The Teacher Wars (43 page)

1
Everywhere I traveled as a reporter:
See Dana Goldstein, “The Democratic Education Divide,”
The American Prospect
, August 25, 2008. For 2010 Clinton Global Initiative, see Dana Goldstein, “Is the Intra-Democratic Party Edu Debate a War?” (September 22, 2010),
http://​www.​danagoldstein.​net/​dana_​goldstein/​2010/​09/​is-​the-​intra-​democratic-​party-​edu-​policy-​debate-​a-​war.​html
. For polling on public perceptions of teachers, see
http://​www.​gallup.​com/​poll/​166487/​honesty-​ratings-​police-​clergy-​differ-​party.​aspx
.

2
“sitting around, watching the teacher”:
Robert C. Pianta and Bridget K. Hamre, “Conceptualization, Measurement, and Improvement of Classroom
Processes: Standardized Observation Can Leverage Capacity,”
Educational Researcher
38, no. 2 (2009): 109–19.

3
Another study of over a thousand:
Thomas Kane and Douglas Staiger,
Gathering Feedback for Teaching
(Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, January 2012).

4
Polls show teachers:
The MetLife Survey of the American Teacher: Challenges for School Leadership
(February 2013).

5
“Great teachers are performing miracles”:
Dana Goldstein, “Teaching and the Miracle Ideology,”
The American Prospect
, July 15, 2009.

6
In Finland, both men and women:
Pasi Sahlberg,
Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland?
(New York: Teachers College Press, 2011), 73.

7
Depending on whom you ask:
For more on estimates of the number of ineffective teachers who cannot improve, see chapter 9, especially comments from economist Eric Hanushek and New Haven superintendent Garth Harries.

8
teachers were fired for cause:
See the Schools and Staffing Survey of the National Center for Education Statistics,
http://​nces.​ed.​gov/​surveys/​sass/​tables/​sass​0708_​2009320_​d1s_​08.​asp
.

9
Compared to federal workers:
Chris Edwards and Tad DeHaven, “Federal Government Should Increase Firing Rate,”
Tax and Budget Bulletin
(Cato Institute report, November 2002).

10
But in 2012, companies with over a thousand:
See Federal Reserve economic data,
http://​research.​stlouisfed.​org/​fred2/​graph/​?​g=​q7M
. Also Bureau of Labor Statistics Business Employment Dynamics report, http://www.bls.gov/web/cewbd/f.09.chart3_d.gif.

11
Four percent of all civilian workers:
Richard M. Ingersoll,
Who Controls Teachers' Work? Power and Accountability in America's Schools
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 15.

12
The National Council on Teacher Quality estimates:
E-mail correspondence between author and Maegan Rees of National Council on Teaching Quality, October 23, 2013.

13
But the leading teacher demographer:
Richard Ingersoll and Lisa Merrill, “Who's Teaching Our Children?”
Educational Leadership
(May 2010).

14
According to Andreas Schleicher:
Thomas L. Friedman, “The Shanghai Secret,”
New York Times
, October 22, 2013.

15
“Education is, and forever will be”:
John Dewey,
John Dewey on Education: Selected Writings
, ed. Reginald D. Archambault (New York: Modern Library, 1964), 199.

16
In 2005, the average high school graduation rate:
Christopher B. Swanson,
Cities in Crisis 2009: Closing the Graduation Gap
(Editorial Projects in Education report, America's Promise Alliance, and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, April 2009).

17
International assessments:
OECD, OECD Skills Outlook 2013 (November 2013).

1
few truly “public” schools:
For summaries of schooling in early-nineteenth-century America, see C. F. Kaestle,
Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society
,
1780–1860
(New York: Hill and Wang, 1983); and Lawrence Cremin,
The American Common School
(New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1951).

2
In riveting sermons:
Horace Mann to Lydia Mann, April 11, 1822, Horace Mann Collection, Massachusetts Historical Society.

3
“best boy”:
M. Rugoff,
The Beechers: An American Family in the Nineteenth Century
(New York: Harper and Row, 1981), 314.

4
“irksome and disagreeable”:
Kathryn Kish Sklar,
Catharine Beecher: A Study in American Domesticity
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1976), 32.

5
“mournful, despairing hours”:
Ibid., 7.

6
“not a single instance”:
Mary Peabody Mann,
Life of Horace Mann
(Washington, D.C.: National Education Association of the United States, 1937), 26.

7
“is reputed a lady”:
Horace Mann to Lydia Mann, April 11, 1822, Horace Mann Collection, Massachusetts Historical Society.

8
“I lie down in sorrow”:
Sklar,
Catharine Beecher
, 42.

9
“a blank”:
Ibid., 47.

10
“The heart must have something”:
Ibid., 50.

11
Litchfield Female Academy:
For descriptions of the school Catharine Beecher attended, see Rugoff,
The Beechers
, 43; M. T. Blauvelt, “Schooling the Heart: Education and Emotional Expression at Litchfield Female Academy,” in
The Work of the Heart: Young Women and Emotion, 1780–1830
(Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2007);
Chronicles of a Pioneer School from 1792 to 1833, Being the History of Miss Sarah Pierce and Her Litchfield School
, ed. Emily Noyes Vanderpoel (Cambridge, MA: The University Press, 1903); and Litchfield Historical Society,
To Ornament Their Minds: Sarah Pierce's Litchfield Female Academy 1792–1833
(Litchfield, CT: Litchfield Historical Society, 1993).

12
“influence, respectability”:
Milton Rugoff,
The Beechers
, 61.

