Here’s an article on the 20 Best Prep Schools in America, as decided by Forbes (I assume. It’s their article.)

Here’s what they say about #1…

The top prep school in the U.S. is the Trinity School, located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, in New York City. Founded in 1709, this co-ed day school has an average enrollment of 960 students in kindergarten through 12th grade. There’s one teacher for every six students, more than 80% of the faculty hold an advanced degree and the school’s $40 million endowment helps assure the facilities are first-rate. Tuition for one year of schooling in the Upper School (grades 9-12) is $34,535, though the school offers financial aid.

And here are all the things my school has in common with #1.

• We were both founded (at some point, though they have a few hundred years on us, I think).
• We’re both co-ed.
• We’re both in the U.S.

And in what ways is your school similar to the Trinity School, I ask?

Should I feel bad that my school is not more like The Trinity School, I wonder?

Are articles like this designed to make me feel inferior about the school where I teach/the schools where I will send my own children or is that just my insecurity showing?

No, I don’t think all America should be held to this standard, but I do want to know, if you are teaching at a 6 to 1 ratio where tuition is $34K a year, which inconveniences you more: classroom management issues or your pedicurist canceling without providing you sufficient notice.

No, no, I jest. I am sure the teachers who work at Trinity are plagued with all kinds of issues that stem from holding the job of being an educator in modern America. See, that’s the one thing: kids are kids are kids.

And parents are parents are parents.

Some of the kids will make you click your heels in joy. Some of the kids will make you cry out in frustration. Some of the parents will make realize that being a teacher feels like one of the most noble and fulfilling jobs on the planet. And some of the parents will make you feel like dog-doo.

Yes, the Trinity School and Lynwood High might be millions of years apart in some ways, but in others, I am sure there is more common ground than mot people would, at first glance suspect.

Here are the books I have coming out over the course of the next 12 – 18 months…

Daddies Do it Different

This is my first children’s picture book, inspired by recognizing that, as a father, “Mommies do it one way… but daddies do it different.” A funny, very warm book that just poured right out of me. Dedicated to my daughter and wife.

Nerd Girls

Inspired by the fact that I am so sick and tired of the way that so many teen books for girls are about a bunch of rich snobs who think they are all that, I wanted to write a book that was much more like my experience in working with middle and high school teens. And the fact is, most kids are nerds.

And most kids are funny.

And most kids are awkward, unsure, confused and just struggling to make their way through middle and high school.

And most girls love to laugh.

Nerd Girls is a comedy for the rest of us, the ones who were not born with a silver spoon in their mouth, who don’t always have the latest and greatest and most expensive clothing. The ones who actually are nice, real people – the kind that are real friends.

But wow was this a fun one for me to write. And it’s going to be a series. These girls are such dorks… they make me laugh just thinking about them Yet they have such heart.

The Math Class Problem No One Ever Talks About

Actually, this title may change… to Bonerville Middle School. Why? Because that’s what it’s about, a boy who gets an erection in math class… and gets busted.

But the thing is, it’s not a sex book. It’s a comedy about the fact that about a zillion 8th grade books every year get these uncontrollable woodies that Pop Up out of nowhere – and Boner Management becomes one of the most important areas of their life.

Prepare to laugh at Bobby Conner, a kid who is absolutely tortured by the perpetual popsicle in his pants.

Cinder-Smella

I re-imagined the Cinderella fairy tale as set in modern-day New York City with a protagonist that has very stinky feet! Yet another inspired by bedtime rituals with my daughter. Fun, fun, fun to write.

Think about the immense accomplishment of safely putting a human being on the moon and then returning that person back home to planet earth. Truly, it’s almost unreal when you think about the size and scope of the achievement… and yet, we did it.

But to listen to teachers in America today say, “There is no way to measure teacher effectiveness,” you’d think that interplanetary travel was nothing but a puny science activity compared to the beast that evaluating the professional work a 7th grade English teacher in Anaheim, California would be.

I just don’t buy it.

I mean right now I can fire off an email through a mobile, handheld device from the center of Detroit, Michigan that could be read in China, forwarded to South America and then replied to by a person in Israel all within a matter of minutes, yet gathering reasonable insight into the professional performance of the math teacher down the hall is entirely unachievable?

