Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alan Haskvitz


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   no consensus. -- RoySmith (talk) 11:34, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Alan Haskvitz

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Does not meet WP:GNG John from Idegon (talk) 18:09, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 03:07, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 03:07, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 03:07, 14 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete. School teachers are not usually notable unless they show exception achievements. Not quite here. Xxanthippe (talk) 04:09, 14 May 2014 (UTC).
 * Keep. It is correct that high school teachers are usually not notable unless they show exceptional achievements. However, in this case such achievements are indeed present. In particular, the subject received several national-level honors: an indictee of the National Teachers Hall of Fame, 1990 Reader's Digest American Heroes in Education award,  1989 National Council for Social Sciences award , Baylor University's 1996 Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teachers, 1999 USA TODAY's All-USA Teacher First Team , etc. The National Teachers Hall of Fame page about Haskvitz lists a whole bunch of other awards as well, see also articles about him, e.g. , , etc. Certainly passes WP:BIO. Nsk92 (talk) 13:08, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete. None of the awards are of the recognized prestige that render Haskvitz notable per se. I thought maybe his election to the National Teachers Hall of Fame (NTHF) might suffice, but when you look at that page, you find almost none of the >100 people listed have WP pages, the few that do are notable for other obvious reasons (e.g. Jaime Escalante), and that the only sources there are NTHF's own web pages. (The NTHF article itself should probably be tested by an AfD.) Other aspects of notability claimed in the article, like being rated at ratemyteachers.com are not significant. I don't see his book Motorvation: A Math Book for the Unmotivated listed in WorldCat, so it may be unpublished. He sounds like a great guy, but he's not notable. Agricola44 (talk) 15:53, 15 May 2014 (UTC).
 * I don't think that the fact that most members of the National Teachers Hall of Fame do not yet have Wikipedia articles implies that being a member of NTHF does not automatically make a teacher notable. We only currently have WP articles about a fraction of notable academics, and the presence/absence of such articles is more of a reflection on the who the active WP editors are than on the actual notability of the subjects. It is generally accepted, I believe, that being an elected fellow of a professional national academic society makes an academic notable. However, being a fellow of something like the American Mathematical Society is a much less selective honor than being a member of the NTHF. There already several hundred fellows of AMS (in just a couple of years of existence of the program), with about 50 inducted each year. By comparison, there are only 5 inductees in the NTHF per year, while the number of school teachers in the U.S. is much much bigger than the number of math college professors. My understanding is that being a member of NTHF is the highest degree of professional achievement and recognition in the U.S. for school teachers and it is a much more selectve honor than being a fellow of a national academic professional society. Also, the presence of multiple other national-level professional awards (and not just being a NTHF member) in Haskvitz case, is, IMO, certainly enough to pass the WP:GNG and WP:BIO bars. Nsk92 (talk) 19:03, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Being elected a fellow of AMS or any of the other discipline-specific societies is enormously more prestigious than election to National Teachers Hall of Fame – the annual number of inductees has absolutely nothing to do with selectivity. (This is confirmed by any thought experiment that finds an individual creating a new national society and inducting only himself.) Rather, it has everything to do with the hierarchy (like it or not) of the scholar/educator infrastructure. As has been observed many times, being a scholar at a first-tier university or institute is extremely exclusive and most of those people are notable (whether they have articles or not) by the very activities required to obtain those posts. This is comparable to our policy that athletes who compete in the highest professional leagues are notable per se. Selectivity/prestige decrease down the line, which is not to say that such individuals cannot be notable, but rather that they are not notable per se and require more clear evidence of achievement/notability/etc. Your assertion that NTHF is the highest honor for teachers is highly debatable, especially since there are countless national teaching awards (AAPG Excellence Award, CEE National Teacher Award, CCSSO National Teacher of the Year, NCSS