13
“Woman, whatever are her relations”:
Catharine Beecher, “An Essay on the Education of Female Teachers,”
Classics in the Education of Girls and Women
(1835): 285–95.

14
“These branches fill young Misses”:
Frances Huehls, “Teaching as Philanthropy: Catharine Beecher and the Hartford Female Seminary,” in
Women and Philanthropy in Education
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005), 39.

15
“A lady should study”:
Catharine Beecher, “Female Education,”
American Journal of Education
2 (1827): 219–23.

16
Census figures … “ignorant and neglected”:
Catharine Beecher, “Female Education,”
American Journal of Education
2 (1827): 219–23.

17
The French revolution, she warned:
Catharine Beecher,
The Duty of
American Women to Their Country
(New York: Harper and Brothers, 1845).

18
“energy, discretion, and self-denying benevolence”:
Beecher, “Female Education,” 123.

19
10 percent of American women worked outside the home:
Alice Kessler-Harris,
Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 47.

20
“I simply ask”:
Catharine Esther Beecher,
The Evils Suffered by American Women and American Children: The Causes and the Remedy
(New York: Harper and Brothers, 1846).

21
“[A] woman needs support only for herself”:
Beecher, “Female Education,” 114.

22
Melville “anxious”:
W. H. Gilman,
Melville's Early Life and Redburn
(New York: New York University Press, 1951), 89.

23
Henry David Thoreau:
Lawrence Wilson, “Thoreau on Education,”
History of Education Quarterly
2, no. 1 (1962): 19–29.

24
“horrible outrage” of the arson:
Jonathan Messerli,
Horace Mann
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972), 192.

25
Phrenologists like the:
George Combe,
The Constitution of Man Considered in Relation to External Objects
(Boston: Marsh, Capen, Lyon and Webb, 1841), 268, 415.

26
his brother Stephen:
Mann,
Life of Horace Mann
, 16–17.

27
“moral reform”:
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.,
Orestes A. Brownson: A Pilgrim's Progress
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1939), 40.

28
“the scantiness of her wardrobe”:
Messerli,
Horace Mann
, 226.

29
Schoolhouses were to be:
Edgar W. Knight,
Reports on European Education
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1930), 124.

30
Prussia established normal schools:
Ibid., 171–73.

31
“I believe Normal schools”:
quoted in Frederick M. Hess,
The Same Thing Over and Over Again: How School Reformers Get Stuck in Yesterday's Ideas
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 140.

32
By 1840, Mann had opened three normal schools:
Knight,
Reports on European Education
, 6–7.

33
“Twice every day”:
Cyrus Peirce quoted in Thomas Woody,
A History of Women's Education in the United States
(New York: Science Press, 1929), 474–76.

34
many normal schools transitioned:
James W. Fraser,
Preparing America's Teachers: A History
(New York: Teachers College Press, 2007), 151–52.

35
Most American teachers:
C. Emily Feistritzer,
Profiles of Teachers in the U.S. 2011
(National Center for Education Information, 2011).

36
In his eleventh annual report:
Redding S. Sugg,
Motherteacher: The Feminization of American Education
(Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1978), 81.

37
“As a teacher of schools”:
Horace Mann,
A Few Thoughts on the Powers
and Duties of Woman: Two Lectures
(Syracuse: Hall, Mills, and Company, 1853), 38.

38
“purified my conceptions of purity”:
Messerli,
Horace Mann
, 173.

39
the cornerstone of “a cheap system”:
A. Potter and G. B. Emerson,
The School and the Schoolmaster
(New York: Harper and Brothers, 1842).

40
“Education in this country will never”:
Catharine Beecher,
Educational Reminiscences and Suggestions
(New York: J. B. Ford, 1874), 49.

41
“The teaching of A, B, C”:
Horace Mann,
Lectures on Education
(Boston: W. B. Fowle and N. Capen, 1855), 316.

42
“affections outward”:
Messerli,
Horace Mann
, 443.

43
Between 1830 and 1900:
James C. Albisetti, “The Feminization of Teaching in the Nineteenth Century: A Comparative Perspective,”
History of Education
22, no. 3 (1993): 253–63.

44
helped keep men in the classroom:
Rebecca Rogers, “Questioning National Models: The History of Women Teachers in a Comparative Perspective” (paper delivered at the International Federation for Research in Women's History conference, “Women's History Revisited: Historiographical Reflections on Women and Gender in a Global Context,” Sydney, Australia, July 9, 2005).

45
“Classical studies”:
Knight,
Reports on European Education
, 213.

46
“the European fallacy”:
Messerli,
Horace Mann
, 443.

47
“I should rather have built up the blind asylum”:
Megan Marshall,
The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005), 402.

48
Board of National Popular Education:
Beecher,
Educational Reminiscences and Suggestions
, 115.

49
young women were dispatched:
Sklar,
Catharine Beecher: A Study in American Domesticity
, 179.

50
twenty-one teachers died:
Nancy Hoffman,
Woman's “True
”
Profession: Voices from the History of Teaching
(Old Westbury, NY: Feminist Press, 1981), 56.

51
recruits found that despite their best intentions:
Beecher,
Educational Reminiscences and Suggestions
, 120.

52
“Not one can read intelligibly”:
Quoted in Ibid., 127.

53
In general, he subscribed:
E. J. Power
,
Religion and the Public Schools in 19th Century America: The Contribution of Orestes A. Brownson
(Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1996), 87.

54
“Education, such as it is”:
Orestes Brownson, “Review of ‘Second Annual Report of the Board of Education. Together with the Second Annual Report of the Secretary at the Board,' ”
Boston Quarterly Review
, no. 2 (1839): 393–418.