Lessons Learned:
Ric Klass' Year as a Teacher in the Bronx

Millions of words are published every year about the state of education in our urban schools. Politicians, union leaders, educationalists, foundation leaders, conservatives and liberals have had their say about what's wrong with urban schools and what must be done to fix them. Do they really know what they are talking about it?

There's a resident of Rye, Ric Klass, who does. And once you read his book, “Man Overboard: Confessions of a Novice Math Teacher in the Bronx,” you will realize that most of our educational leaders - from Joel Klein to Bill Gates - have a lot to learn from him.

A former aerospace engineer, entrepreneur, university lecturer and investment banker, with degrees from MIT, USC and Harvard, three years ago, Mr. Klass decided he wanted to change careers and teach. He had been tutoring disadvantaged kids for years. As he said recently in an interview with The Rye Record, “I wanted to get out and make a bigger difference in children's lives. So, I worked over the summer to get an education degree and then purposefully chose to teach in one of the lowest performing high schools in the Bronx.”

What happened? As Mr. Klass explained: “I was pretty confident that I could do it right, and got my head handed to me.” The book is a diary of his efforts over one year. The book is hardly grim; Klass is a very funny writer, and the episodes he recounts are amusing and compelling, while at times tragic. The reader finds himself pulling for Mr. Klass while appalled at the reality that he's dealing with: classrooms where there is no discipline whatsoever, students who never do homework, a feckless principal, and a teacher's union which, bizarrely, fights to keep this dysfunctional high school open.

What can be done? Mr. Klass believes most school reform efforts are doomed to fail. “They don't deal with the elemental fact that these poor kids often have no support at home. No one's telling them they must succeed, and so most don't bother to try.” He sums up the typical poor, urban high school student body like this: “20% want to learn, 20% actively don't want to learn, and 60% are ambivalent - they go whichever the wind's blowing.”

He does hold out some hope for schools that spend their money on smaller class sizes. “Given the discipline issues, the teacher will only get their attention when there are about 15 students in the class. Small schools, such as those being promoted by the Gates Foundation, are not the answer; it's smaller class sizes.”

Ric Klass will be speaking about his experiences at the Rye Free Reading Room Thursday, May 3, at 7 p.m.

– Peter Jovanovich