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My daughter, noting that her one-eyed hedgehog Peter Prickles was suffering from sev ere energy depletion and a growth over his single eye ( a birth defect), panicked and so we took him f orthwith to a vete rinarian who had worked with rescue dogs after 9/11. We thought Peter was a goner but wanted to do everything possible to avoid being haunted by a guilt trip l ater if we had failed to act and Peter was no more.

There was no sign of the cause, but after the vet focused a tiny camera on Peter and projected an image onto a large overhead screen, we saw immediately what was ailing him: mites. Countless mites were having their way with him, romping between his quills and tormenting him to no end.An injection and some aftercare ultimately cured him.

Normally I am not quick to pick up on obscure links but here I instantly saw the connection between the opportunistic mites on Peter and the swarms of 20-somethings with no educational experience, training, or instincts who are in charge ofmaking crucial educational deci sions and setting policy at Tweed, the DOE installation whose=2 0name lends itself to its own perfect ridicule (Look up "Boss Tweed" and wince.)

Unfortunately the metaphorical hedgehog is not as lucky as Peter and cannot retreat to its Timber Hide-Away. It must host the mites of bureaucracy who want to reform him.

I had better break away from the metaphor before it wears thin. But let me briefly give you a few bites of complaint:

Why would the DOE rather break chops than break bread?

Why have they compromised by their mandates the relationship between teacher and student that is as inviolable as that betweeen doctor and patient?

Why are they so much bigger on personnel management than personal management?

Why are they more abou t pe rformance art than the art of performance?

Why have they left this noble profession20flat on its back like a locker room beetle struggling to right itself?

Why do they hire people who, having taken the job, discover within a few years that the job has taken them?

With the stock market in its present decline, why have so many recently idealistic teachers discovered that the economy is not nearly as depressed as the DOE has made them?

Who told them, before their first day in the classroom, that they would be forced to teach with their eye on the hourglass and their ear to the metronome?

Why has the chancellor concluded that it is his managerial prerogative to give the body of research a makeover and to lock out educators from their own profession?

Will the chancellor's distortion mill ever go on hiatus?

I could g o on and on and unfortunately so does the DOE. The legacy20of human sacrifice has been passed from the Aztec and Mayan civilizations to an unlikely beneficiary: the DOE. The difference is that this time the hearts and minds of children are on the agenda, not the menu.

But I must protest critics who would call the DOE a "zoo."If a zoo were run like the DOE the beasts would be misidentified, their cage doors flung open, and there would be as huge a turnover of zookeeper prey as there are of Teaching Fellows.

Palms have been greased, backs have been scratched, many hands have washed many others, fixes are in, and the latest vogue of corporo-educational wind are passing in front of our noses.

The N ew York C ity =2 0schools, for generations the jewel in the crown of public=2 0education, will shine again by power of its teachers, kids, parents, and=2 0the invisible magnetism of tradition.

They will survive. Sure as the indomitable Peter Prickles.

Published September 30, 2008