TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/111191/1111510.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 10.4 KB | 254 lines

                                                                                INTERVIEW, Page 20

Reading, Writing -- and Iroquois Politics


Controversial educator THOMAS SOBOL defends the teaching of
multiculturalism in American history, explains why parochial
classrooms are often better than public ones, and admits that
he oversees some schools he wouldn't let his own kids attend

By GEORGE RUSSELL and Thomas Sobol


    Q. As New York State education commissioner, you have
caught a lot of heat for recommending that we emphasize
multiculturalism in American history.

    A. The heat doesn't surprise me. There is probably no more
volatile subject in American political life than race. That
doesn't make it any less important that we find the
constructive, moderate, middle position on the matter.


    Q. What exactly is that position?

    A. My goal is that all of us in this society come to know
more about one another, partly to live better with one another
than we are sometimes now doing. There is no inconsistency
between teaching the common democratic values and traditions
that unite us and teaching more about our differences. In fact,
they're complementary. It's just teaching more of the truth
about more of our people to all of our students. Can I give you
an example?


    Q. Go ahead.

    A. About three or four years ago, I was visiting Thomas
Jefferson High School in Brooklyn. The school is largely black,
a few Hispanic and a few white kids. I sat in on a group of
blacks trying to come to grips with the name of the school,
Thomas Jefferson. There were some who thought Jefferson was
probably one of the greatest Americans; they ought to be very
proud to be part of a school that bears his name. Others said,
Thomas Jefferson kept slaves. How can you have any pride in
yourself as a young black American while being part of a school
that bears the name of a slave owner?

    The discussion was guided by a very skillful teacher, who
eventually got a good many of the kids around to the point that
in a way both things are true. The point is that it became
possible for those otherwise alienated blacks to feel
comfortable with a larger tradition in which they had a role.


    Q. One of the criticisms of multiculturalism is that it's
a cover-up of the failure of education to help blacks.

    A. There's no question we haven't done a very good job
educating a lot of black and Hispanic kids. At the same time,
I don't pretend that if we just make our educational program a
little bit more multicultural, all the problems of black and
Hispanic academic achievement are going to disappear. They're
not. This isn't the only thing that needs to be done. But it
needs to be done. The truth of our history demands it.


    Q. Diane Ravitch, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of
Education, once said that New York State's curriculum is perhaps
the only one that describes the main influences on the U.S.
Constitution as the Enlightenment and the Iroquois political
system. Why do you teach that?

    A. Well, it depends on the way we teach it. It's very
clear to me that our Constitution derives from the political
traditions and thinking of Western Europe. Now it is a fact, I
guess, that the Iroquois nations learned to live compatibly with
one another. Whether or not that had any impact on the people
who were the framers of the Constitution, I don't know, but I
am set to acknowledge its possible influence in part. It makes
sense to me not to overemphasize it.


    Q. But why teach it at all?

    A. Why teach anything that's part of our history if there
are only a few people involved? Why would you want not to teach
it?


    Q. For a number of reasons, including the likelihood that
talking about it is not germane to the Constitution.

    A. Those are good considerations, but the fact is that
there were people here in New York State before the Europeans
arrived. They had some forms of government. I don't think it's
irrelevant for people to know what all of that was. We're not
out to make a Dances with Wolves; we're not out to romanticize
anything. But I see no harm in talking about it.


    Q. Another concern about multiculturalism is that we are
not teaching history for its own sake but to insert lessons in
self-esteem into the curriculum.

    A. It's not a goal of what we're doing. Our goal is
intellectual honesty. But if it happened to promote self-esteem
along the way, why would anyone object?


    Q. Some people disagree that there is a direct correlation
between improvement in self-esteem and the ability to learn.

    A. There is that correlation, by the way. Any experienced
teacher will tell you that those children learn better who think
well about themselves. What would be dangerous to do -- and
what we are not doing -- is to try to create a history program
with the false goal of making kids feel good.


