A Call for a Do Not Call Policy for Military Recruiting

As my first novel, The Sex Ed Chronicles, went through serious editing, I started a second story that revolves around another controversial subject in high schools and colleges: Army recruiting on campus.

The change in subjects has not been a big jump.

Military recruiting and sex education have more in common than you might think.

Both are focal points for parental debates and they are the most publicized examples where a federal government has tried to “meddle” in the affairs of local public schools. In addition, the armed forces, as well as pro-choice and pro-life organizations, advertise wisely to influence high school students to make decisions. Lastly, in both, students and parents fear the serious consequences of making the wrong decision.

The federal government does not ask high school and college students to join the armed forces per se; they provide the legislation and the tools for the recruiters to do it. Such legislation is far from new; in 1980, in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iran hostage crisis, President Jimmy Carter received approval from Congress to reinstate mandatory registration for military service for males 18 through 25. I was a sophomore in college at the time. I registered as required, however, military recruiters never contacted me, nor was I asked to serve. I was perfectly happy to comply with that policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Military recruiters were welcome on campus while I was in high school during the late 1970’s. They did the same as college admissions officers. They set-up shop in the guidance office for the better part of a day; gym teachers were more than willing to excuse students from class to talk to them. I was unaware of any complaints; this seemed like a symbiotic relationship for students, teachers, and recruiters too. However, the country was not at war in 1978.

I guess military recruiters must be far busier at wartime in the 21^st century, and they cannot afford to spend their days waiting for their best prospects to stop by the guidance office. They also have better advertising, video games and the Internet at their disposal. And today, under No Child Left Behind, recruiters have access to junior and senior student contact information, presumably, so they can mail literature, or call students outside of school. They don’t have to wait until students turn 18.

Congress has debated revisions to No Child Left Behind, although a reauthorized Act will be on-hold until after a new president is sworn in. While Democrats and Republicans have proposed amendments to No Child Left Behind, none discussed revisions to the policies that cover military recruiting.

Only one presidential candidate, Democrat Bill Richardson of New Mexico, proposed scrapping No Child Left Behind in its entirety. Unfortunately, Governor Richardson fared poorly in the Iowa caucus as well as the New Hampshire primary and dropped out of the race. If you’re upset about “high stakes” standardized tests and aggressive military recruiting in high schools, he would have been your candidate.

If you’re still unsure about who to vote for, and you live in an early-primary state, it’s worth your time to check the candidate’s positions on No Child Left Behind, as well as the rest of their political resume. Unless No Child Left Behind were to be scrapped by the next presidential administration—an unlikely scenario at this time —Americans will have to live with a reauthorized act, with a pro-military policy in place.

I’m not firmly pro-military, nor anti-war, on this issue so, I propose a unique solution.

Unlike peace activists, I see no big deal with the Army, and other branches of the service, sending direct mail pieces to high school students’ homes; they already advertise aggressively on TV and the Internet. If you don’t want your son or daughter to enlist, and they agree, just throw the literature away. I also see no big deal with military displays on campus or the optional assemblies; they’ve proven effective when veterans, instead of recruiters, tell why they have chosen to serve. Those who aren’t gung-ho about enlisting don’t have to go.

But I am concerned about aggressive one-to-one marketing on high school campuses when it conflicts with classes. For instance, I had lunch with one of my former high school teachers this past fall, and she told me that students took unexcused absences from class to speak to recruiters, while the recruiters rudely allowed that to happen.

That’s conduct unbecoming to the military, who are usually respectful to civilians, but it can be resolved between the schools and the military at the station and company commander levels.

I’d prefer that recruiters show better discretion when it comes to calling students at home—or better yet, not call them until after graduation.

A “do-not-call” policy should be written into legislation covering military recruiting under No Child Left Behind, in place of the opt-out policy on the books now.

Do-not-call is fair to everyone: students, parents, schools, and the military.

Students focus on school first and recruiters can place more efforts into prospects that are in a better position to make a decision. Recruiters can still mail them, and students and their parents can meet with voluntarily. We already trust students and their parents to ask questions, or tell recruiters to take no for an answer.

