Politics and education just don’t mix. The disconnect between so-called budget-reforming governors ( particularly in Wisconsin, Indiana and New Jersey) and the national sentiment about teachers shows that politicians do not get education.  They view it as a budget item, rather than a national priority.

Public opinion polls consistently support teachers, especially local teachers, and the current N.Y. Times poll  supports their right to bargain collectively by 2 to 1.  Although Governors Walker, Daniels and Christie have tapped into the budget-cutting spirit of their constituents, they are taking on the wrong adversary, when they seek to de-professionalize education.  They are bringing a machete into microsurgery.

Pay attention to the destructive impact of government on education in the current fiscal climate. New Jersey’s teachers have been publicly excoriated by a governor who presumably wants to recruit better teachers to his schools. Providence’s mayor has laid off an entire teaching force, clearly a publicity stunt, and thoroughly demoralized an entire school system. The governors of Indiana and Wisconsin have attacked the collective bargaining rights of their teachers, because they were  not willing to make wealthy tax-payers help offset the deficit.  And our Congressional representatives have blithely wiped out funding for critical literacy programs, in particular the National Writing Project, because we can not afford $30 million to fund the most successful professional development program in the United States.

In Linda Darling-Hammond’s study of three countries with superior performance on the Program in International Student Assessments exams, she found several shared national policies on education. In a comparative study of Finland, South Korea and Singapore, she found that all three countries actively recruited and paid for the education of superb teachers for their schools, and that they separated the national administration of schools from the political process.

The study is summarized in Chapter Six of Darling-Hammond’s book The Flat World and Education, which highlights major differences in the recruiting, educating and mentoring of teachers between three nations and the United States. Regarding “National Teaching Policies” she says they

recruit able teachers and completely subsidize their extensive teaching programs, paying them a stipend as they learn to teach well. Salaries are equitable across schools and competitive with other careers, generally comparable to those of engineers and other key professionals (193).

Teacher education is modeled on the education that the professional ministry wants throughout the primary and secondary systems, and it continues into the early years of teaching where expert teachers are paid to mentor the first- and second-year teachers in the most difficult years of professional orientation.

But the national administration of education in all three countries is also de-coupled from the political institutions. This strategy affects the entire program of teacher education.

these systems are managed by professional ministries of education,which are substantially buffered from political winds. Frequent evaluations of schools and the system as a whole have guided reforms (193).

The reforms to schools and professional development of teachers in these three countries are a remarkable contrast to the reform incentives currently engineered by federal and state governments in this country. See Darling-Hammond’s remarkable book for the details (New York: Teachers College Press, 2010).

When will our lunacy stop? When we can perform a decisive poli-tectomy on our education system.  Politicians have mucked up our national program with alternate diet and binge budgets, with short-term reform programs, with pandering to the testing establishment, with demonizing the “enemies of reform,” and by declaring we will have to do better with less.  How would that fly in Finland, South Korea, and Singapore?

Teachers know they can do better, more than any politician could imagine. They just need the opportunity. They need better leadership. The marriage of politics and education has failed miserably.  Set them free to do what they do best.