I'd Like to Apologize to Every Teacher I Ever Had: My Year as a Rookie Teacher at Northeast High

by Tony Danza

Whether or not our show could have changed attitudes about teaching, it never really had a chance. And whether or not the educators who are trying to raise up America’s students can actually set and meet higher academic standards, our cultural values make their job next to impossible. It’s so much easier for pundits and politicians to point fingers and blame the people who are in the trenches every day than it is to get in there with them, or even to find out what actually goes on in those trenches. It’s so much easier for parents to blame teachers when their kids get in trouble than to do the heavy lifting required at home to keep those kids on track. And it’s so much easier for us as a nation to cross our fingers and hope that we’ll “get lucky” with the innovative “solutions” being tested on America’s schools today than it is for us to roll up our sleeves and invest our own time, talent, and money in the schools that are even now—with or without us—shaping our nation’s future.