It’s not.

And we should stop saying it is.

Obviously, this opens up a whole can of worms as to “how” we can measure teacher effectiveness (because that is the real question) so over the course of the next few days, months, and so on, I will speak to a variety of the “how it can be done” aspects to this conversation.

Not that I actually have all, or even any of the answers.

But I do know that the first thing we all must recognize is that yes, it can be done. It is not impossible. It is not beyond human capability. It is not a smaller feat than inventing the wheel, discovering fire, harnessing electricity or slicing bread.

So how about we ask that all teachers in this country take a deep breath and admit the obvious: it’s possible. Truly, before we are able to measure teacher effectiveness, we are all going to have to calmly acknowledge that yes, indeed it can be done.

It might not be easy.
It might not be quick.
It might not be cheap.
It might not be impeccably flawless beyond the pale of any and all criticism (because so many other things in this world have risen to that level so why shouldn’t measuring teacher effectiveness do the same? Author’s note: dripping sarcasm.)
But it is not impossible.

I do wish cooler heads would prevail for this national conversation. Before we can measure teacher effectiveness we are going to have to realize that splitting the atom, mapping the human genome and getting a taxicab in New York City in the pouring rain have all been done.

Measuring teacher effectiveness can be done as well. The question is not one of “if” but of “how”.

And like I said, more on that in the posts ahead.

I had a former student — now a senior in college who can’t graduate because the last engineering class he needs is not being offered til next semester due to furloughs and budget cuts… another blog post entirely — come to visit me this week. We chatted during lunch.

I asked him how he liked his professors. He said, some were good, some were bad. Then he added, “But the bad ones are good for me because they force me to learn the material on my own. I mean I gotta know this stuff, right?”

And isn’t that the difference between kids that achieve and kids that don’t? Really, don’t ya love that ownership?

Public education in America would be absolutely revolutionized if our students — and the parents — simply had an attitude adjustment. Instead of viewing teachers as the ones responsible for making kids learn we need to flip the script so that the students feel responsible for becoming well educated… and instead, view teachers as people who are facilitators of that aim.

Not the doers of all the work for them.

Your math teacher stinks? In today’s world, that’s seems to be a perfectly justifiable reason for kids (and parents, and politicians) to blame the school for these kids not knowing their multiplication tables.

Not in my house. My kids are gonna know their multiplication tables even if they are taught by New York City’s Rubber Room All Stars!

Your English teach is lame? Well, then by all means you should not know how to compose a simple sentence.

How about a little ownership over your own education, huh? Instead of viewing school like a 5 star hotel where everyone who works their ought to be at your beck and call with white glove service, why not view school more like CostCo or Home Depot where the goods are on the shelf, but dude or dudette, you better go figure out a way to get what you need by yourself!!

And if you do find an employee that can help you, be grateful for their assistance instead of demonstrating an attitude of entitlement.

Do teachers need to do better in this country? For sure!

But if they don’t is that really a legitimate excuse for our students not to become well-educated?

All the tools are there. The internet. The public library. Teachers who care. Outreach programs. On and on and on. For the kid who is ready to apply some good ol’ fashioned elbow grease, they sky is the limit.

And for the kid who thinks it is the job of other people to “make them smart”… may the Lord watch over them.

Turns out the mindless bubble tests I blogged about being mandated a few days ago is the first stage in the NCLB process of being taken over by the state. “Teams come in” don’t seek any input from anyone currently in the school and mandate bubble tests so that they can “evaluate” where to place next year’s kids.

And when I look at the silliness of this test, I realize they are about to come up with numbers whereby they are going to be able to prove that over 90% of our kids are deficient… and then, they can just give an easy bubble test in 3 years and viola! look how many more kids are doing well thanks to the brilliance of the “intervening state team”.

And all of us have our hands tied. Either do what they say “or else”. Not sure what “or else” means but the current administration on campus has absolutely no voice in this. Matter of fact, to their credit, they don’t even want us to give these bubble tests anyway. They know they are weak. They know that huge money is being made by corporate folks who are complicit to the madness. They know that we are very small fish in a very big pond and when the shark swims by, the guppies have to do what they are told

Sheesh, my school is being set up like tourists in a New York City game of 3 Card Monty.

And how long before this happens to you?