Gates and Zuckerberg Never Learn

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative are going to attempt-- once again-- to change the whole world of education.

Their newly-released Request For Information is looking for "all promising ideas for how to use existing and new knowledge and tools to achieve dramatic results against the challenges we describe." The list of challenges sadly does not include "the repeated failure of rich amateurs to impose their unproven ideas on the US public school system." Instead, the RIF looks at three particular areas. Let's look.

Writing       

The problem? College and career success (because we're still flogging that expired equine) are "highly dependent" on "effective" writing skills, which include "evaluation of arguments and evidence, critical and creative thinking about solutions and sources, identifying support for a key idea or process, plus clear and evocative argument making."

Gates-Zuck are going to ignore all of those qualities by basing their argument on NAEP writing test results to argue a lack of proficiency. Mind you, I agree that we have a writing proficiency problem, however, I blame it mostly on the test-driven school movement of the past 18 years. That doesn't make their list of obstacles, which includes a lack of time for sufficient practice and feedback because teachers are overloaded, and while computer scoring of essays "holds promise" (it doesn't), it can't help yet (and it never will). They also blame a lack of "high-quality writing assignments," whatever that is supposed to mean.

Here are the areas they believe "require more exploration"

Evidence-based solutions for writing instruction, including mastery of the "spectrum of skills encompassing narrative, descriptive, expository and/or persuasive writing models," a "spectrum" that I'll argue endlessly is not an actual thing, but is a fake construct created as a crutch for folks who don't know how to teach or assess writing.

New proficiency metrics. Can we have "consistent measures of student progress and proficiency"? I'm saying "probably not."  "Can we use technology to support new, valid, efficient, and reliable writing performance measures that are helpful for writing coaching?" No, we can't.

Educator tools and support. Gates-Zuck correctly notes that "effective" writing instruction requires time and resources, so the hope here is, I don't know-- the invention of a time machine? Hiring administrative assistants for all teachers? Of course not-- they want to create "tools" aka more technology trying to accomplish what it's not very good at accomplishing.

Peer-to-peer collaboration and feedback. I'm a little st8umped here, because this is both old hat and widely done. My best guess is the real question is "can we develop some software to get involved in this process."

Non-academic correlates. Gates-Zuck wants to attach the whole range of soft-skill SEL to writing instruction. "Can we develop evidence-based interventions" that help everything across the board "while protecting student privacy." Can we create some software that will teach students to be more human?

And the whole business should include continuous improvement. Always looking for ways to get better. Kind of like every decent teacher on the planet. I swear-- so much of this rich amateur hour baloney could be helped by having these guys shadow an actual teacher all day every day for a full year. At the very least, it would save these endless versions of "I imagine we could move things more easily if we used round discs attached to an axel. I call it... The Wheeble!"

But after listing all the fine print, we cut to the chase:

The goal is ​not​ to replace the classroom teacher, but rather to provide teachers  with new integrated tools (including those involving peers working collaboratively) and supports (including well-designed professional development) to improve their ability to assess student performance and provide rapid and targeted feedback and remediation.

In other words, we're looking to build some software to teach writing (and How To Be Human).

Mathy Stuff 

More test results stand in for evidence that math understanding and mindsets are in trouble right here in River City. There's a lot of math-related jargon here, but if we skip down a couple of pages, we get to the heart of the matter. First on the list of areas requiring exploration:

Tools and resources that support teachers to personalize the learning experience for all type of student learning needs:​

Once again, this personalized [sic] learning platform should also incorporate cognitive and affective state, continuous improvement, and be not boring. The list also calls for "informing, not automating," which is basically a call for a bigger, better data dashboard. Possible products of this research could be intelligent tutoring systems, technology-enhanced content, and artificial intelligence.

Yes, Gates-Zuck are ready to go all-in on personalized [sic] learning.

Which brings us to the third area:

Measuring and Improving Executive Function    

Are you creeped out yet? Well, here's the first paragraph of this section:

Student success in academics and in future careers is associated with their ability to wrestle with multiple ideas at once, think flexibly, and regulate their actions and thoughts. These skills describe the basic executive functions (EFs) of working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control. Strong childhood EFs predict higher socio-economic status, better physical health, and fewer drug-related problems and criminal convictions in adulthood. 

EFs have been shown to be measurable, malleable, and robustly associated with success across the lifespan.

Gates-Zuck are going to fix all the poor and deprived students of the country by putting them in front of some executive function software, so that we can get their cognitive skills and self-control to work the way the authors of the software think they should. They are going to track EF abilities, and they are going to mold them to what they "should" be. And these will involve "technology-enhanced programs in and outside of school."

