I've long admired Rick Hess's iconoclasm and his realism. The conservative Hess also writes things that drive me up the wall. His recent defense of District of Columbia Chancellor Kaya Henderson and her kinder, gentler implementation of Michelle Rhee's teacher-caging policies is an example. But I usually enjoy the witty way that he presents his positions. And, I basically like his The Cage-Busting Teacher.
Hess's advice would really be on target if he had written the book in the 1980s. He offers good and great advice for teachers, then and now. Much of Hess's shared wisdom is the type of affirmation of democratic principles that our teachers and mentors taught to us Baby Boomers. His reminders that pragmatism is required to participate constructively in our constitutional democracy bear repeating.
Over the last two generations, however, conservative and, especially, liberal and neoliberal technocratic reformers have engaged in a crusade to place teachers in cages that they designed to be inescapable. Seeking rushed "disruptive" and "transformative" change, accountability-driven reformers have sought to lock us down so we can't argue against their risky and untested theories. We educators are long past the point where a how-to guide for slipping out of the bonds that have been gratuitously placed on teachers is enough to rescue our profession and our students.
Hess is articulate in indicting "stupid policies that have destructive effects that no one intended." He criticizes value-added evaluations, which are a perfect example of the "overflowing bucket of well-intentioned directives." For instance, he cites a Florida Teacher of the Year who taught students with autism and who was thus unfairly evaluated on his school's low value-added score.
Hess correctly says that teachers are "blindsided" by "simple-minded accountability systems and ludicrous expectations." He is also on target in bemoaning the ways that teachers respond by taking refuge in our classrooms. But, I wonder what could possibly be a better place to hunker down than inside a room full of students. I taught for an entire career with an open door, but I don't know that that would be possible anymore - now that so many non-educators are micromanaging us. Too often, teachers now need the shelter of a closed door in order to teach authentically.
Contrary to some of Hess's advice, teachers must remain steadfastly loyal to our fundamental principle, "It is better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission." Real world, many of us are lucky if we only have to ask, not beg, forgiveness.
Even though I believe the contemporary school reform movement is tied with the War on Drugs and Prohibition as the most wrong-headed social policy experiment of the last century, Hess is correct in reminding us that all policy is a blunt instrument. It's not just education where laws are written to address the lowest common denominator. He agrees that teachers often speak the truth when saying "My boss is a jerk." And he is right that jerks will always be with us. But, that is why American constitutional democracy is based on checks and balances. If all bosses were saints, teachers and other workers wouldn't need due process rights.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That is why we teachers can't - and won't - follow Hess's admonition, "Make peace with policy." We must fight to regain enough of our professional autonomy to be able to teach in a holistic and engaging manner in an era when the Billionaires Boys Club believes that it should have the power to micromanage our schools.
I am also perplexed that a realist like Hess would want teachers to repudiate the approaches of: "Think Locally, Act Globally" and "This Too Shall Pass." His first principle seems to be saying that it is okay to act locally, to cage-bust within the smaller niche we choose, but we can't respond in kind to the "astroturf" think tanks (such as the TNTP) funded by corporate reformers, and his allies who (unlike Hess) are absolutely clueless about the way that systems operate. Perhaps Hess wants us to put our energies into concrete efforts to improve our immediate school environments and let him be the quotable realist who fights for us - or at least fights for us in the battles that he believes we can and should win.
Second, Hess knows that teachers have always found shelter from the nonstop silver bullets imposed on us under the principle of "This Too Will Pass." I'm not impressed with his anecdotes designed to show that we should engage with reformers and persuade them to stop treating us like lab rats and to quit experimenting on our students. For instance, he cites a teacher who didn't waste her energy fighting the overall reforms that can suck the humanity out of schools but focused on the way her students lost their recess to them. Due to her tireless efforts, the kids in her school now get a single recess per week!
Similarly, Hess cites Louisiana's John White as evidence that even reformers will listen if approached properly. White welcomed a teacher's suggestion on implementing Common Core, thus demonstrating an open-mindedness towards criticism that he sees as constructive in implementing his policies. However, White also said, "If teachers email me about how they personally were evaluated and how they disagree with their score, I'm not listening!
To his credit, Hess devotes much of his book to dispelling urban legends about unions. I wish he'd spent more time criticizing the corporate elites and mendacious organizations like the TNTP who have funded the anti-union campaigns that perpetuate and spread those slanders.
Coming from a conservative state, I don't have a problem working with people who openly loathe unions. But, it's a terrible idea for a union to cooperate with a "company union," like the Gates-funded Educators 4 Excellence, which Hess seems to admire. Maybe we should make a deal. Teachers could agree to not shun E4E members (while trying to teach them about the reason why those who value social justice should never "scab.") In return, Hess would join us in amicus briefs opposing the anti-union Vergara, Frederichs, and Campbell Brown's lawsuits!
Seriously, there will always be plenty of issues where Hess and teachers can't see eye-to-eye while we agree on others. He's not a fan of the corporate reformers' self-avowed goal of "blowing up status quo," of crippling local school boards, unions, and education schools in the faith that "disruptive innovation" will magically produce "transformative" change. I expect he'd agree that reformers have had more success in kicking down education barns than they have had in the much harder task of building new ones.
Hess is willing to abide by the principle that we used be allowed to teach our students, even though it wasn't on the test. Our democracy is based on the value of "loyal opposition," where "my opponent is my opponent, not my enemy."
Hess agrees that edu-politics is a contact sport. Throwing elbows is a part of the game. Taking out your opponents' knees is not. And, that gets us back to a major theme of The Cage-Busting Teacher. Hess, like most educators, sounds appalled by the cheap shots that reformers have inflicted on us. He also boos the dirty fouls thrown at teachers, while chiding us, warning educators to not let our anger take us out of our game. I doubt, however, whether he'll be able to persuade test-driven, competition-driven reformers to dial down their aggression and play nice.