The public schools should never be put themselves in the position of influencing a student’s decision to serve. They are now, because they must collect student data under the opt-out policy. Principals jobs are on the line if they over-hype or soft-peddle this.

More important, our country is better served by a military comprised of high school graduates. It is in the nation’s best interest for the military to wait until its less decisive prospects have received their diplomas.

Do-not-call is easier to enforce. It respects the students and parents, it takes the schools out of the data collection picture, and it is much easier for the public to understand.

Federal Match Makes College More Affordable for Scholarship Students

As 2007 drew to a close, four of the nation’s most selective colleges: Harvard, Duke, Swarthmore and Pomona, all announced plans to revamp their financial aid policies by replacing loans with grants. Other institutions, most notably Princeton and Columbia, had already implemented similar plans.

Harvard’s policy is novel; according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the university announced that families with incomes between $120,000 and $180,000 would be asked to contribute no more than 10 percent of their student’s total expenses for college, while the neediest families would pay nothing. Harvard will raise it’s student financial aid budget by $22 million to implement this policy. With a $35 billion endowment, highest in the nation, Harvard can afford to do it; the added monies for aid are just a drop in the bucket.

This is good news for anyone wishing to apply to Harvard; cost is less of a detriment to well-qualified candidates in upper middle class families. A $180,000 family income gets spread awfully thin when there’s more than one child in college and the family lives in a high-cost metro area. But if cost is less of a detriment to going to Harvard, than Harvard will become more selective, because the number of applications will surely rise.

This has a ripple effect, students apply to more colleges, so they’re sure they will be admitted somewhere; other institutions become more selective too. Few can afford to do what Harvard has done. Imagine the resentment in a household where a Harvard reject must attend their safety school—and must pay more than they would have paid to go to Harvard, even if the safety school is their state university.

It’s difficult to pity families in this predicament; the parents earn a good income and their child has not wanted for much, until this point. There are small tax credits; the Hope Tax Credit allows a deduction of $1,650 per student for the first two years of college, and the Life Long Learning Tax Credit may cover up to $2,000 of tuition for the remaining years. The cap on family income for these credits is $114,000.  

The relief is paltry when I consider that Rutgers, my home state university, costs $20,000 for tuition, fees, room and board for an in-state student. It’s reasonable to expect the entering freshmen and their parents to spend $100,000 for a bachelor’s degree after four years, and certainly after five.

Government loans can’t cover the total cost of a Rutgers degree; the maximum undergraduates may borrow ranges from $7,500 to $10,500—and that’s for a combination of interest-subsidized and unsubsidized loans. The maximum they may borrow for four years is $37,000; this principal is unlikely to rise as fast as Rutgers’ tuition.

The federal government allows borrowers to consolidate those loans and repay them over 20 years; our $37,000 borrower repays $295 a month.

Assuming they qualified; there are needs tests associated with these loans.

Assuming they have no other loans at higher interest rates; the interest on interest- subsidized loans is 6.8 percent, and 7.9 percent for unsubsidized loans. Lord help any college student or parent who pays more principal and interest on student loans; it’s not worth it.

So what’s a family to do, if federal loans can’t cover the difference between their resources and the total cost of college?

I guess they could hope their child gets into Harvard, or its kin.

Or they could hope that colleges loosen their purse strings; according to the National Association of College and University Business Administrators, the average institution spends only 4.6 percent of their endowment. The approach of Congress and the Bush Administration has been to slap colleges on the wrist and tell them to or loosen purse strings so that financial aid spending can be cut. The finger pointing is useless; the colleges have little to no incentive to cooperate.

The way I see it, we need an incentive to encourage schools to make more scholarship aid available, to encourage students and parents to become more financially prudent, and encourage students to do their best in the classroom. Grades are still important interview selection criteria; recruiters ask career centers to filter resumes by GPA before they see them.

Therefore, I propose a new incentive called the Federal Scholarship Match.

