Teaching Civil War History

Civil War commemorative events here in the Old Dominion will soon be upon us. The public discussion over the War has been kickstarted by two recent events. First, Governor Bob McDonnell proclaimed April as a month to celebrate the Confederacy without any mention of slavery. Next came the the distribution of a fourth-grade history textbook which denies that the Confederate cause was pro-slavery, by asserting that thousands of African-American soldiers volunteered to bear arms for the South.

The Governor wisely retracted his official proclamation and some school districts are planning to use the classroom to correct the textbook errors. But pro-Confederate Virginians have been blogging and opining in support of their own version of history.

Consider the idea of African-Americans freely joining the Confederate armies in large numbers. As the war dragged on, the Confederate Congress repeatedly debated whether to allow blacks to enlist. Jefferson Davis and other Confederate leaders shot down the idea, until desperation ruled in March 1865 and they decided to form companies of slave soldiers.

If you are a Confederate in 2010 and you hold dear the idea that thousands of black soldiers freely joined the Confederate army throughout the War, then you are also holding dear the idea that Jefferson Davis was clueless about the army he was leading for four years. In actual fact, Davis was an effective military leader. Pro-Confederates today should not disparage his reputation.

When the Union started to enlist African-American volunteers to fight the South, Jefferson Davis issued an order that any black soldier in uniform would be executed if captured, and any black soldier out of uniform but bearing arms would be enslaved.

Which means that if you hold dear the idea that black soldiers were common in the Confederate army, you are also holding dear the idea that Jefferson Davis lacked consistency in his principles and backed the wanton use of force. In actual fact, whatever one might think of his principles, Davis was a leader marked by steadfast principle. Pro-Confederates should not be revising history to portray him otherwise.

But the broader issue is whether the Civil War was about slavery. Confederates of today say either that it was not, or that slavery was a minor issue in the conflict. A leading voice for this Confederate claim is Commander Richard T. Hines, who leads Unit #305 in Virginia. In at least two essays, one in August and another in November, Commander Hines has argued that slavery did not cause the Civil War, and that "it is quite easy to revere Confederate history without being pro-slavery."

Perhaps the disagreement here is over the verb choice by Commander Hines. He espouses reverence for the Confederacy, and expects nothing less from the government of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

I yield to no one in my admiration for the dashing style and military genius of a Confederate like Jeb Stuart. With his famous ostrich feather cap, the man had style. But to detach the cause for which Stuart fought from slavery would be like sticking one's head in the sand.

Nearly everyone can respect the military sacrifices of the Confederacy. But revere its history? Ignore the fact that the Confederate Constitution explicitly ruled out any laws impeding the rights of whites to enslave blacks, while the United States Constitution acknowledged the existence of slavery but did not make it a holy grail?

Commander Hines, you and other Confederates ask too much of us.

I am not quite sure when I became convinced that absent slavery, there would not have been a Civil War. Or when I became convinced that the seven states which seceded first and formed the Confederacy were primarily motivated by their desire to protect their rights as slaveowners. Or that the Confederacy was as much about a vision of racial relations between whites and blacks as it was a vision of relations between a state and a federal government.

One opportunity to become convinced was in 1996. Richmond had put up a statue commemorating an African-American on Monument Avenue. It did not displace any of the numerous monuments to Confederate leaders. But Confederates turned out to protest.

One Confederate paraded with his battle flag and called the statue "a sharp stick in the eye of those who honor the Confederate heritage."

Surely the Commander Hines who writes in 2010 that slavery and racism were not part of the Confederate heritage would disagree with the Confederate protester in 1996.

And well he might, but the 1996 protester who explicitly linked the Confederacy to racial conflict was Commander Richard T. Hines himself.

Commander Hines is displaying a lack of consistency in his principles. I have a hunch Jefferson Davis would not approve.

Waiting for Superman or Waiting for Godot?

If I were going to critique the new Davis Guggenheim movie, "Waiting for Superman," I would have to get out and see it. In this post, I am merely going to raise a couple of questions about it.

The first question arises from reading Richard Kahlenberg's commentary in The American Prospect and Dana Goldstein's review in The Nation. Kahlenberg mentions that Guggenheim's documentary claims that one in five nonunion charter schools produces amazing results.

