MGTC35S

1. MGTC35S Class of September 20, 2011

2. “Waiting for Superman” • What does the documentarist (Davis Guggenheim) think is wrong with American public education and what remedies does he suggest? • What narrative techniques does he use to advance his argument? • Evaluate Geoffrey Canada as an educational leader • Evaluate Michelle Rhee as an educational leader

3. Sept. 20: Educational ReformHeroic Teachers, Charter Schools • Tim Hortons and “coffee stories” • Note-taker needed • Setting the stage: transformational teacher narratives • “Waiting for Superman”: one of the first narratives about educational reform

4. Transformational teachers The dominant fable • Freedom Writers (2007), Stand and Deliver (1989), Dangerous Minds (1995) • S & D: Bolivian math teacher (male), Latino students in East LA, AP calculus, results challenged, East LA math program • FW: female English teacher in Long Beach use personal journals to energize students • DM: female English teacher in academy program in Palo Alto, CA earns love and respect of her students • Male versus female subjects?

5. How to be a transformational teacher In the classroom • Be cool • Set a (collective) stretch goal, sign contracts • Be the coach, helping them achieve the goal • Be patient: transformation takes time Outside the classroom • Sacrifice: be available 24/7 outside class • Connect: with student culture, families

6. How to be a transformational teacher In the educational system • Market: publicize your efforts to attract interest, attention, resources • Be savvy: size up who are your opponents and supporters • Diversify: look for support at higher levels or outside the school system Implications for all front-line innovators

7. Questioning the transformational teacher fable • Required work effort and impact on personal life • Downplaying political/organizational skill and overemphasizing classroom teaching • Examples from Freedom Writers: Real story about MiepGies’s visit, Gruwell’s connections and student visit to Steven Spielberg

8. Counter fables • Dead Poets’ Society (1989): teacher inspires students but lacks clear goal, repressive prep school fires teacher (set in a prep school) • Half-Nelson (2007): teacher is crack cocaine user, student helps him score, teacher forced to go on leave • Cheaters (2000): teacher coaches academic decathlon team from poor Chicago school, team cheats, wins, confesses, teacher disciplined but students survive: but is cheating wrong?

9. More counter-fables • The History Boys (2004): two teachers in a Northern England high school prepare students for Oxford, Cambridge exams, demise of one teacher • Entre les Murs (2008): high school teacher working-class Paris fails to inspire immigrant students, causes demoralizing in-class confrontation with students

10. Educational Reform Initiatives • Lots of foundation interest (Gates Foundation, NY hedge fund managers) • Charter schools (publicly-funded, open-enrollment outside regular system, educational philosophy, accountable for results) • Coalition for Essential Schools (projects) • Knowledge is Power (hard work, testing) • Better teachers: Teach for America • Better principals: New Leaders for New Schools

11. Guggenheim as policy advocate • Critic of teachers’ unions and tenure, weed out the worst performers, pay for performance • Supporter of charter schools • Additional funding for education, whether for charter schools or public schools • Supports testing as a measure of performance of school system • Opponent of streaming in school system

12. Narrative techniques • Stories evoke sympathy: children struggling for competence, sweetness and no attitude; parents struggling for their kids (generativity) • Difficult lives, randomness of lotteries (narrative arc) • Visuals up close and personal, use of music • Demonization: Randi Weingarten and teachers’ unions • Heroes: school reformers (Rhee, Canada, Kamras) • Academic analysts (Hanushek, Matthews, Alter) • Vintage documentaries, Superman episodes • Cartoons and charts

13. Geoffrey Canada • Came from ghetto background, knows and sympathizes with students • Humility: admits his youthful attitude and mistakes • Bold: Harlem charter school • Innovative: comprehensive support network for students from birth • Enthusiasm for his work: charisma • Turned down offer to be NYC schools chancellor

14. Michelle Rhee • Middle class background (father doctor), private school, Cornell University, Harvard MPP • 3 years Teach for America, disaster then improved • Founded New Teacher Project in 1997, recruited, trained 23K teachers => educational entrepreneur • DC schools chancellor: too ambitious a reform agenda? Too aggressive? • Too high-profile, e.g. firing of a principal taped • 2010: Mayor Fenty defeated, Rhee resigned • Students First: non-profit political advocacy organization • Controversies about fudging data (personal, schools)

15. Policy Critiques • Canada’s program provides social services from birth, has $100M private funding: hard to replicate • If the problem is poverty, schools only part of the answer • The best 20 % of charter schools oversubscribed and hold lotteries, what about the others? • The most ambitious parents enter lotteries, considerable attrition from best charter schools • Teacher pouring knowledge into students’ skulls: simplistic teacher-centred model of education • Test scores taken as indicator of performance of entire system, Emily story a critique of use of test scores

16. Next Week • Discussion of individual narrative assignment • View The Social Network, excellent supplemental material on visuals, post-production, and score • Why was Zuckerberg so successful? • Were the claims of the Winkelvossi and Eduardo Saverin against Zuckerberg justified? • Is The Social Network heroic or ironic (in terms of four-quadrant model)? • Is The Social Network sexist?