It works like this: for every dollar, up to $7,500, earned through an academic or service scholarship, the federal government would match it, up to the total cost of tuition, fees, room and board. This would not preclude a student from receiving other assistance; if the match doesn’t meet the total financial need, the student can receive loans or other aid.

Thus, for example, a bright student who receives a $3,000 scholarship to Rutgers (from any source other than the federal government: private, state, the school) would receive an additional $3,000. If he received a full-tuition ($8,500 today) scholarship, he’d receive an additional $7,500 in federal match, so he and his family would be responsible for the balance, or $4,000.

The family with the six-figure income could pay the $4,000 out of their pocket—or the student could earn it through employment.

I can just see the head spins and eye rolls in some quarters of the higher education community; this proposal redefines the idea of need-based aid. This is what I’d hear: The match puts the needs of the brightest, regardless of income, over the truly needy. It would also reduce the number of full-ride scholarships offered out of college coffers because the government would chip in.

I disagree with the first point; if a student was motivated enough to earn a scholarship, they deserve the opportunity to go to college. They also deserve to stay, if they were motivated enough to maintain the grades to keep an academic award.

The second point is true, but colleges could offer an affordable education to more students. The matching program needs a catch: colleges must loosen their purse strings to qualify for the match and agree to aid more students.

In effect, the federal government would give every college the incentive to follow Harvard’s lead.

Who knows: a success match program could encourage Congress to offer young taxpayers a tax credit to help sustain it; thankful recipients could apply some of the money that they might be applying to student loan debt.

And they’d help future generations, including their children, pay for college.

Tales from the True History of Sex Education in New Jersey

The day after New Year’s, I got a call from Susan Wilson, a former member of New Jersey’s state board of education and former executive director of the Family Life Education Network (now called Answer), based at Rutgers, my alma mater.

While I wrote The Sex Ed Chronicles as a work of historical fiction, Susan Wilson made the true history of sex education in the Garden State; she has helped shape public policy and programs for sex education for 30 years. The day after we spoke, I received a Rutgers publication: The Struggle for Sex Education in New Jersey, 1979-2003: Policy, Persistence and Progress, as well as the two most recent issues of Sex, etc., a teen-focused magazine. Susan told me that she wanted to read my book; it was only right that I read this material as soon as I received it.

Sex education enjoyed popular public support in New Jersey. A September, 1980 Rutgers Eagleton Poll found that 78 percent of respondents thought that sex education should be taught in junior and senior high schools—and, most important, the proposed legislation had the backing of the New Jersey Catholic Conference. The Catholic bishops agreed to support the legislation provided parents and religious leaders would be full-partners with the schools in local sex education programs.

However, the state teacher’s union and school boards association opposed parental involvement in sex education at the school district level, as well as the idea of an unfunded mandate. They, along with concerned parents and right-to-life groups, succeeded in delaying full-implementation of sex education programs in all school districts until 1983. The most important organization involved with implementation was the Network for Family Life Education. Susan Wilson was the Network’s second executive director; she ran it for 23 years.

Starting with only in-kind office space, and no money, the Network for Family Life Education successfully raised funds to assist school districts with implementation from numerous sources. These included 1,200-member speaker’s bureau and a partnership with the Washington-based Children’s Defense Fund for posters and $1 million in free billboard space.

The Network also played a major role in defeating “stress-abstinence” legislation for 22 years. While the 1980 legislation was re-authorized twice, in 1985 and 1990, bills to “stress abstinence” fell to opposition in the state senate in 1989 and to governor’s veto in 1993. By 1993, the state’s school board and teacher’s union had joined with the Network to oppose “stress abstinence” while the Catholic Conference had gone on the record in favor.

However, “stress abstinence” policy passed the legislature; it was signed into law in 2003, an election year for the state assembly. There was a footnote in the material Susan Wilson passed on to me that might explain why “stress abstinence” became law; it highlighted that formerly moderate New Jersey Republicans had shifted to the right in order to head off challenges from conservative opponents in their primaries. This included votes for a “stress-abstinence” policy.

