Tilting at windmills

Washington Monthly, July-August, 2007 by Charles Peters

TB or not TB

When reporters asked what had happened to the border agent who let Andrew Speaker into this country by ignoring a clear instruction not to do so, they were told he had been "reassigned." The level of accountability in our public life is, to put it as gently as possible, not high. Bad teachers are rarely dismissed. In the federal civil service, the firing rate is less than 1 percent. Top officials who screw up are permitted to resign to "spend more time with their families"--or made attorney general.

We need not go as far as the Chinese, who recently handed a death sentence to their FDA chief, who had been on the take. But we should stop tolerating incompetence.

That's why I admired what Barack Obama said about teachers in a recent New Hampshire speech. Yes, they should be better paid, he replied to a questioner. But in return, they must be held accountable.

Something is rotten in the state of Georgia

Speaking of competence and accountability, I continue to worry about the Centers for Disease Control. When the test came in on May 22 making it clear that Andrew Speaker had the most dangerous kind of tuberculosis, and he did not immediately agree to go to an Italian hospital, why didn't the CDC make public his identity and the threat he posed? Waiting to do so until he returned to this country, and after all those Czech Air passengers had been exposed, struck me as a demented choice.

And why did Dr. Julie Gerberding defend the actions of Andrew's father-in-law, the CDC tuberculosis specialist who, incredibly enough, not only failed to object to his son-in-law's travels, but participated in them by attending the wedding in Santorini? Either he was incompetent and reckless, or the CDC was wrong to label Andrew a public health threat. In any event, I will continue to keep harping, as I did most recently in our January/February issue, on the need for a major news organization, like the Washington Post or the New York Times, to make a thorough examination of the CDC, identifying its strengths and weaknesses and explaining how the latter can be remedied. For me, the need is already crystal clear. We have a problem in Atlanta.

Praise for Hillary

Although I'm for Barack Obama in the Democratic presidential race, I want to congratulate Hillary Clinton on winning the first debates in South Carolina and New Hampshire. She came across as warmer and less singsong, and looked genuinely impressive. I also congratulate her on her recent bill to provide up to $10 billion of federal money to make sure that all four-year-olds have pre-kindergarten education. This was the only subject I've ever discussed at length with her, and I was struck by the depth of her passion for the cause.

Blame for Hillary

On the other hand, I have to point out that Mrs. Clinton was incredibly fortunate to escape mention of the Levin amendment in the New Hampshire debate. That morning, an article in the New York Times Magazine by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr. pointed out that she voted against the amendment to the resolution authorizing Bush to go to war in Iraq that would have required exactly the type of diplomacy and inspection effort she now says she favored before any military action. Someone should have asked, Since you favor it now, why didn't you vote for it then?

Those who can, should teach

Since Harvard has so much influence on other institutions of higher learning, I'm heartened by the campaign to restore teaching to a place of importance among the Harvard faculty. For years, research and publication have been the dominant paths to eminence for Harvard professors. Students could go through four years of a Harvard education and graduate without knowing a professor well enough to get a letter of recommendation. Large lecture courses led by senior faculty whose actual teaching skills were beneath modest, assisted by bored graduate students, were the rule. Now, according to Sarah Rimer of the New York Times, a group headed by the distinguished social scientist Theda Skocpol is proposing that teaching rank "equally with contributions to research in annum salary adjustments." She has a tough challenge before her. Previous attempts to recognize teaching, such as the Levenson Teaching Prize, have not been notably successful. One Levenson winner told Skocpol, "I earn high praise (and more money) for every paper or academic achievement, while every teaching achievement earns a warning of how I should not wander off research."

Every time this subject comes up, I urge people to read Teacher in America, by Jacques Barzun. And I commend it now to Skocpol. It tells how highly teaching was valued at Columbia's undergraduate college in the 1930s and '40s, and shows that a faculty culture can, instead of disdaining teaching, disdain not teaching.

What Bill should have said to Colin

Did you hear Mike Gravel's great point about gays in the military? During the June 3 Democratic debate, he asked why Bill Clinton hadn't confronted Colin Powell when Powell said that other soldiers wouldn't accept gays. According to Gravel, what Clinton should have said was: You wouldn't be here right now if Harry Truman had fallen for the same argument against blacks in the military.