Just in case you aren’t convinced of the wisdom of this, please take a look at this sample (and incomplete) list of contentious issues: abortion, affirmative action, the war In Iraq, environmental regulation, the role and size of government, capital punishment, gun control, taxes, health care, and ask yourself: Are any of them subjects you would refrain from bringing up at a dinner party for fear of ruining the evening? Or do you only hang out with people whose positions you share?  Do you avoid any of them at family gatherings for fear of discord among those you hold dear? Do you only read newspapers whose editorial bias supports what you already believe? Do you react to the words liberal and conservative as labels?

                If the answer for most of us is yes, aren’t we in trouble?

       Next Friday: The third and last post on this subject.

Post 3.

To the Editor: 

    Re: “No Picnic for Me Either, by David Brooks (column, March 13)

   Mr. Brooks is exactly right: great teachers build strong relationships with their students on whom they impose high standards.

   Mr. Brooks is also correct in saying that we need to know who these teachers are, and which schools devlop high achievement in their students. Yes, we need data. We need to know, not to guess or hope.

  However, Mr. Brooks ‘s faith in the standardized tests by which we gather data strikes me as naive. I taught English for years and have been an educator since 1957 and have yet to discover a better method of assessing my students’ progress in learning how to write than reading their compositions closely, with a red pencil, usually at least twice. If I could have substituted a standardized test for that process, I could have gone to bed a lot earlier each night.

   Could it be that our faith in standardized testing is based on the fact that it costs much less than assessing real work?

   One reading of Mr. Brooks’s column tells me more about his excellence as a writer than a thousand standardized tests.

Stephen Davenport

Oakland, Calif., March 13, 2009

Those who assert we should get our economy fixed first and then we can turn to fixing education don’t get it.  Shovel ready projects are important and they have the allure of quick pay-back. Likewise, fixing the financial system,  but what will these initiatives serve if we do not make the long-term, rewards-later investment in developing the intellectual muscle to do the work on which the economy depends?  We can no longer afford to accept a culture in which a kid one day out of law school makes more money that the person who taught him how to read -anymore than we can accept a culture in which the mediocre teacher gets re-hired every year. Without the political will to force change, and the financial sacrifcice to invest the money now, there will be no sustainable economic recovery. 

Another quote from David Leonhardt’s article – write your representatives and senators and tell them to read it: “Education helps a society leverage every other investment it makes—. It appears to be the best single bet that a society can make.”