While “stress abstinence” is currently the law in New Jersey, the state’s department of health and education recommended that, certain aspects of sex education be shifted to lower grades. They recommended, for example, that puberty be discussed in the 4^th grade, instead of the sixth, abstinence and sexual feelings be taught in the 6^th grade instead of the eighth and sexual orientation be taught in the 8^th grade instead of the 12^th.

More impressive than these policy changes is the growth of Sex etc as a resource; circulation of the magazine reached 2.2 million by 2003, and there’s been Web-based content at sexetc.org for ten years. The print and online content is written by teens for teens, though professionals handle the tougher questions.

Most interesting, content is balanced; not every writer made the same choices in their sexual relations. The content disputes conservative thought that comprehensive sex education is a “liberal” issue; everyone received complete, medically accurate, information to make his or her own decisions, including abstinence.

It’s not impossible, after reading an issue of Sex etc, to believe that teens could learn as much as they want about sex, and then elect to abstain. That’s their choice.

I could only wish that the New Jersey legislature agreed.

It’s possible “stress abstinence” could be over-turned in New Jersey, as Democrats control majorities in the state assembly and senate, and occupy the governor’s office. In 2006, Governor Jon Corzine turned down federal funds for abstinence-only education; he was one of the first governors to do so.

However, while there may be enough support for repeal, this may not be the right time. New Jersey faces a $3 billion deficit and the governor has proposed an ambitious, but politically unpopular recovery plan: to boost highway tolls every five years. I doubt the governor would take on additional political headaches from conservative opposition, so I would expect “stress abstinence” to stay on the books for at least another year.

New Jersey is often a butt of jokes about corruption and pollution, but the Garden State has some of the most progressive sex education policies in the country.

For that, we have to thank Susan Wilson and the Network for Family Life Education.

A U.S. Public Service Academy is Unnecessary

As the new year begins, I read of a proposal for a U.S. Public Service Academy; its admissions, leadership training and post-graduate service obligations would be modeled after the five U.S. military academies.

The author of the proposal, Chris Myers Asch, a Teach for American veteran, has said that 16 senators and 93 representatives support legislation for the new academy. The legislation to create the academy is sponsored by Democratic presidential aspirant Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee has endorsed it.

There must be something in the water in Hope, Arkansas.

This proposal is a bad idea. I have studied military recruiting in preparing a new novel and have previously worked with college career counselors, so I’m qualified to explain why. The enrollment target of 1,275 entering freshmen, rising to 5,100 undergraduates, is too ambitious, and the proposed institution is unnecessary.

It would be more cost-effective to model the academy proposal after ROTC programs; ROTC covers tuition, fees and living allowances at accredited universities and provides the same summer leadership experiences as the military academies. Better, ROTC allows for “late-bloomers,” students who have waited until their junior years in college to declare their major and interest in military service.

The author made an extremely valid point: the military academies are among the most selective institutions in the land because they offer a free education, fulfill a desire to serve, and to lead. The reputation of the educational experience is unquestioned in the military and the private sector.

However, that experience can be offered less expensively without building a new national university. For example, INROADS, a national and privately sponsored internship organization, places 4,500 minority college-age youth in business, communications and engineering assignments in over 400 corporations, while also offering coaching, counseling and leadership training. INROADS has no ties to schools, but operates 50 offices across the country.

I understand why the author wanted to model a public services academy after the military academies, but I wonder why America needs a similarly elite public service institution when there are so many fine public policy, education and law enforcement programs offered in hundreds of colleges and universities. This is less true for the military. Only the military can teach military science. That is why we have military academies as well as active duty instructors teaching in ROTC programs, as well as public and private military colleges; civilians cannot teach the art and science of war.

The military academies retain another advantage over a civilian counterpart: they always find summer training assignments for Cadets, Midshipmen and the like during war and peace. There are fewer concerns about security clearances for trainees, since they will be serving in the same armed forces for the five years after they graduate. Law enforcement agencies and public school systems cannot offer the same experiences, especially to underclassmen.