Teachers of the Year, VFW Teacher of the Year, the several dozen national awards from NSTA, Guilder-Lehrman National Teacher of the Year, ACTFL National Teacher of the Year, and well you get the idea). Regarding the National Teachers Hall of Fame itself, this organization was founded in 1989 by local organizations in Emporia, Kansas (including the Emporia Area Chamber of Commerce) and is housed at Emporia State University. It's coverage seems to consist mostly of articles in the local Emporia Gazette. Again, this is hardly comparable to the national societies like AMS, which represent scholarly activity at the highest level and for which reams of archival sourcing are available. Could we have articles on Haskvitz and the others in NTHF? Probably, at least for the fraction for which some acknowledgement of their membership in NTHF could be found. Would this be WP:INDISCRIMINATE? Yes, absolutely. Agricola44 (talk) 21:10, 15 May 2014 (UTC).
 * Yeah, I was probably too rush in saying that NTHF is the highest national honor for teachers. However, it still appears to me to be quite a significant honor. E.g. this year President Obama had a reception for the 2014 inductees at the White House. While it does take quite a bit more training and a significant publication record to become a tenured university professor than to become a teacher, I think notability within a profession should be judged mainly by the degree of accomplishment within that profession, and not compared with any other profession. Selectivity of a particular award is determined both by the reputation and prestige of the award (as viewed by others) and by how difficult/easy it is for the practitioners of that profession to get the award. Being a Fellow of AMS myself, I must admit that I don't view it as a particularly high honor, and I am pretty sure that I am not going to be invited to the White House any time soon -:) Let me also stress that apart from NTHF, Haskvitz has a significant number of other national-level honors verified by independent sources (see my first post above), such as the 1990 Reader's Digest American Heroes in Education award, 1989 National Council for Social Sciences award, Baylor University's 1996 Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teachers, 1999 USA TODAY's All-USA Teacher First Team and others. Taken individually, it could be argued that none of these awards, but itself, makes a teacher notable. But I think that collectively they do. At a minimum, the detailed bio of Haskvitz at NTHF and the other links provided in my first post, seem to me to satisfy WP:GNG in his case. Nsk92 (talk) 09:42, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
 * All of the delete notes are done probably done by non-educators. Ignoring the value of the National Teachers Hall of Fame, USA Today, Learning Magazine and others is simple wrong headed. You must compete for these awards. His acknowledgement as alumni of the year by institutions of learning is significant as well. I would suggest that the editors take the time to learn about teachers and the honors and awards that are offered and what it takes to earn them. As for the Cherry Award, being the only public school teacher to be so honored is certainly deserving of mention as well as the award itself. The fact that other teachers don't have entries in Wikipedia is of no merit. Wikipedia was developed as an inclusive, populist publication that does not negate an award or honor because the editor(s) don't feel it is significant value even though it was rendered by a panel of experts. You site the selection to honors by other groups as more impressive and are thus comparing apples and oranges. I would strongly suggest that you not downplay accomplishments because of your bias. As for your comments about academic accomplishments at the highest level being reason for inclusion in some groups is based on a set of standards. The same standards that USA Today, Reader's Digest, the National Teachers Hall of Fame and others have. Indeed, the Cherry Award, according to its website, recognizes his achievements with such a set of standards.   — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.84.88.220 (talk) 17:53, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I can't speak for others, but the assumption stated in your first sentence is flat wrong – I am approaching 20 years as an educator (HS students and college level), but that is irrelevant. The problem in this case is that the awards themselves are not widely recognized, so it clouds matters tremendously. To furnish some context, the kinds of awards that conclusively demonstrate notability are Nobels, MacArthurs, et al. It has nothing to do with whether his awards were "rendered by a panel of experts". Yes WP is inclusive, in a sense, but this should not be confused with being indiscriminate. As I said above, there are countless national and regional awards in secondary education and WP is not a directory of every educator who has won some of these. Sorry. Agricola44 (talk) 17:53, 19 May 2014 (UTC).


