It’s always interesting when Bob Herbert tackles education reform, and unlike many op-ed columnists, he actually goes out and does reporting.  In his piece, “Where the Bar Ought To Be,” he visits one of the Harlem Village Academy schools run by Deborah Kenny.  Herbert is impressed by what he sees at this charter school, taking special note of the discipline with which the place is run: “When I asked one boy why there were no fights in the school, he replied, ‘Because it’s not allowed.’” After expressing more admiration, he draws some conclusions.  Good teaching is not about teaching to the test—instead, you need to find great teachers, inspire them and get out of the way. Or to quote:

The first step in that complex, difficult process is to create a school environment that has standards high enough and challenging enough to appeal to very good people. “You put all of your focus on finding great people,” said Ms. Kenny, “and you establish a culture that helps them constantly learn and grow and become better at what they do. You have to provide a community in the school that supports and respects teachers. And you have to give them the kind of freedom that allows their passion for teaching to flourish.

But the key point here is that the Harlem Village Academies are charter schools.  This means that they are not encumbered by union rules on hiring or firing.  Herbert does mention this, but wants to de-emphasize it  and so he quotes Kenny to back his point:

Charter schools, of course, can fire teachers for poor performance. “Obviously, none of us should be allowed to be in front of children if we’re not doing a good job,” Ms. Kenny said. “But the threat of being fired if you don’t do a good job is not what makes a teacher great.”

Kenny is not wrong here, but neither is she precisely correct.  It is certainly true that the threat of being fired is not what makes a teacher great.  On the other hand, if it is essentially impossible to fire a teacher, you’ll have trouble getting teachers who are even good.  Dr. Johnson famously noted that “nothing focuses the mind like a hanging.”

Herbert is anxious to applaud the many flowers that are the teachers at Kenny’s school, but you can’t grow flowers without killing weeds.  Charter schools have their problems and can be run badly, but they are the best hope for pulling poor kids out of poverty. As this Esquire profile of Kenny notes:

The numbers alone tell a compelling story. Locally, passing rates for seventh-grade math hover around 30 percent. At HVA, the rate is a stunning 96 percent. Kenny takes kids, by lottery, from the same blocks and projects and turns them into stellar students ready to move on to higher education, proving that poverty and fractured home lives are conquerable by a quality education.

If we could sweep away the inefficiencies that plague our system, maybe more students and schools could thrive the HVA way.