Amanda Ripley Author of The Unthinkable

Yesterday’s education speech by President Obama left me on the edge of my seat. The man is saying all the right things. The man knows how to talk, and he made some bold declarations about national standards, merit pay, and getting rid of bad teachers.

On standards, Obama was pretty clear. All the recent talk of accountability means nothing if we’re keeping score with 50 different sets of rules:

“Today’s system of fifty different sets of benchmarks for academic success means 4th grade readers in Mississippi are scoring nearly 70 points lower than students in Wyoming - and getting the same grade. Eight of our states are setting their standards so low that their students may end up on par with roughly the bottom 40% of the world.

That is inexcusable, and that is why I am calling on states that are setting their standards far below where they ought to be to stop low-balling expectations for our kids. The solution to low test scores is not lower standards - it’s tougher, clearer standards. Standards like those in Massachusetts, where 8th graders are now tying for first - first - in the world in science. Other forward-thinking states are moving in the same direction by coming together as part of a consortium. More states need to do the same.”

But that’s the easy part. After all, a whole crew of governors, school leaders and even union officials have come out in support of some kind of common standards. The question is, what will the standards be? Will this endeavor also include a national test, which would make the most sense? Is Obama right to entrust the details to Congress—which has so far utterly failed to use its stimulus leverage to push schools to enact real, sweeping reforms?

OK, OK, moving on to teacher quality, the heart of the issue. Obama’s rhetoric is tantalizing, but I am wary of the fine print. Notice the caveats built into this alleged call-to-arms:

“...Just as we have to give our teachers all the support they need to be successful, we need to make sure our students have the teacher they need to be successful. That means states and school districts taking steps to move bad teachers out of the classroom. Let me be clear: if a teacher is given a chance but still does not improve, there is no excuse for that person to continue teaching. I reject a system that rewards failure and protects a person from its consequences. The stakes are too high. We can afford nothing but the best when it comes to our children’s teachers and to the schools where they teach.”

Say, here’s an idea: Why not just move bad teachers out of the classroom? For the kids in said classroom, there is no time to spare. If a child has a bad teacher three years in a row, that child will never catch up. So why just “take steps” to remove the teacher? Talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations...

I am not saying teachers should be fired arbitrarily or without legal protection. Like the rest of us, they are protected by a long list of federal and state laws that prohibit unfair, discriminatory firing (laws that did not exist when tenure was first invented). I am saying teachers who do not move students forward—on average over several years—should not—on average—be teaching. They should be let go, just like other professionals who are not successful at their critically important jobs. But that is not the case in America today.

Here’s what worries me: “Taking steps” is a euphemism. It means following the established teacher tenure rules, which is to say, if a principal deems that a teacher is no good (which rarely happens to begin with), that principal should begin to wind his or her way through the labyrinth of union-approved contract rules designed to delay and deflect accountability. These processes often take years. And at the end, nary a teacher gets fired.

If you “reject a system that rewards failure,” you should be thinking bigger than baby steps.

I’m honored to hear that the Swiss Infantry School has made The Unthinkable mandatory reading for its staff. Very cool.

Here’s a story I just did for Governing Magazine about how to get people to listen to disaster warnings. Basically, it was a good excuse for me to finally investigate the back story of last year’s mysterious “certain death” warning before Hurricane Ike…

Personally, I kind of like the drama of the “certain death” warning. Too bad we won’t be hearing it again anytime soon.

The other day, I drove out to Frederick, MD. This time, blissfully, my trip had nothing whatsoever to do with anthrax.

I went to Frederick to meet John Bryan, a man who knows more about human behavior in fire than anyone alive. Or at least, anyone I have ever met. Jake Pauls had asked me to come out to meet John and do an interview for posterity. Until then, I had only known the man through his work—which I’d spent days poring over at the National Fire Academy and in the Library of Congress.

John met us at the door and very graciously sat for hours while we talked about his life and his work. This is a man who who started fighting fires when he was in grade school. John organized a group of boys in Somerset, MD, where his family lived, to put out brush fires caused by coals falling from the B & O steam engines that ran along the edge of town. The Rinky Dink Fire Department, as it was known, used brooms to stamp out the flames—until the boys eventually got a hand-operated pump from the Bethesda Fire Department. This was clearly before the lawyers took over emergency management.

Anyway, John grew up and became a professional firefighter. But he soon noticed was that the most important moments of a fire were the moments before the firefighters arrived. That was when regular people made crucial decisions about whether to fight the fire, call the fire department or flee. Their behavior mattered more than anything else—and yet professional firefighters spent a lot more time talking about equipment and technology and the physics of fire.

John began to research human behavior in fire, one of the first to seriously investigate what people do in actual fires. He went on to become a professor of fire protection engineering at the University of Maryland, where he mentored legions of young engineers and published books and articles about behavior in fire. It was a pleasure to meet him.

When I got to the office today, there was a big sack of books waiting for me from my publisher. Inside, I found the Brazilian, Korean and Swedish versions of The Unthinkable. I’d never seen them before, so it was kind of a cool moment. For sure, my favorite of the the three is the Swedish version (in irridescent green).

That said, I have no idea what they say. I can only hope for the best.