The program will also measure EF qualities of the educator and environment, and take a look at the early "precursors" of these skills as well as looking at "neural underpinnings." 

This is all extraordinarily creepy as all get-out. And the longer you look at it, the creepier it gets-- follow the links if you dare.

Reasons To Maybe Not Be Completely Creeped Out

This is personalized [sic] learning at its worst-- a kind of Big Brother on Steroids attempt to take over the minds, hearts, and lives of children for God-knows-what nefarious schemes. Only two things make me feel just the slightest bit better about this.

First of all, I'm not sure that Gates-Zuck are evil mad scientist types, cackling wickedly in their darkened laboratory. I'm more inclined to see them as feckless-but-rich-and-powerful computer nerds, who still believe that education is just an engineering problem that can be solved by properly designed sufficiently powered software. They're technocrats who think a bigger, better machine is the best way to fix human beings. 

Second of all-- well, wait a minute. The two guys who have bombarded education with enough money to make a small island and who do not have a single clear-cut success to point to-- these guys think they've got it figured out this time? They have never yet figured out how to better educate the full range of ordinary students (nor ever figured out what "better educate" means) now think they can unlock the formula for better educating students with larger challenges? 

This is like going to a circus and the announcer hollers that Evel Von Wheeble is going to jump his motorcycle over fifty buses, and you get very excited until you read the program and see that Von Wheeble previously attempted to jump over ten, twenty and twenty-five buses-- and he failed every time. 

I suppose that we can also take some comfort in knowing that at this point, Gates-Zuck is just trying to round up people who think they can help them get over just one bus, and maybe everyone will just say, "I don't care how much money you have, this is patently ridicu--" No, who am I kidding. People will line up around the block to work on this. When you have Gates-Zuck type of money, nobody ever tells you to take a hike because you've failed too many times.

On top of that, while the edu-amateurs have no real successes to point at, they have done prodigious damage in their attempts. Gates became convinced that national standards would be awesome, and now we're all stuck with the shambling ghost of Common Core and the tests welded to it. Instead of jumping over the buses, they may well just drive a tank through all fifty of them, leaving twisted burned rubble in their wake.

Never mind. I don't feel any better about this. Gates and Zuckerberg continue to learn nothing about education, but it's the rest of us who keep having to pay their tuition.

Teacher Appreciation

It's Teacher Appreciation Week, and I'd like to say a few words about the teachers who have been important to me-- past, present and future. This list will not be inclusive, so apologies in advance to those I miss, but I have only so much time to type.

Past

There are many teachers who had a huge influence on my work.

When I was just in eighth grade, Mrs. O'Keefe showed me that an English teacher can incorporate just about any activity that involves words. We wrote and we created and we shared stuff in that class that made me excited to get to that room every day.

From my high school teachers, I picked up a variety of values about teaching. Mr. Ferrang showed me the power of waking up minds just by refusing to dumb things down for them. Mr. Eichholtz showed me that literature could be hugely exciting, and that you could form your own personal relationship with each work. Mr. Lore taught me about the power of high standards and expectations. Mr. Bianchi showed me the power of patience in a classroom (he also eventually left me his job when, in one of the best retirements stories ever, the day after his divorce was final, he hit the lottery for 75K and decided that was more than enough to fulfill his dream of sitting on the porch drinking beer and reading books). And my high school band director taught me most of what I know about leadership and courage and creating art and dealing with your mistakes.

In college, Dr. Frank taught me about the power of trusting students to search down their own path. And Dr. Zolbrod opened up a world of teaching possibilities for me while also modeling the gentlest and most supportive approach I've ever seen. The man could give you back a crappy C paper you had written and make you feel like a king who was going to do so much better next time.

Present

I work with a lot of good people, but some of the most influential teachers in my life are people I have only barely met, thanks to a whole world opened up by the blogging biz.

Jose and Mercedes have shown me so much about how a teacher can be a strong and powerful voice for the work-- while still doing it. The BATs and Educolor have demonstrated how to make a movement where before there was nothing, how to create a space and then fill it.

Future

I'm just about out the door here, and I appreciate folks like Stacy and Matt and Jamie and Steve and, well, the list goes on-- teachers who are in the beginning of their careers and will continue the work into the years ahead. My own former students who have picked up the torch and are running with it. All of them bring an energy and commitment to the work that demands respect. Plus, I'll mention the teacher I most appreciate-- my wife.

