Capital Letters: Linear Thinking

In which our man in Washington contemplates the virtues of urban planning, literacy, and marriage

Michael W. Lynch from the May 1999 issue

(Page 2 of 4)

I told Burgess afterward that his point was well taken. I then headed to the Metro station for my subsidized ride back to the office.

Date: Tues, March 2, 1999 2:03:14 PM
From: [e-mail]
Subj: Child's Play

I didn't know the National Education Association was involved. I didn't know it was a national pseudo-event. All I knew was what the first few lines of the Speaker's Media Advisory told me: "As part of an effort to increase literacy in the classroom, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) on Tuesday will read the Dr. Seuss classic, Green Eggs and Ham to a class of kindergarten children at Peabody Elementary School in Washington, DC." This, I didn't want to miss.

Education is a pressing matter. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the vehicle through which Washington distributes a portion of our tax money to government schools across the country, is up for reauthorization. The president has proposed a $1.2 billion increase in federal spending, to bring the total to just under $35 billion, or roughly $350 per American household.

Long gone are the days when Republicans felt the need to make the principled case against federal meddling in education. Now we get Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) attempting to outspend the president. "This president will be labeled the education president of the United States, having spent less money to get that label than anyone in America knows," Domenici complained in February. He wants Republicans to bump the money up to $40 billion.

I climbed out of the cab at 11:50 a.m. and gazed at the four-story faded-brick building. The white trim of the window frames dripped downward from the corners, like tears. It seemed dilapidated enough to be a D.C. school. A sign in front confirmed my suspicion: "Peabody Early Childhood Campus."

I headed into the press-filled room where the reading was slated to occur. Six TV cameras were mounted and ready to capture the moment, which I discovered was just one event in the National Education Association's "Read Across America Day." Jesse Jackson had, just that morning, read to 300 kids at the NEA's Washington headquarters.

At 12:05 p.m., a voice announced through the intercom, "All students who will be participating in the reading by the speaker, will you line up outside the door, quietly."

The 30 or so children were soon escorted in and seated on the floor, and each was handed a white and red striped Cat in the Hat hat. A man in front quipped, "It's like herding cats." He laughed. The woman doing the herding didn't. As photographers swarmed around the children, another fellow said, "They get a 10 on the cute-o-meter." The two women in front of me, both reporters, were gushing.

The kids soon got tired of wearing their hats, and took them off to hit each other. As Speaker Hastert stood on the side with a dumb smile, the kids responded to questions posed by reporters: "I'm 5." "I'm in kindergarten." "I'm 4." "I'm 6." "I'm in pre-kindergarten." The woman in charge quieted the room. "Can you say Speaker Hastert?" she asked. In not quite unison, the reply came, "Speaker Hastert."

As soon as Hastert sat down, it was clear that this man was in his element. He started by showing the kids his tie, which had a large picture of the Cat in the Hat. He did stumble a bit early, telling the kids, "You're going to be able to read The Cat in the Hat all by yourself. But not quite yet," when some of the older ones already can read and told him so. And one of the kids outflanked him technologically. When Hastert announced that he would read Green Eggs and Ham, an adorable voice announced, "I have the CD."

But the speaker recovered quickly. "Let's read," he began, ending the small talk. "The first page says, `I am Sam,'" to which the kids responded, anticipating the next line, "Sam I am." Hastert is a pro at reading to kids. He read slowly, never tripping over a word or breaking the cadence. He swiveled in his chair, providing a panoramic view of the pictures, pausing at times to editorialize on their larger meanings. He was patient. When the kids got excited and started to jabber on loudly, he would simply hold up his thumb like an ace pilot, which calmed them down. Unflustered, he'd continue.

I wasn't the only one to notice his skills. One woman there for the event, Noel Brazil, was particularly impressed. Her son, now a sixth-grader, was once among the 200 at this school, and she liked how Hastert dominated the kids with his thumb. "I hope he can go back to Congress and do it," she told me.

As Hastert finished, the Cat in the Hat himself entered the room, bumping his head on the doorframe. The Cat delivered a plate of green eggs and ham to Hastert, who quickly announced that there was enough for all. The Cat bobbed behind Hastert, grasping its tail, while Hastert passed out plates of green eggs and ham.

A little girl started to howl with horror. "Don't worry, he's not going to bite you," her mother said, holding 4-year-old Aniya close. "He's just a storyteller." As the howls turned to cries and the cries gave way to hushed sobs, I asked the mother who had frightened her little girl: Hastert or the Cat? She said it was the Cat, and that Aniya liked to read and was a good student.