In additions to comparisons with the military academies, I also have to consider a Public Service Academy against recent college start-ups in this country. It’s wise to look at the accomplishments of well-financed, recently opened post-secondary schools, then consider them against the merits of this public proposal.

The Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering opened in 2001 with a “pre-freshman” class of 30 Olin Partners, students who had turned down offers of admission from the leading engineering schools. The following year, Olin welcomed a freshman class of 75 students.  According to Olin’s Web site, these students, like the original 30 Partners, were close to the cream of the crop for engineering school applicants:

 They represent 34 states and one foreign country; they have an average GPA of 4.3 on a 4.0 scale; 29 are National Merit Finalists; three are U.S. Presidential Scholars; 41 were recognized by the Advanced Placement program for academic excellence; 29 were valedictorians or salutatorians; and, in a rarity for an engineering school, the class is gender balanced. 

Olin is still extremely selective; their total enrollment is just under 300 students, with 75 spots expected to be available in next year’s freshman class. 

Patrick Henry College, the first U.S. college founded specifically for Christian home-schooled students opened in 2000 with 92 students. Today the College enrolls 325. 

Ave Maria University, the first new U.S. Catholic university in 50 years, opened its campus in 2003, also with a freshman class of 75 students. Today the university enrolls 600. 

The University of California-Merced, the newest public state university, enrolls 1,800 students. According to their 2005 budget report, UC-Merced opened with 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students in the fall of 2005. Total investment in the campus at the time was $427 million, more than twice the amount proposed for the U.S. Public Service Academy.

These four schools had the benefit of generous financial support from foundations (Olin), wealthy individuals (Patrick Henry and Ave Maria) and the largest state in the union (UC-Merced).

Yet none of these schools set a first year enrollment target as ambition as the one for the proposed U.S. Public Service Academy.

If the legislation for the proposed academy were to pass with its current enrollment targets, and built in Washington DC, the institution would be critically under-funded.

It would also be an elite public school we don’t need.

Eleanor and Ike: Historical Fiction Parallels Today’s Presidential Campaign Politics

My first attempt at fiction, The Sex Ed Chronicles, was based on historical events in my hometown and state, but it was a story of fictional characters. However, there are brilliant works of historical fiction that stay truer to history, when they use well-known historical figures in alternate scenarios.

Eleanor and Ike is one such work.

In Eleanor and Ike, the presidential race features no incumbent president or vice president, only the year is 1952 and the former First Lady at the top of the ticket is Eleanor Roosevelt. It’s interesting, as I read this story, the similarities to the current aspirations of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Like Hillary, Eleanor subordinated personal political ambitions to advance the career of her husband. As First Ladies both traveled around the world representing the United States, were active in the cause of working women and opposition to racial discrimination. Both played important roles in shaping foreign policy. They also had to lead in times of war. Sadly, both had to deal with extramarital affairs before their husbands became President.  

Robin Gerber, the author of Eleanor and Ike, is an Eleanor Roosevelt scholar; she’s also written a non-fiction work about the late First Lady’s leadership style.

In this work, Eleanor does not promise to continue the economic policies of her late husband’s New Deal in this post-World War II world. She calls her platform America’s Deal based on equality of rights: the right to an education according to ability; the right to earn a living according to ability; the right to equal justice before the law; and the right to participate in government through the ballot, protection of civil liberties, and universal health care.

That’s a platform Hillary Clinton, or any other Democratic candidate, could have run on 56 years later.

America’s Deal would not be the only similarity; we feared nuclear proliferation and the emergence of controversial leadership in Korea then, as now. There were also concerns about homeland security dominating the news in 1952, just as they do today. We also have fears at home; then it was the spread of Communism, today it is terrorism.

Had Eleanor Roosevelt actually run for President, she, like Hillary Clinton, would have led at a time after our institutions, such as Congress and the presidency, had been attacked at gunpoint. President Eleanor Roosevelt would have taken office two years after immigrant gunmen attempted to assassinate President Truman, in the cause of Puerto Rican independence. Puerto Rican Nationalists opened fire on a live session of the House of Representatives 14 months after Eisenhower took office, injuring five members of Congress.