And somewhere out there are the teachers who will work with my grandchildren and with my young twins, and I'm already appreciating them.

The work is hard and important, and not everybody can do it. It matters that I have colleagues, near and far, who are doing that work, even in the face of obstacles that simply shouldn't exist. It's important that teachers have each others' backs, and that they raise each other up whenever they can.

Matching Acts

I have tried to adopt a new strategy in dealing with certain holidays. My problem with many holidays is that they come once a year. Why is that a problem? Years ago I talked to someone who worked at a extended care home for the elderly. "At Christmastime," she said, "We get so many people who want to come and sing and perform and reach out to our residents that we can barely schedule them in. Then by May, it's crickets."

We approach too many holidays, including things like birthdays, as a one-and-done business-- I've wished you a happy birthday and said something nice to you, so I don't have to be nice to you again for a whole year.

So I propose matching acts. By all means-- celebrate a birthday or send presents for Arbor Day. But then, at some other point of the year, do it again. Commit a matching act of appreciation.

So by all means, this week say or do or give something nice to a teacher. And then, find some other time this year to do it again. Reach out and lift up the people who have lifted you up over the years. And have a happy Teacher Appreciation Week.

Things For Which I'd Trade a Donut

It's Teacher Appreciation Day, and all across America, teachers are being treated to donuts and notepads and cookies and maybe a nice email from administration. I don't for one minute want to seem ungrateful for these things-- my administration is setting out some food in the lounge Thursdeay and I will be more than happy to accept that expression of appreciation by stuffing it in my mouth hole.

But like many teachers, I have mixed feelings about this day and the week of which it's a part.

I like donuts, and I like the thoughtfulness behind those appreciation donuts, but here are some of the things for which I would trade those donuts--

* A really nice chair and desk, maybe even located in a personal space. Teachers are the only professionals who can look enviously at cubicle dwellers. 

* Voters who stopped casting their votes for anti-education candidates for office. I don't care what party-- just stop voting for people who neither understand nor appreciate this country's system of public education. Stop voting for people who think teachers are overpaid layabouts. Stop voting for people who think public education is one more government program that should be shrunk until it's small enough to drown in a bathtub.

* Policies that support public education instead of attacking it, dismantling it, and privatizing it.

* Policies that show respect for teachers instead of assuming that anyone with a pulse can be stuck in a classroom with good results.

* An end to the use of narrow bad standardized tests as a measure of teacher quality.

* An end to the assumption that all teachers probably stink unless they can prove otherwise.

* Respect for the profession that runs so deep that policy-makers never launch a piece of policy without saying, "Well, we can't make a move on this without consulting some actual teachers." Or even-- and now I'm just fantasizing wildly-- policymakers who say, "Well, we can't possibly write this policy without teachers in the room with us. In fact, maybe we should just leave them in the room and we'll wait outside."

* Pay levels for teachers that, at a minimum, reflect the actual market value of the job and, at a maximum, reflect an honest desire to recruit and retain really good people to the profession.

* The end of narrow bad standardized tests as a measure of educational effectiveness.

* The end of narrow bad standardized tests as a measure of student learning.

* Hell, just get rid of the damned tests.

* Someone from the front office walks down to a teacher's classroom to say, "What can we in administration do to help you do your job?"

* Also, if my donut could have sprinkles on it, that would be cool.

South Carolina's Teacher Walkout

South Carolina is currently making a point that I've tried to make elsewhere-- the teacher walkouts in Arizona and Colorado and Kentucky and West Virginia [and Oklahoma] and (soon) North Carolina are not new. There's been a teacher walkout going on for a decade. But since the teachers haven't been walking out al at once, we've been calling it a shortage instead.

The State in Columbia, South Carolina is running a series of articles (also being run in several other McClatchy newspapers)* about the slow motion walkout.

Jamie Self has been on this beat for a while with the long-running series Classrooms in Crisis, and though it will take you a while to work through all of the reporting, it's well worth your time for the mixture of well-drawn detail and sense of the bigger picture. Much of this is familiar-- here's the South Carolina Teacher of the Year earning a second paycheck by stocking shelves at Sears (uh-oh). Here's a discussion of how measures to end the teacher shortage will cost money that state leaders don't want to pay. And for folks caught up in new discussions of how to discipline- or not-- students, here's a look at how teacher safety plays its part in the teacher "shortage."

