There is an episode of The West Wing late in season 5 called "Talking Points" where Josh Lymon is feeling victorious over his negotiating a difficult trade deal. Lots of people could have negotiated it, but he was chosen. Leo (chief of staff) talks about how fierce he was! The President congratulates him! Everyone says what a great job and what hard work! He did what could not have been done!
Before the deal is even signed, word is leaked that immediately upon signing, a large telecom company is going to cut 17,000 jobs and send them to Asia (something that could only be facilitated because of the trade deal). Josh is horrified that this is happening because of his work and meets with the CEO, asking him to stop or at least delay it because of the horrible effects on the lives of the 17,000 workers.
The CEO says that it isn't 17,000. It is millions over 10 years. This is just the start.
Josh, an ally of unions and someone who made a promise to protect union jobs, is aghast.
Then the CEO tells him that the White House already knew about this. Everyone knew. Except him.
Angry, Josh confronts Leo, who more or less says you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs.
Furious and hurt because of the role he was tricked into playing, Josh confronts the President who is thoughtful and saddened but essentially says that there is nothing they could do. Josh accuses him of breaking his promise to protect the union workers and the President agrees.
Later Josh is talking to Donna (his assistant) and angrily--angry at himself, at Leo, at the President--says "What I did wrong wasn't breaking my word. It was making a promise I couldn't keep in the first place."
As I watched the episode recently, I realized how much that entire situation feels so much like education in general.
Teachers, most days, are Josh Lymon in this episode. We are given high-fives, told what hard work we do, how everyone appreciates it and our dedication is amazing, while all of the decisions that really matter are being made behind the scenes. We don't really have that much power, but the high-fives keep us mollified.
We are in a pandemic, one year out, and are planning for nationwide high-stakes standardized testing. We are told, "It's fine! The tests don't matter anyway! We just need some data! No, not your classroom data, that doesn't count or isn't good enough! We need this other data that is actually meaningless! But it's fine! You can do them now or even over the summer! It's fine!"
Smile and high-five while setting fire to a billion dollars for nothing. To add stress to teachers and students for data that is useless in any given year but useless and invalid this year.
But we gather it anyway. Because why? Who knows?
Someone who has already made the deal, with a wink and a nod behind the scenes, and just hasn't leaked word yet.
It is the end of the pandemic school year, and we are giving final exams. "How else will kids know we are serious?" Smile and high-five! Only dedicated teachers could bring such rigor! All while inflicting an unfair assessment on an uneven playing field for a group of students who have had unequal learning experiences. Sure, but you get to fly to Brussels! (in this case, a candy bar in the mailbox!)
Most people in education went into the field out of a genuine desire to help, to educate, to improve lives. It was likely not the entire reason, but it was at least part of the equation. Who in the world would say, "I am going to work hard for 4 years, take this job, and spend the rest of my life trying to ruin lives through low expectations and poor-quality worksheets!"?
And it is really really easy to spot the villains when you have a bungling one-percenter like Betsy DeVos at the helm.
It is much harder to realize that, generally, there are few clear-cut villains, other than the system.
It is really easy to see education as a binary:
There are good teachers and bad teachers.
There are hard-working teachers and lazy teachers.
There are dynamic teachers and boring teachers.
In reality, any educator can be dynamic in the morning and a snooze-fest in the afternoon. One week we can be on fire and changing the world when the next day being bogged down in paperwork and committees sends us to look up the details of early retirement.
And at any given moment of any day, each one of us is Josh Lymon, having made a promise we cannot keep.
We have promised we would bring world-class education to each and every student, and it will be the ticket that brings them out of inequality, the path to a better life! And we make that promise because we believe it. We deeply, fundamentally believe it.
Josh looked the union members in the eye and promised to save their jobs. Not because he wanted their votes but because he wanted to save their jobs.
But all of the power players in Josh's circle had already made decisions, had discussions, and arranged plans--without his knowledge--that tied his hands. He just didn't know.
And every teacher you have ever known has had to commit to some aspect of education they deeply despise or outright object to but have absolutely no control over because the power players in their sphere have already had the conversations, made the decisions, and printed the guidebook. They just didn't say anything.
Sometimes teachers push back. And they are often the ones ground in the gears of the system. Occasionally they are heralded as visionaries or rock stars. Every educator who has watched Stand and Deliver or Dead Poet's Society knows deep in their bones that this is not how the system works.
And it is March.
February and March are the cold, gray suck vortex of education when every teacher either counts the years left until retirement could theoretically kick in or does incognito Google searches for "non-teaching jobs that can be done with a degree in English education". That is just reality. February and March are hard in a normal year.
But this year, they feel like a giant broken promise. One made with absolute conviction and the best of intentions without knowing that those in power had already had the discussions, made the deals, and shook hands.
They just haven't told anyone yet.