In Gerber’s work, Eleanor’s campaign also thinks about “change”, just as presidential candidates do today.  As she is about to kick-off her campaign, a band plays Rocket 88 by Jackie Brenston and Ike Turner, a hymn of praise to the joys of the Oldsmobile “Rocket 88″ automobile; it’s also rumored she will campaign in an Oldsmobile 88 convertible. When Eleanor asks about the choice of song, she’s told: “It represents change. It’s a young people’s song, not a gray-haired grandma kind of song.”

This is where historical fiction breaks away from the realities of today’s Democratic campaign; Hillary Clinton has been unfairly portrayed as old news and politics-as-usual, when the truth is that she has not been a member of the party in power during six of her seven years in the Senate. I don’t see how any Democratic candidate who comes from the Senate could be viewed as a leader for change when they didn’t have the chance to win votes for their legislation.

That goes for Senators Clinton and Obama; John Edwards has not been an office holder for the past four years. However, it also goes true for the Republicans; as former House Speaker Dennis Hastert once said, they’ve carried the water for their president. There are not many new tunes from the other side, just a rewind of the same Bush songs.

When asked if Eleanor Roosevelt could be elected president today, Gerber said that she’d win in a landslide. She says there is a deep hunger in our country for a leader with conviction, integrity, demonstrated compassion, and authentic humanity.

Those are all traits where Hillary Clinton scores low in opinion polls and Senator Obama appears to score high.

Maybe she should buy a copy of this book.

Juno and The Restless Virgins

Since I wrote a novel based around sex education, I’ve tried to pay attention to other books and movies that do the same. I reviewed Tom Perrotta’s The Abstinence Teacher, which I thoroughly enjoyed. This time, I’m reviewing Juno, a movie I enjoyed so much I saw it twice, the first time with my wife, the second time alone, so I could take a more insightful look at the story.

 Juno is the story of a pregnant teenager who is trying to make sense of her difficult circumstances. Ellen Page, who plays Juno, makes the movie. She’s not only funny, but she appears wise without taking things too seriously. Juno is the geeky guy’s best friend, someone you can talk to, jam with, but you’d forget she was a girl unless she reminded you —and that’s how she gets pregnant. She reminded the “cheese on her macaroni”, before he ever knew he was.

I enjoyed Juno because it was different; it was not a formulaic high school drama of fill-in-the-blank (studs, geeks, misfits, beauty queens, etc) against the cliques or the teachers. Nor was the movie a preachy lecture where everyone in one person’s life imposes values and passes sentence. Juno was not held up as a poster child for teen sex gone wrong. That would have lost the teen/college audience for sure.

Instead, Juno is a movie that a father and teenage daughter can watch together, and share laughs at each other’s expense after it ends. Election (1999), which starred Matthew Broderick, and was based on another Perrotta best-seller, is the only other high school based movie that comes close to the same achievement. No surprise; I saw both movies and they played well to all ages.

I could open my old high school yearbook, or anyone else’s, and find one girl like Juno, maybe two, but certainly no more. She’s noted as an oddball, but doesn’t stand out in any special way—except for her wit—and her untimely pregnancy. During a rare scene in school, pregnant Juno attracts silence and stares as the crowds allow her to pass undisturbed, although it is clear that she has been branded a marked woman.

But Juno is remarkably poised for her age; she’s thought through what she wants to do—put the baby up for adoption—and she’s handling the pain with surprising humor. Juno is the bravest girl in school, and she’s considered the freak. It’s unclear why that happens; Juno’s boyfriend/best friend’s mother was the only person who had given Juno a reputation. Maybe Juno’s classmates are afraid, not for her, but themselves.    

Maybe the writers have left that for us to figure out for ourselves.

It’s good meat for a father-daughter talk after the movie’s over. 

After seeing Juno for the second time, I picked up a book, Restless Virgins, a non-fiction story about teenage hook-ups at a nationally respected New England prep school. This was a rare opportunity to take a back-to-back look at a movie and book along similar themes.