South Carolina has also been involved in a trend that I first noticed being reported four years ago-- the outsourcing of teaching jobs. Recruitment was targeting Filipino teachers back then, but Self and Cody Dulaney report that South Carolina is now searching internationally, bringing in people who have no US passport and no teaching degree to take SC teaching jobs. International hires now make up 7% of the teaching force, part of a "cultural exchange," and not permanent hires. In addition to the Philippines, SC is drawing from Jamaica and India. That 7% statewide means that individual districts have substantial numbers. Hampton school district is employing 21 international teachers-- that's 36% of its teaching staff. Williamsburg has 79 international teachers.

But when we turn to big-picture stories like "Why SC teachers are leaving in record numbers," what's striking is that the problems listed are exactly the same issues that have led to teacher strikes in other states

"They're so tied up and worried about all the paperwork that needs to be done that they're unable to actually do the job that they applied for, which is educating children," said Natasha Jefferson, a Charleston mom worried about the education her eighth-grader is receiving. Two of his classes are taught by a rotating cast of substitute teachers.

Jennifer Garrett of the Center for Educator Recruitment, Retention and Advancement has some thoughts about the attempt to draw teachers from other states and countries:

We're not going to recruit ourselves out of this teacher shortage. Statistically, it's not possible to fill the gaps.

Self interviewed over three dozen current and former educators. Many asked not to be named, which all by itself tells you something about the atmosphere in SC schools. All of the complaints are familiar.

Pay too low to support a family.

Emphasis on the standardized test.

Endless meetings about administrivia and test prep, rather than a chance to work on the actual work.

The story of Theresa Schlosser includes an out-of-control first grader that she could not help, but that was not the main reason she left teaching:

An administrator saying, "'Don't worry, you'll teach them how to pass the test.,'" pushed her over her limit one day, she said.

"I had to go out in the hall and cry," Schlosser said, who is now a stay-at-home mom. "I didn't sign up for this, to teach somebody to pass a test."

South Carolina actually has a program that allows retirees to be pulled back into the classroom while still benefitting from their pension-- but that program ends soon, and a $10K limit on what retirees can earn will push many of them back out again.

And running through all the complaints, the refrain that "we are set up for failure" and a sense of powerlessness. Says Caleb Surface, who dropped out of the teaching pipeline while still in college. "Being able to enact change in the education system is not a task remotely accessible inside the classroom."

Low pay. Low benefits. Lack of power. Lack of resources. A focus on things other than actually doing the work of educating students. And a messy charter system that is not getting results, but is still draining money from the public system.

South Carolina lost almost 7,000 teachers last year. 1 in 20 SC teachers left the profession entirely. Teachers in the college pipeline have dropped by 30% in four years.

These are all the same factors that teachers are talking about in states with teacher strikes, but there are two critical differences. Because South Carolina's teachers are leaving one at a time-- or just seeking another career to begin with-- they aren't getting the same kind of attention as teachers in Arizona or West Virginia. The other difference is the bigger problem-- when the teachers of Arizona and West Virginia walked out, they did so with an announced willingness to come back to the classroom. But the exiting teachers of South Carolina are leaving, one by one, for good.

In short, legislators in states like South Carolina may consider themselves lucky that they aren't facing a full-out strike, but they are mistaken. Slow motion walkouts are harder to fix, easier to ignore, and permanent. States like South Carolina would be lucky to have a "real" strike, because it would force them to deal with the issues behind their fake teacher shortage. As it is, unless some leaders really step up, they will watch their education system bleed to death one drop at a time.

*I originally ran across the series in the News&Observer, but failed to notice that Self and Dulaney are connected to The State. This has been edited to correct my original mistake.

ICYMI: Zoo Day Edition (5/6)

Today the Pittsburgh Zoo hosts a reunion of sorts, and we are headed there shortly. But first I have some reading for you from the week. Remember to share the pieces that grab your attention.

Whither the Novel

Another district meets the EngageNY English language curriculum, and they are not impressed.

The Effect of Mandated 3rd Grade Retention

A study looks at Florida's policy requiring third graders to pass the BS Reading Test or be held back. How's that working out? As poorly as one would expect.

The Nation's Top Teachers Met with Betsy DeVos  

DeVos met with the fifty(ish) Teachers of the Year. Some came away a bit underwhelmed.

What Do We Teach in American Schools

Jersey Jazzman looks at some current stories in education and notes that these are not great days for the treatment of women.

Virtual Schools 2018

Ready for one more study showing that cyber schools don't deliver on any of their promises? NEPC has the newest entry in this ever-growing genre.