Presumably, Guggenheim bases that claim on the study that Kahlenberg also cites:

According to a large Stanford University study funded by pro-charter school foundations, only 17 percent outperform regular public schools to any degree; 37 percent underperform; and 46 percent have no impact.

Question Number One: How, exactly, does Guggenheim claim to be a documentarian and yet he presents such a misleading statistic with a straight face?

Okay, if he wants to round up the 17 percent to call it one in five, no problem. And if he wants to say that any measure of better performance at all is "amazing," I won't object. That is a matter of opinion.

But if the data shows that a nonunion charter school is more than twice as likely to underperform unionized public schools than it is to outperform them, shouldn't you mention that statistic in your documentary? If Guggenheim and the nonunion charter school crowd were selling us on this idea, and they hid the odds of worse results from us, wouldn't that be false advertising? Isn't this the same thing that Goldman Sachs did when it pitched "crappy" investments to its clients?

All those are rhetorical questions. I have not asked my second question yet.

The second question arises from thinking about the policy implications of the title of Guggenheim's documentary. I have no doubt that Geoffrey Canada is an inspirational figure and that the students in Harlem are better off thanks to his dedicated efforts to improve education. Call him Superman if you want.

But it is naive to think that inspirational individuals are a sound foundation for public policies. The challenge for American education is not to give school superintendents vast powers and then to wait for a Superman to step in and use those powers wisely. That approach would be far more likely to work out as waiting for Godot.

The real challenge is to design systems and adopt reforms so that all school districts and all students can achieve excellence- even when the school superintendent is unable to leap over teachers unions in a single bound or is actually slower than a speeding bullet.

(We could start by ensuring that bullets stay as far away from schools as possible, but the Roberts Supreme Court disagrees with me on that point.)

Question Number Two: If Davis Guggenheim were really interested in finding out why some unionized public schools are failing, why doesn't his documentary examine the majority of unionized public schools that are succeeding - some by an amazing margin - and then compare those groups of schools?

It is possible that my two questions reflect some misunderstanding on my part. I was pretty sure that a documentary was intended to present facts with any editorializing in the background. When key facts go missing and the editorial judgment is front and center, I thought it was called a 102-minute political campaign commercial.

I'm just glad that Davis Guggenheim did a much better job of handling statistics in his earlier work, "An Inconvenient Truth."

A Tip of the Hat to the Washington Policy Center

Careful readers of this website will no doubt be confused. I had taken umbrage at the Washington Policy Center, but later realized that my comments were more petulance than righteousness. I apologize for the claim that they had dropped by comments from their blog.

In fact, they have been proactive in identifying the issue as a technical glitch and have asked me to resubmit the comments. I salute their meticulous commitment to a free exchange of ideas.

I am particularly embarrassed by my failure to consider the possibility of a technical glitch in this case. Of all people, I should be attuned to that. My tech savvy is so limited I thought "Wired" was a magazine about coffee.

The Washington Policy Center is a Seattle outfit that promises to "improve lives through market solutions." Even if you are sure you wouldn't agree with their issue analysis, I encourage you to drop by their blog and give it a read.

And in the future, I will try to restrict my false umbrage to dinner table conversation - where it properly belongs.

Here's the post I read on their blog - an entry by Liv Finne, a lawyer who directs their Center for Education - and then my comments follow.

May 10, 2010

High school student in Tacoma declares that he wants effective teachers

Today, in the Tacoma News Tribune, Mount Tahoma High School students eloquently speak out against teacher seniority assignment rules. Student Derrick Reinhardt observes that these rules mean that "ineffective teachers stay and effective teachers leave" his school.

These union-driven rules allow teachers unions, not school principals, decide who teaches at Mount Tahoma High. Teachers are assigned to schools on the basis of how long they have taught in the district, not because their school principal has chosen them or wishes to retain them based on their ability to teach students. For the unions, whether or not a school's teachers are effective at educating students appears to be a lower priority than imposing districtwide mandates which serve their interests.

Ronnie Gordon, 27, an AP English teacher in Mount Tahoma High School, is being transferred to another school because his school principal does not have the power to keep him on staff. Instead, the school principal must retain less effective teachers because seniority rules protect them from being reassigned.

Mr. Gordon has forged deep connections with the students at Mount Tahoma High. Mr. Gordon understands that students crave and need the attention and support of their teachers, and that the payoff to this adult attention is a rich reward: motivated students willing to work hard and stay in school.