    Q. What do you think about setting up separate schools for
black males to improve their education?

    A. I'm not comfortable with it. Again, my goal is to bring
people together, not be divisive. I understand the motivation
for it. Most of the people who seem attracted to that movement
strongly feel that kids have not been given a good education
elsewhere, and they're trying to find something that works. Lots
of white kids attend schools with virtually no minority
population, and we tend not to be concerned about that. So you
can sort of understand the motivation of other people who want
to do the same thing.


    Q. Why are you concerned in the one case and not in the
other?

    A. I guess I'm a product of my own upbringing. It's just
more traditional to accept that as the norm in society.


    Q. Frustration with public education is at an all-time
high. How come?

    A. First and foremost, many circumstances have changed in
society, and schools have not kept pace. Our demography, how
parents spend their time, the increase in the use of technology,
the globalism of our economy -- the world has changed
dramatically. But the schools by and large are the same. You can
make a case that in many respects the schools are improving, not
getting worse. For example, when my father graduated from high
school around World War I, 1 of 4 Americans did so. Now we're
graduating 3 of 4. The problem is that the modern economy can't
tolerate a condition in which 1 of 4 young people fails to
complete high school. We don't have large railroads to build by
hand or forests to clear or whatever. We don't have that demand
for relatively unskilled labor anymore.

    Another reason is that more kids are spending more time on
their own; they're not under adult supervision. Schools are
being called upon to do more in this area. We're not equipped
to do it very well. Some schools do a good job of it, others do
less, but it all fuels the dissatisfaction.


    Q. There also seems to be a feeling that graduates are
less competent.

    A. I'm not sure that our best students from our best
schools are less well prepared than when I graduated. Where I
agree is that many of our graduates still lack the skills they
need to function effectively in this society, and this requires
vigorous programs for change.


    Q. Not being able to read and write is a fairly serious
deficiency.

    A. It is a very, very serious matter. It is not just that
some of our urban schools are failing, but even in our gilded
suburbs we are not doing the job we should for many of our kids.
We have a program right now for trying to solve that, the New
Compact for Learning.


    Q. What is it?

    A. It's an agreement among parents, educators, government
and business in New York State to come together to make the
required changes in the system. It has certain principles. The
first is, we've got to focus on results. The job is not to teach
lessons, conduct classes. The job is to make sure the students
learn. The second is that you can't be satisfied with minimum
competence. The third is that you have to reward success and
remedy failure. Many of our traditional schools seem to be like
the societies of Eastern Europe -- a sense of staleness, lack
of ownership by the participants, going through the motions.
We've got to create incentives for people to push toward better
results.

    The last of the principles is the notion that it takes the
whole village to raise a child. The schools have the kids only
180 days a year, for several hours a day. The rest of the time
the children are away from those influences.


    Q. You raise many issues, but one of them you avoid is
school choice, the notion that parents can opt to send their
kids to private schools, using public funds to help them.

    A. One of the proposals we tentatively made about a year
or so ago was a pilot program of non-public school choice where
the public schools were demonstrably failing some students. In
the end, the opposition -- from the teachers' union,
school-board associations, school-administrative groups -- was
so forceful we withdrew the proposal. One of the reasons I made
the proposal was to penetrate people's consciousness that the
need for fundamental reform is real and that we are serious
about it.


    Q. Why do you think the parochial school system performs
better than the public system?

    A. First, any child in that system is there because
somebody in that child's life made a conscious decision that
that's where they ought to be. Somebody is interested in the
child and the child's education. Second, the relative lack of
a dead hand of bureaucracy: I think they have flexibility. Also,
the ethos. There simply is a set of values that takes it for
granted that learning is important. But I was for many years a
school superintendent in the Scarsdale public school system,
which turned out many highly successful students. It was the
norm in that school that people would take learning seriously,
and they achieved well.


    Q. Are you willing to dissolve a school in the New York
system because it is not doing its job?

    A. Yes, or at least shut it down and reorganize it. There
are some schools in this state I would not want any of my
children attending, and I think it is terribly wrong that we
permit them to continue. My first instinct would be to
collaborate with the people involved and try to get them to
improve the situation. But if that did not work, of course we
would want to change the situation.