Bond Firm Takes Sides in Texas
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Turns out an investment firm in Texas has its own opinion about how charter schools affect the finances of public schools. It matches what many of us have been saying for years.

Full Control  

Mercedes Schneider revisits a truly awful article opposing teacher unions for charter schools.

Beware the "Learning Engineers"   

Wrench in the Gears looks at some of the technocrats behind new edumovements.

Important but False Claims about EVAAS in Ohio  

Audrey Amrein-Beardsley debunks some Ohio baloney

Finn's Trouble with Teacher Strikes

Chester "Checker" Finn is the former honcho of the Fordham Institute, but he still crops up from time to time to express his thoughts about one issue or another. Last week he decided to weigh in on the teacher strikes around the country. Like many conservatives, he's having trouble finding exactly the right notes to hit when opposing these work stoppages. Let me humbly disagree.

Finn starts out by acknowledging that there are reasons to sympathize with striking teachers:

They’re not very well paid, inflation is creeping up, a lot of classrooms are crowded with kids and lacking in textbooks and supplies, and a number of state and local budgets for school operations are extremely tight and sometimes declining.

All true, and all carefully sidestepping the fact that these are not things that just kind of happened somehow, but are the results of deliberate choices deliberately made by legislators in the affected states. But Finn does note that in addition to "wearing red, shutting down schools, and marching around," teachers have been showing their dissatisfaction by walking off the job one at a time.

But having acknowledged all of these things, Finn would like us to keep four other points in mind as we understand why those lousy teachers should be opposed how to balance these nuanced issues.

First,  "though state and local budgets in some places are tight because tight-fingered policymakers have cut taxes and slashed spending, in other places there’s just not as much revenue as was expected." He blames that on slow recovery, low growth and wealthy people running away to other states. That last one begs for some actual support-- is that really happening, really? The other two are a nicer way of observing that the expectations that weren't met are the same old magical baloney of trickle down economics. Kansas is just the most spectacular example of how the economic fantasy of austerity for the poor and tax cuts for the wealthy has failed. "Not as much revenue as was expected" is not an indictment of economic growth-- it's an indictment of state leaders whose powers of expectation were ruined by belief in voodoo economics. In short, the "low growth" is not something that "just happened" (just as the "great recession" was not a mysterious act of God and nature) but the direct result of bad policies by bad legislators who didn't do their damned jobs. This is like a head of a household spending the family budget on magic beans and then shrugging and saying, "Well, you know, some times things just don't work out. What are you going to do?"

Second, "U.S. school systems continue to use available dollars to hire more teachers rather than paying more generous salaries to the teachers they’ve already got—which also means hiring more teachers rather than better teachers."

On this point, Finn overlooks the obvious. More teachers = smaller classes. Smaller classes = more effective work by the teachers you've already got. The fantasy that teachers can be objectively ranked as if teacher quality exists in a vacuum is also a fantasy. Finn does note that two states where student population has grown faster than the employed teacher workforce are Oklahoma and Arizona. He bemoans the fact that Chicago teachers seem unlikely to move to Houston, but he blames it on tenure, benefits and pensions instead of, say, the fact that Houston offers little or no incentive for anyone to move there to teach.

Third is the same old teacher shaming. Teachers don't get enough respect, but they'd get more if they didn't support certain political and policy actions. Since they insist in on things like due process for firing and pay scales, well, they just lose the respect of the public. This would be a good place for Finn to insert some sort of evidence that in states where teachers don't have tenure or collective bargaining rights, they are much more respected, but oddly enough, no such evidence is offered. Finn also chides unions for protecting their weakest members, which is like criticizing lawyers for allowing defense attorneys to exist. Either you have due process or you don't, and if you want to be able to say, "Look, this guy stinks so much we should just fire him without any due process," then you are arguing that there should be no due process. Period.

Most of all, Finn wants us to pay teachers based on how excellent they are (and what they teach-- apparently Finn thinks phys ed teachers are overpaid), even though we do not have any method of effectively determining who's great and who's not. Finn refers to test results which A) are a lousy way to measure teacher awesomeness and B) currently only measure math and reading (and in some places, science). But hey-- if we magically implemented this system we don't know how to implement, people would respect teachers more.