 * Comment - assuming sources can be found, this may be rescued. Bearian (talk) 14:57, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep -- per Nsk92 -- these are the types of major awards for secondary school teachers that go far beyond the typical or even exceptional teacher. MacArthur and Nobel prize are as irrelevant to secondary school notability as number of World Cup goals is to a professor. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 03:38, 22 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Of course, but with all due respect, I'm surprised that the implication was lost on you. Said more plainly: there simply aren't any awards at the secondary level that render a secondary school teacher notable per se, not the "Cherry award", not NTHF, nor any of the other obscure awards listed in this bio. This means that WP:GNG is probably the most appropriate guideline and this requires solid WP:RS. Teachers that we do consider to be notable have this, for example Jaime Escalante who's teaching career was depicted in a motion picture. This bio does not and crosses the line into WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Agricola44 (talk) 17:54, 22 May 2014 (UTC).


 * Weak Keep, I don't believe that these awards should be considered confer automatic notability. However, in the specific case of Haskvitz there seems to be enough media coverage in reliable sources to just barely push him past the WP:GNG.  Lankiveil (speak to me) 01:25, 24 May 2014 (UTC).

"The Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching honors outstanding professors in the English-speaking world who are distinguished for their ability to communicate as classroom teachers. Individuals nominated for the award should have a proven record as an extraordinary teacher with a positive, inspiring, and long-lasting effect on students, along with a record of distinguished scholarship." http://www.baylor.edu/cherry_awards/ Haskvitz apparently meet all of these standards, the only public school teacher to ever do so.
 * KEEP On the Cherry Award: Selection Criteria

He also received the National Council for Social Studies award as National Middle Level Teacher of the Year, National Exemplary Program, and Christa McAuliffe Award. They said they has never been done by anyone else in their memory.

The California School Board Association indicated that they could not recall any teacher that has three Golden Bells, which are based on the success of his program and students. Larry Martz, national affairs editor of Newsweek wrote Making School Better and Haskvitz included a chapter about his program. He also has been featured in school and college textbooks, on NPR, on all major television networks, and in editorials from CBS and from the Los Angeles Times. His research has been cited in several works and was published in Phi Delta Kappan, the top education journal. He was on the first page of USA Today as one of their All American educators. As an aside, his website, www.reacheverychild.com is apparently one of the oldest educational websites (1997) and his work was noted by Tech Learning as a technology leader. His work was also noted in Time magazine and a section of Newsweek was about his program. The Los Angeles Times has 15 articles about him. He has been selected as an outstanding alumnus at two colleges and his high school. As for the argument about the National Teachers Hall of Fame, when President Obama is part of the ceremony that tells you the significance of the honor (http://www.emporiagazette.com/latest_news_and_features/article_0a6a0835-30c7-5c86-8a60-bcfed1f012b8.html) and it should not be downplayed. As for the book, Motorvation, it is a workbook, not a textbook. I don't know why anyone would want to delete someone with this record of achievement. And, the listing is apparently incomplete. The California Water Agencies gave him their highest education award, the California Department of Agriculture did as well and he also received the George Washington medal from the Freedom Foundation. Reader's Digest not only named him a Hero in Education, but made a video about his program.

There is more. Someone wrote "delete" because public school teachers are usually not worthy of inclusion. That may be true, but what accomplishment has he failed to earn? It makes no sense for Wikipedia to exclude public school teachers. I found this article that might provide some insight (http://www.wvusd.k12.ca.us/apps/news/show_news.jsp?REC_ID=269064&id=1) and includes honors not mentioned.

I would suggest that the page might be trimmed a bit (rate your teacher is silly), but delete it never. By the way, Jamie Escalante is also a member of the National Teachers Hall of Fame. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.84.88.220 (talk) 03:06, 24 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Just So You're Aware. You've now made 2 unsigned edits from an anonymous IP, but you should know that this actually exposes a lot of information like what location from which you're editing ;) "I don't know why anyone would want to delete someone with this record of achievement" – this is not at all the issue, rather, it is one of sources. Agricola44 (talk) 05:58, 24 May 2014 (UTC).
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.