The authors of Restless Virgins, Abigail Jones and Marissa Miley, both graduates of the school, told a true story that appeared to be more like the formulaic high school movies: take the social cliques of the school, peer pressures, and mix them in with a scandal reminiscent of the Duke Lacrosse case. Only this time, the boys are expelled while the girl’s reputation is embarrassingly showcased in court. The school is spared no embarrassment as well; a headmaster is forced to concede that hooking up has been par for the course for some time.

I understand why a publisher took on Restless Virgins; the school is one of the nation’s elite and its’ students considered among the best of the best at gaining admission to the most selective colleges. We expect to be surprised when they behave just like “public school kids” who lack the same advantages. We expect them to abide by a code of conduct, inside and outside school, for the good of the institution, and for the sake of tradition.

But Restless Virgins showed me that the elite are just like anyone else, except that they can afford better lawyers. All high schools, public or private have their cliques and they change, while the traditions that should probably die take a long time to go away. This came out quite strongly in Virgins.  The students were ready to ignore, or let go of the school’s past, while the administrators were asleep at the switch, incapable of cleaning up the mess.

Unlike Juno, there were no pregnant young women in Restless Virgins. But Juno MacGuff didn’t see sex as a game, or something she had to do, but something she wanted to do, with a guy she really cared about. The fictional Juno was far more mature, and also far more interesting, than the real-life cast in Restless Virgins.

Should TV Bring Back Room 222?

Every profession could use a good TV show to help it flourish in tough times. With No Child Left Behind, maybe teachers need one more than ever.

I’ve heard most of the arguments on why this happens: pay, working conditions, job satisfaction, bureaucracy, lost tenure, ad infinitum. If you’re reading this story, I’m sure you have too.

I know that students decided to become teachers for reasons other than money, and they didn’t begin their working life expecting the other negatives. They must have inspired by something, maybe a teacher who took a personal interest, or turned them on to learning. Or, maybe it was attraction of having summers off.

I can say one thing, for sure. Teachers were rarely “made” because of Hollywood; film and television producers have done little in recent years to portray teaching in an honest and positive light. They’ve certainly done a lot for the images of law enforcement, crime scene investigation and medicine, but not K-12 education.

If you are in your thirties or forties, what movies and TV shows about teachers come to mind?

Welcome Back Kotter (1975-79) was hilarious. Having grown up in New Jersey, I admit that I’m a huge fan, because the show made fun of Brooklyn. But my Hebrew school friends imitated the “Sweathogs,” the remedial rowdies in Kotter’s class. Even the nerdy girls dreamed of being with Vinnie Barbarino, Freddie “Boom-Boom” Washington and Juan Epstein, the Puerto Rican Jew, while the guys shot their hands up, shouting “Ooh! Ooh!” like Arnold Horshack. Like the Sweathogs, my classmates annoyed and buried the teachers; they didn’t praise them.

Boston Public (2000-2004) was created by David E. Kelley, who produced LA Law, Boston Legal, The Practice, Doogie Howser M.D. and Picket Fences. The latter featured Fyvush Finkle as a doddering attorney. Thanks to Kelley, he later plays Harvey Lipshultz, a doddering widowed social studies teacher. Harvey was not exactly a role model for someone starting a teaching career. Chi McBride played Steven Harper, the fair-minded principal to near perfection, though I could not same the same for his vice principals: Scott Guber (played by Anthony Heald), the authoritarian dork and Ronni Cooke (played by Jeri Ryan, of Borg collective fame in Star Trek Voyager), a lawyer-turned-teacher who directs the school to teach to standardized tests. They were not exactly role models for teachers who aspired to become principals.

Then there are movies such as: The Blackboard Jungle (1955), To Sir, with Love (1967), Class of 1984 (1982), The Principal (1987), Stand and Deliver (1988), Lean on Me and Dead Poets Society (both 1989), Class of 1999 (1990), Dangerous Minds (1995), The Substitute (1996), One Eight Seven (1997), and Freedom Writers (2007). They all revolve around the same theme: an idealistic young teacher struggles to reach their students and unsuccessfully navigates the educational bureaucracy in an urban public school, before stumbling on their own success formula. The ending to any of the movies is the same: the teachers are popular, even loved, and with their students behind them, they teach on.