Fourth-- well, let's go really old school. Teachers work short days and get summers off, so they don't deserve more pay. It's sad that some teachers take extra jobs, admits Finn, but he blames the school year and work day for being too short. You can pick your favorite counter-argument to this one. Compare the actual hours and days and find that teachers don't work that much less. Compare teacher wages to other workers who don't put in a full year, like pro basketball stars. Compute what you would have to pay teachers if you paid them babysitter wages (spoiler alert: a ton). Observe that teachers are frickin' professionals and not hourly workers. Or, for the free market conservatives, note that the going rate for a thing, whether it's a commodity, a manufactured good, or skilled labor, is set by the invisible hand, and not what you feel like paying. If you think the work is so short and easy, come do it yourself.

So Finn's argument against the strikes range from the creatively misguided to old-school insulting. He has, of course, completely ignored the part of this that is flummoxing many conservatives-- the strikes are not simply about teacher wages but about teaching conditions. When you say teachers should suck it up and teach classes of forty kids, you are saying that parents should be happy to put their kids in forty-student classes. When you argue that teachers should stop whining about moldy rooms, you are saying that students should gladly sit in those rooms as well. When you argue that teachers should not get fussy about forty-year-old textbooks, you are saying that students should be happy with those books as well. Teachers work conditions really are student learning conditions, and when those conditions have been deliberately degraded by people who want to save a buck or leaders who want to drive more families into charter schools-- in short, when those lousy conditions are the result of deliberate bad choices made by legislators, then all the teacher shaming in the world isn't really going to help.

Finn says that if we want to ameliorate these conditions, "a great many things need to change in very big ways." He's correct, but those many things are less about teachers being uppity and more about state leaders actually committing to support public education.

My Imaginary Gun

What if the shooter came in right.... now?

Because this is the world we live in now, I've been conducting a little thought experiment for almost two months. What would I do if a shooter entered my building, and if I were armed?

The thought experiment has been pretty simple-- at various moments during my teaching day, I imagine that a shooter has just entered the building, maybe nearby or maybe in another wing. My building is pretty spread out and sprawling, There certainly scenarios in which an active shooter situation plays out so far away from me that I don't even know about until it's over, or in which I find out from announcement, text, or fleeing students, and I simply take my students and go running out of one of the two nearby exits.

I suppose in some of those scenarios I could grab my gun and head toward the shooter. I don't know if I'm that brave or not, but I do know I would feel a primary obligation to stay with my own students and make sure that they had someone with them to help get them to safety and to help keep them from freaking out.

One of the things I immediately noticed as I started conducting the experiment was that the vast majority of the time, I am surrounded by students. If a shooter enters my room and I'm on the other side, I have to shoot past students to hit him (I always assume that it will be a him). If the shooter targets a crowded area, like a school assembly or a lunch period, there would be students between us and behind him. In the hall between classes? More of the same.

In short, in the vast number of scenarios that I imagined, I would have to be a well-trained sharpshooter with a weapon more accurate than a handgun to fire at the active shooter without hitting my own students.

Many of these scenarios would also require me to be carrying the gun with me at all times, which opens up its own set of scenarios that I did not really consider, other than to note that most of those scenarios are bad.

What if my class has enough warning to lock down in place, and I'm using the firearm to defend the door? This is a problem in my case because there are two doors into my classroom, and the take cover area for my room would have to be the space between those doors. In other words, I would have to make a choice about which door to stand beside, and if I guess wrong, there will be students between me and the other door I want to defend.

I could play this morbid game for weeks because there are so many alternative scenarios, and the specifics of each one make a huge difference. What if the shooter comes when students are doing a presentation, or doing group work spread out over two classrooms and the hall? What difference will it make if the shooter shows up during the period when my students tend to listen to me as opposed to the period when the students tend to dismiss everything I say?

And what would I do if, as is often the case, the shooter is a current or former student? Could I shoot at a student?

After conducting this thought experiment, I can say this-- while I can't say that a gun would never, ever be useful in a shooter situation, I can say that 98 times out of 100, it would not be helpful at all. And that's just assuming I would be properly and regularly trained enough to stay relatively cool under pressure. If I measure that against all the possible problems of having the gun on my person or in my room, I must conclude again that arming teachers is folly. Of course, the noise about arming teachers has gotten much quieter since teachers started getting all militant with strikes and walkouts and gathering around the state capitol.

Why conduct this experiment at all? Because that's the world we live and teach in now. Why did I stop the experiment? Same reason. My wife came home yesterday after spending a half day learning about how to stop bleeding in a gunshot wound victim. She spent a half day learning about packing material into wounds so that her ten-year-old students would be less likely to bleed out in a nightmare shooter scenario.

That's the world we live in-- a world in which schools think about this stuff way too much. So I'm going to do my part by thinking about it less. Thought experiment over. Don't arm teachers.