I got back from vacation just in time to see two consecutive issues of the local newspaper the Newark Star-Ledger devoted two articles to their anti-education bashing. October 23's article praised a billionaire hedge fund manager who, the paper claims, is going to take on the big bad NJEA and reform public education. However, Richard Codey, one of the most respected members of the state legislature, states that “I don’t think he has any idea what’s going on in the classroom. Other people should be making these decisions, not hedge fund managers. We’ve seen too much of this. It’s like buying public policy. Enough is enough.”

But the Star-Ledger is not concerned that the hedge fund manager is apparently even less knowledgeable about education than the paper is. It has been supporting Governor Christie’s attempts to take away tenure, and institute merit pay from the beginning. Interestingly, the paper has never discussed or compared both sides of the two issues, resorting to knee-jerk articles and editorials bashing tenure and teachers over and over and over.

The Star-Ledger has also been a staunch supporter of the governor’s attempts to punish teachers for the fact that the state has stolen much of their pension money in the past decade, thus endangering their pension funds. Since the stolen money was given to the entire state’s populace as property rebates, you would think that a supposedly independent newspaper would encourage the entire state to pay the brunt of that larceny. Nope. The governor and the Star-Ledger are united in punishing the teachers for the crimes of the state legislature.

Why would a supposedly independent newspaper be so rabidly anti-teacher? One possibility is that the Star-Ledger is owned by a huge conglomerate which fears unions since unions go on strike, often against newspapers. Since the NJEA is a union, it is automatically bad, and must be broken, under any circumstances and no matter what effect that would have on teaching. I realize that many people, who are as lacking in knowledge about education as the Star-Ledger and the hedge fund manager it supports, believe there cannot be anything bad about removing tenure and instituting merit pay. But briefly think about the following:

• Merit pay would be determined by administrators, who currently have no checks and balances, and whose power would increase if merit pay and tenure were removed;
• The majority of administrators were given their positions for success in extracurricular activities, such as coaching, rather than for success in the classroom. Once they are appointed, have you ever heard of an incompetent administrator being removed;
• In the days before tenure, board of education members routinely fired teachers to create a position for a family member or friend. If you don’t think that practice would resume, ask yourself how many districts have relatives of board of education members currently working in it. You would be amazed at how widespread that is.

And if you still believe the Star-Ledger is concerned with improving the quality of education, consider their front page story Saturday, 10/22, having the headline “Springfield students told to keep Halloween home.” It is a diatribe against a district which banned Halloween costumers in school, claiming they interfere with education. Having taught for 32 years in a public high school, I can attest that Halloween costumes are indeed a major detriment to education. Yet the Star-Ledger spends much of the front page decrying the decision, stating how many parents and students complained about the decision at the Board of Ed meeting. The paper next devotes five paragraphs to quotes from one disgruntled parent whose major complaint seems to be that the decision was preventing kids from “just being kids.”

I wonder how many of the countries whose students far outpace American students waste a day celebrating Halloween? Or how many of their parents complain that the schools are spending too much time concerned with learning rather than playing and “being kids?”

Somehow the Star-Ledger does not see any contradiction about its claiming to support improved education and praising these anti-education parents. Because the biggest detriment to education in this country is not teacher tenure, or merit pay, or even teachers’ unions. It is the fact that most people in this country, as well as newspapers, do not support education at all. In other countries parents help their children with homework each night, which is their primary activity after the school day ends. In this country people care about extracurricular sports and giving students freedom to be themselves. There are movements complaining that teachers give too much homework, which is interfering with students’ lives. I am not sure how students are supposed to progress without homework, but apparently that is not a major concern.

Here’s one last thing to consider: Open up any daily newspaper, including the Star-Ledger, and read the sports page. You will find a steady number of student athletes being praised for their athletic success. And periodically you will see somebody honored as a “student-athlete.”

But how often do you ever see newspapers praise students just for being successful students? There are usually a few token such articles at the end of the school year when the Star-Ledger honors a few valedictorians in one issue of their paper. But other than that, if you’re not an athlete, you might not as well have even attended high school, since nobody cares about you no matter how successful you are.