Is Satire Possible?

Abstract

Was a letter that appeared in the San Jose Mercury News written by a latter-day Jonathan Swift or a Louis Gerstner clone? Susan Ohanian set out to discover the answer. The following letter appeared in the San Jose Mercury News for 23 March 2001. It was posted on a listserv for mathematics educators. Schools Are a Business I am a parent of a student currently enrolled in the Alum Rock Union School District and of three children who graduated from the district. I am also a former professor of mathematics and computer science and a co-founder of a high-tech company in San Francisco. I would like to applaud the attitude and actions of new district superintendent Joe Carrillo (Opinion, March 12) and offer some constructive suggestions. The quantification of performance made possible by the use of standardized tests allows us at last to put education on the same footing as business. In education, as in any other business, the total focus must be on return on investment. Just as a business must allocate resources so as to maximize total income, so must the school system allocate resources so as to maximize total points on standardized tests. While the new administration clearly understands this, I'm concerned that many of the teachers may not -- or if they do, they may not understand the implications. I have observed that teachers tend to bring a kind of emotionality and sentimentality to their profession which may often be inconsistent with return on investment. Teachers must remember that just as a dollar is a dollar, a standardized point is a standardized point, no matter the source. You must apply this observation dispassionately. If spending 10 hours on this student or group of students will bring a total of five extra points and spending the same 10 hours on this other student or group will bring 20 points, then the latter must be preferred. In particular, I have observed that there is a tendency in teachers to spend extra time with the weak, but it has also been my observation that the weak generally offer the least return on investment. If that is the case, then time spent helping the weak equates to squandered resources. The kind of progress the administration seeks can only be achieved by rigorous application of the principles used by successful businesses. Dave Posner San Jose Some people on the listserv insisted this letter had to be a satire. No one could describe schools this way in earnest. I would hope the author had his tongue halfway through his cheek, but some people thought Jonathan Swift had a good idea when, in Modest Proposal, he suggested that solving the problem of poverty could be achieved by having the children of the starving masses sold as food for the wealthy. These days we don't eat our young, even if they are Irish. Instead, we just declare that, if they don't learn algebra, they aren't going to get a high school diploma. People on the listserv found a way to use the letter to get onto their usual hobbyhorses. A staunch supporter of Mathematically Correct guessed that the writer was in earnest and that, appalling as his view might be, it was, after all, just a letter and Far far more appalling is that there is such [education] industry reluctance to use the data in making wiser decisions for students and identified subpopulations of them. (Translation: Why don't all schools buy Saxon Math and forbid the use of calculators?) Increasingly, teachers feel as though they are lonely islands surrounded by people who view education as an investment that must be viewed on the basis of maximizing returns. Most business and education leaders cloak their judgments in euphemisms. Maybe this letter writer was just laying his cards out on the table instead of hiding them up his sleeve. I decided the first step on my quest for insight was to find out more about Carrillo, whose op-ed piece had inspired this letter. …