But that’s not real life, that’s the entertainment ‘biz.

 

Would a serious television drama that better depicts teachers in real life actually succeed? Could it inspire young people to become teachers?

 

In other words, what if we brought back Room 222, in re-runs, or updated for today?

 

Room 222 aired on ABC from September 17, 1969 to January 11, 1974 for 112 episodes. It was centered around an American History class at Walt Whitman High School in Los Angeles, taught by Pete Dixon (Lloyd Haynes), an African-American teacher. Other characters featured in the show were guidance counselor Liz McIntyre (Denise Nicholas) as Pete’s girlfriend; the principal, Seymour Kaufman (Michael Constantine) and Alice Johnson (Karen Valentine) as a student teacher. In addition, recurring students were featured from episode to episode.

 

Pete Dixon, the main character, was not much different from the idealistic teachers in the movies, though Haynes’ acting made him far more believable. While I remember Karen Valentine’s character as being somewhat ditzy, the others appeared genuine and not ridiculously overconfident. They talked amongst each other about how to improve their teaching and best act in loco parentus, without trying too hard to be mom or dad to their students.

 

Like the movies, Room 222 tried to address contemporary political issues of the 1960’s and 70’s such as homosexuality, war, race relations and woman’s rights. The show boiled a lot of content into half an hour. Boston Public needed an hour to deal with three similar themes in a single episode.

 

Unlike the movies, the teachers didn’t always conjure heroics and the students were not always cheering at the end. There were tragedies: the ex-Marine who couldn’t play high school baseball after coming home from Vietnam, for example, or more sadly, a bright and promising senior who dies of leukemia. The teachers and the principal showed their warts. Seymour Kaufman was the type of principal that any teacher would like to have for a boss. He was the Sherman Potter (of M*A*S*H fame) of high school principals, minus the Midwestern witticisms.

 

Did Room 222 succeed?

It almost didn’t: weak early ratings almost led ABC to pull the show after the first season, but Room 222 ended up winning the Emmy for Best New Series at season’s end. Room 222 was nominated for seven Emmy awards and seven Golden Globes between 1970 and 1971.

More amusing, Lloyd Haynes and Karen Valentine won TV Land Awards as Teacher of the Year and Classic TV Teacher of the Year–thirty years after Room 222 went off the air!

ABC launched Room 222 in 1969, the same year as the network launched The Brady Bunch. The final episodes concluded only two months apart. Yet, while we fondly remember the Bradys through numerous spin-offs and regular re-runs, we do not find Room 222 episodes in syndication today. I guess that comedies are more marketable on the re-run stations during prime time.

Would Room 222 succeed today, in a similar format?

I’m not sure.

Room 222’s story lines showed open discussion and problem solving; the teachers rarely complained about the task of teaching. None of them kvetched about the low pay, or the students they taught. Teachers, like the crusty Mr. Dragan (Ivor Francis) who had traditional teaching styles were frequently portrayed as jaded. Today, the most fervent advocates of No Child Left Behind would laud them as teachers and scholars.

A Room 222 for the 2000’s would have its share of hits and misses in political correctness. There may be too much competition for a major network to take the risk. These days, you’re more likely to see a well-developed show covering the themes in Room 222 on HBO and their cable kin. They’re more comfortable with serious, controversial programming, such as Mad Men, Big Love and The Sopranos.

Maybe the reason we don’t have a teacher’s docudrama is that parents don’t want to hear teachers complain about a tough day at work, after they’ve had their own bad days at work. Parents do not usually have sympathy for teachers; otherwise, they’d always support school budget proposals.

It’s also possible that parents do not want their children to know that their teachers work for a living—and that teachers consider teaching a job, as opposed to a calling.

That’s a natural, but over-protective, impulse.

Parents don’t want their babies to grow up to be Sweathogs.