kill

Maybe I wanna see the wheatfields
Over Kiev and down to the sea

All the young people down the ages
They gladly marched off to die
Proud city fathers used to watch them
Tears in their eyes

There is a rose that I want to live for
Although, God knows, I may not have met her
There is a dance an’ I should be with her
There is a town – unlike any other

It’s up to you not to hear the call-up
‘N’ you must not act the way you were brought up
Who give you work an’ why should you do it?
At fifty five minutes past eleven
There is a rose…
Yeah!

“There’s probably little any teacher can do with some kids in some high schools: the poverty and violence of the neighborhoods, the dynamics of particular families, the ways children develop identities in the midst of economic blight. You rely on goodwill and an occasional silent prayer to keep your class from exploding, hope that some wild boy doesn’t slug another, pray that your authority isn’t embarrassed. But here those students were, five or ten years down the line: different life experiences, different perspectives on learning. It makes you think about those sullen high schoolers in a different light, see their lives along a time line.”

Mike Rose. Possible Lives (NY: Penguin Books, 1989), 137.

and

“The error that crops up because a student is trying new things is a valuable kind of error, a sign of growth.”

Mike Rose. Possible Lives (NY: Penguin Books, 1989), 151.