Mr. Gordon not only teaches English, but he is the faculty adviser to three after-school student groups, the Key Club, the Latino club, and the junior class. He mentors students at First Creek Middle School. This week he is organizing a blood drive, and will emcee the spring sports pep rally, where he will also be named the most inspirational male teacher.

Students are tearfully pleading with the school board to allow Gordon and other teachers to remain at their school.

Board members say their hands are tied by the seniority assignment rules in the collective bargaining agreement with the district.

Here is what the students say:

"Mr. Gordon is the type of person who can basically change your whole state of mind," said junior class senator Lacy Delacruz-Agor. "He's the type of person who cares about you. It's like the heart is missing from a lot of teachers now days - that's something Mr. Gordon still has."

Derrick Reinhardt, senior class senator at Mount Tahoma. "I think it's really wrong for ineffective teachers to stay and for effective teachers to leave."

Some school board members are indicating their willingness to revisit this policy in the next round of negotiations with the union, when the current agreement expires in August of 2011.

Improving education in Tacoma and elsewhere requires just this sort of clear-eyed shift in priorities: student learning, not the appeasement of powerful unions, must be the top priority of every school leader. Allowing school principals to decide which teachers will serve on each school teaching team is the first step towards improving education in Washington.


Here’s my comment:

With all due respect to the students at Mount Tahoma High School, Mr. Gordon is not being prevented from teaching and inspiring public high school students in Washington State. Declining enrolments at Mount Tahoma High are requiring him to move to another school in the system, with high school students who will benefit from his gifts and dedication. Letting a school principal block his transfer, as favored by Liv Finne, would not increase the number of students inspired by Mr. Gordon.

To claim that teachers unions are preventing students from having high quality teachers is not supported by the facts of this case. Teachers unions are doing exactly what they should be doing- working to enable dedicated teachers to devote their career to teaching and still be able to provide for their own families and retirement.

I can understand why some high school kids are taking a self-centered, narrowminded view of this case. I can understand why the students at Mr. Gordon’s next school are of no concern to them. But why is the Washington Policy Center taking a myopic view?



The link to the Washington Policy Center is given in the text above. You should check out their blog, which they keep percolating despite not having a large team of analysts, and their other analysis.

George F. Will & Muddled Thinking About Education

George F. Will’s recent Sunday column neatly captures the muddled thinking of conservatives about education. Halfway through the column, Will states flat out that the overwhelmingly dominant factors behind different education outcomes are the characteristics of the households where the students live. The most important of those factors is family income.

If that point is correct, then the charter school movement and criticisms of teachers unions have nothing to do with improving education outcomes and closing achievement gaps. We would also not expect wholesale firing of the teachers at particular schools to be a solution. None of those changes affect family income or other key household characteristics.

For a conservative, it is important to make that point about the vital link between family incomes and education outcomes. When progressive “do-gooders” advocate government programs, conservatives attack them as out of touch with reality. For conservatives, education is all about personal responsibility at the family level, not at the neighborhood or community level. Progressives say it takes a village to raise a child, while conservatives seem to think it takes an idiot to support a village.

So, at the halfway point of the column, Will is on familiar ground with conservative thinking.

By the end of Will’s column, he pivots and labels Education Secretary Arne Duncan a “Mrs. Jellyby” for blocking a school voucher program in Washington, DC. Will states flat out that Democrats are to blame for preventing children from low-income households being able to escape “execrable” schools. Will is certain that those children, regardless of their household characteristics, would achieve academic success by simply changing schools.

For a conservative, it is important to argue that incompetent teachers and administrators are the predominant cause of low test scores. When progressives defend public schools and teachers unions, conservatives attack them as oppressive special interests.

Income inequality is the villain of paragraph five, while institutionally bad schools are the villain of paragraph 9 in Will’s column. It is worth remembering that these contrary ideas are not espoused by rival camps within the conservative movement. They are contradictory ideas put forth by the same individuals, at the same time, without any awareness of the irony.

Will and many conservatives support charter schools and oppose government programs and teachers unions on the basis of their political principles. It is a shame that their principles themselves fail to adhere to any principle of logical consistency. Whether we should blame their muddled thinking on the poor quality of their education or on their family income level, I will leave for others to determine.