The Teacher Wars

June 30, 2014
Teaching in America, which began as an informal, seasonal job heavily influenced by locale, has evolved into a highly politicized and polarizing profession, argues Goldstein in this immersive and well-researched history. Goldstein, who comes from a long line of teachers, claims that teaching has historically been viewed as a profession best staffed by women and that there’s been a persistent classist (not to mention racist) undercurrent in education that continues to this day via programs that focus on test scores and ratings. Readers may be surprised to learn that hot-button issues, such as overcrowding and teaching ESL, are hardly new. The author also discusses educational fads, the battle for federal funding, the vilification of teachers’ unions, and the nation’s almost pathological obsession with data and statistics. Goldstein closes with recommendations for the future, including: better pay; more perspective on test scores; and the expansion of teachers’ purviews in the classroom. Attacking a veritable hydra of issues, Goldstein does an admirable job, all while remaining optimistic about the future of this vital profession. Agent: Howard Yoon, Ross Yoon Agency.

September 15, 2014
Think teachers are overpaid? Or are they dishonored and overworked? Both positions, this useful book suggests, are very old-and very tired. Public school teaching, writes education journalist Goldstein, is "the most controversial profession in America." Politicized from the beginning, teaching had an aura of do-gooder, civilizing purpose. As she writes, Horace Mann and Catharine Beecher had a lively correspondence around the creation of a "Board of National Popular Education" whose aim was to send East Coast schoolmarms to the frontier in the hope of taming it more thoroughly. It also combined that social service aspect with the trappings of professionalism and especially unionism, which in time has armed the critics and foes of public education with plenty of ammunition: It's certainly difficult to get an inept but tenured teacher fired, though probably not as hard as Chris Christie would have it. It would likely surprise Christie to learn that public school tenure has been practiced since at least 1909, long before unions were empowered to intervene in due-process matters between teachers and administrators. While looking into the origins of seemingly modern controversies, such as teaching to the test and the feminization of teaching, Goldstein shows how constant the battles have been. At the same time, she turns in points that ought to condition the discussion (but probably won't, given its shrillness), including the observation that "differences in teacher quality" have only a small bearing on test outcomes overall-which is not to say that teachers don't matter but instead that we ought to stop relying so heavily on tests. In an epilogue, Goldstein ventures other ideas for reform, including raising teacher pay and, yes, using tests as diagnostic tools more than ends in themselves. Probably not likely to sway opponents of public education, whose numbers and influence seem to be growing, but Goldstein delivers a smart, evenhanded source of counterargument.

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Starred review from September 15, 2014

The daughter of public school educators, reporter Goldstein used her year as a Spencer Fellow in Education Reporting conducting archival research and interviewing education experts. The result is an historical perspective on education reform that both enlightens and inspires. Each chapter explores a different facet of today's education debates (e.g., teacher unionism). While much of this history has been covered in greater detail elsewhere, Goldstein's talent is to connect past and present in memorable ways. For example, in a chapter on teachers' involvement with McCarthy-era "witch hunts," Goldstein shows how--despite thousands of left-wing educators having been hounded by investigators and driven from the profession--some of the pedagogical innovations these teachers implemented in urban schools, such as culturally relevant curricula and wraparound services for students in high-poverty neighborhoods, have since become mainstream principles of education reform. A concluding section enumerates the "lessons learned" from history by making explicit recommendations aimed at today's education reformers. Sprinkled among some rather noncontroversial policy suggestions (e.g., recruiting more men and people of color), Goldstein also suggests that classroom testing focus more on improving student learning than on punishing "bad teachers." VERDICT Alternately erudite and accessible, this book is highly recommended for parents, educators, and members of the public who wish to go beyond the headlines and delve deeper into today's pressing educational issues. [See Prepub Alert, 3/31/14.]--Seth Kershner, Northwestern Connecticut Community Coll. Lib., Winsted

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Starred review from September 1, 2014
Education reporter Goldstein comes from a family of public school teachers. She brings a concern about the future of public education to this insightful look at how we have come to a point where the once revered profession of teaching is now so vilified. Offering a historical perspective, she begins in the first half of the nineteenth century in Massachusetts with the push for universal education and the later feminizing of the teaching profession. She traces the rising feminist movement and how women like Catharine Beecher and Susan B. Anthony contributed to the debate about teaching as a mission, not a profession, demanding respect and sustainable wages. She draws parallels between historical reformers and their movements and those of contemporaries such as Geoffrey Canada's Harlem Children's Zone and Wendy Kopp's Teach for America. Goldstein chronicles heated debates about teacher evaluation and merit pay dating back to the early 1900s, the rise of teacher unions, and involvement in the civil rights movement. She cites the push for community control in urban areas in the 1960s as a precursor to many of the disputes in urban school districts today. A sweeping, insightful look at how public education and the teaching profession have evolved and where we may be headed.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)