Only This I Want
The editorial standards of The Philadelphia Inquirer have lessened of late. I confess myself disappointed. In a classic piece of yellow journalism titled “Editorial: Getting rid of bad apples” which published on January 22, the editor has once again fallen victim to the idolatry of political correctness propagated by Dr. Arlene Ackerman and her liberal cabal. In it, he obtusely equates the issues of school improvement and instructional quality with rigorous teacher evaluation. He states “...when nearly half of the students are unable to read or perform basic math, and 30 percent nationwide drop out, not all the teachers can be doing a good or even adequate job.” Nowhere in the commentary does he cite the source of this statistic. If true, then it belies the much more substantive question of student accountability. No teacher that I know of ever ordered the 30% to quit school. I would argue that at some point, they undoubtedly made a choice not to arrive ready to do their best while they were there. Students learn to succeed by making correct decisions, looking to the teacher as exemplars. So do newspaper editors. This neither will learn if children look to the streets and glorify acts of violence as societal goods.
In this piece as in most editorials, the editor enjoys plenary control over length and content. As such, I entreat him to rise above such simplistic and reflexive thinking. Even he at some point must choose between doing that which is easy and that which is right -- between selling papers and reporting the truth. The editor indirectly complicates the already contentious issue of the work environment by cowering behind the shield of anonymity and failing to explain what “bad apples” do or fail to do in the classroom. He has also not explained what he specifically observed, where and how often. Such vague generalities coupled with the recent events at South Philadelphia High School we have seen, suggest that he has never understood very cogently what it means to be a teacher. Only this I want.