john-taylor-gatto-weapons-of-mass-instruction

5
Hector Isn't the Problem
I Quit
During my thirtieth year as a schoolteacher in Community School
District Three, Manhattan, after teaching in all five secondary schools
in the district and crossing swords with one professional administration
after another as they strove to rid themselves of me; after having
my license suspended twice for insubordination and covertly terminated
once while I was on medical leave of absence; after the City University
of New York borrowed me for a five-year stint as lecturer in
its education department; (where I ranked first among 250 education
faculty in the "Student-Faculty Ratings" each year I was there); after
planning and bringing about the most successful permanent school
fundraiser in New York City history; after helping a single eighthgrade
class perform thirty thousand hours of volunteer community
service; after organizing and financing a student-run food cooperative,
securing more than a thousand apprenticeships, and directing
the collection of tens of thousands of books for the construction of
private student libraries; after producing four talking job dictionaries
for the blind, writing two original student musicals and launching
an armada of other initiatives to reintegrate students into a larger human
reality - I quit.
I was New York State Teacher of the Year when it happened. An
accumulation of disgust and frustration that grew too heavy is what