Confessions of a Bad Teacher: The Shocking Truth from the Front Lines of American Public Education

(Paperback)

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When John Owens left a lucrative publishing job to teach English at a public school in New York City's South Bronx, he thought he could do some good. Instead, he found an educational maelstrom that robs students of real learning to improve the school's statistics at any cost, even demonizing its own support system: the teachers. Using first-hand accounts from teachers across the U.S., Confessions of a Bad Teacher is an eye-opening look at the dire state of American education and an essential blueprint for how to embrace our best educators and create positive change for our children's futures.

Reviews

"A closely observed, often hilarious and profane new memoir." - USA Today
"A heartfelt call-to-action.... [Owens] offers a worthy perspective on the need to change the ways in which teachers are viewed and concludes with useful suggestions to get started." - Kirkus Reviews
"Admirably, Owens portrays himself as an enthusiastic teacher with good intentions rather than a martyr-no small feat given the subject matter. His inclusion of case studies in the form of anecdotes from other public school teacher furthers his argument...will be useful for anyone considering a teaching career. " - Publishers Weekly
"John Owens' book is an eye-opener about what happens in real classrooms today. It shatters many of the myths about 'school reform.'" - Diane Ravitch, Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education and bestselling author of The Death and Life of The Great American School System
"An intelligent, readable, and occasionally eye-opening analysis of the deep flaws in today's educational system...Owens' narrative is punctuated with the voices of teachers from across the country who echo his plight and expose the absurdity of relying on data-driven business principles to try to fix American education. " - Booklist
"Owens uses vignettes from his teaching experience to introduce problems in the American educational system, most notably how teachers are blamed for today's failing public schools and how the "witch-hunt" for bad teachers is destroying classrooms...His concluding lessons are a heartfelt call to action. " - BookPage
"This was an eye-opening and fascinating read which would be a great addition to a public or academic library collection. " - Taryn Bush-Librarian
"Confessions of a Bad Teacher is perhaps the most important book about the American public education system that will be published this year...Owens' writing is honest (at times brutally so), to the point, and looks at the issues surrounding education reform through the lens of those of us on the front lines, those of us who feel lately as though our voices have not been heard." - Mercurial Musings
"Eye-opening...The author does an excellent job detailing the problems faced by public school teachers in America. He effectively utilizes a mix of statistics, vignettes from public school teachers around the country, and his own personal narrative of his experiences in a Bronx middle school to illustrate how the focus of the school system has changed from students to data. " - Beyond the Stacks
"Owens goes beyond telling war stories to reflect on the big picture of bad policies and politics that drive the school day, and to offer some steps readers can take to preserve and protect the precious gift of democratic public education." - Big Education Ape
"Owens' book truly exposes what goes on in classrooms across the United States, a view from the trenches. This is a book that parents and policy makers need to read, and then they need to start some long and hard conversations to fix the educational system over time...It's time to change the narrative of blaming and labeling all teachers as bad teachers. Read this book, learn more, and take some action. " - The Itinerant Librarian
"John Owens is the real deal. A fine teacher-despite the title of the book-who has been caught up in the reform madness of our times, he has the great ability to write movingly about his experiences. This book is a keen insider's view of what is happening in education across the country and a refreshing refutation to those who would 'fix' our schools from afar, without understanding them."" - David Berliner, bestselling co-author of Collateral Damage: How High-Stakes Testing Corrupts America's Schools and Regents Professor Emeritus, Arizona State University
"This book should serve as a wake-up call to the general public.... Owens shows us how hard-working, well-intentioned teachers are being castigated and blamed for problems they did not create, and, in most cases, they lack the means to solve. Insightful, engaging and often heart breaking, this book will help readers to understand why so many great teachers are leaving our schools." - Pedro Noguera, Peter L. Agnew Professor of Education, New York University and author of City Schools and the American Dream
"Confessions of a Bad Teacher is a lucid call to action and a must-read for anyone who cares about America's future. Reporting from the front lines, Owens uses his personal journey as a prism to tell an urgent story about America's classrooms. Important, passionate, and timely, Owens shows us the difference between school and education." - MK Asante, award-winning filmmaker and author of Buck
"John Owens' Confessions of a Bad Teacher offers a devastating portrait of the utter failure of the school reform movement at ground zero: the school, the classroom and the teacher under assault." - Norm Scott, founding member of the Independent Community of Educators
"School teachers are under siege from both pundits and politicians in ways that other public servants are not.... The blanket criticisms of American teachers are accepted as universally true, not aimed at the exceptions in the classroom or the principal's office. Confessions of a Bad Teacher is hyperbole as a title but dead-on in its characterizations, and reveals the weaknesses of the criticisms, the true fault-lines in public education, and the nobility of a profession being treated unfairly." - Dr. Robert A. Scott, President, Adelphi University
"A compelling and thoughtful personal narrative about corporate school reform's war on teachers." - Dr. Michael Klonsky, Ph.D., DePaul University
"Confessions of a Bad Teacher is a vivid account of life in the corporate school reform trenches, with all the agony, comedy, hope and humiliation experienced by so many of today's public school teachers. Owens goes beyond telling war stories to reflect on the big picture of bad policies and politics that drive the school day, and to offer some steps readers can take to preserve and protect the precious gift of democratic public education." - Julie Woestehoff, co-founder, Parents Across America
"This book is Freedom Writers meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Inspiring and heartbreaking." - Angela Susan Anton, Publisher, Anton (Long Island) Community Newspapers, New York
"Here's the soul-wrenching scoop on what happens when a middle-aged professional who's great with kids, loves literature, and wants to 'give back' decides to become a teacher. Being willing to work from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. is not enough in the face of a broken system that includes a crazy principal. This is a book every urban teacher can relate to and everybody else should read. In a nation obsessed by a 'bad teacher' witch hunt, John Owens offers a wake-up call, asking us to face the problems few ed reformers acknowledge." - Susan Ohanian, author of What Happened to Recess and Why Are Our Children Struggling in Kindergarten
"Owens gives a readable, personal account of one man's experience in one school." - Library Journal