Education Issues

[blush]

The problem with approaching education "like a business" is we are dealing with children, not "products."

As far as I'm aware, other professions that deal exclusively with humans are not monitored and evaluated based on the performance of their human. Doctors are not hired/fired based on how many people they cure. Psychologists' jobs do not depend solely on the progress of their patients. Yet we, as a nation, are demanding that teachers "fix" students by tying the student's performance to the teacher. And we give less and less and less personal responsibility to the students themselves.

If you (collective you) want to know what teachers do, go sit in a classroom. Walk through a school. See how many teachers have their feet propped up on a desk with the paper while the class runs amuck. Yes, those teachers need to be fired. As should a doctor who is killing patients.

We are not dealing with boxes of Cheerios that need new marketing. We are dealing with children. Children who come to us with all different levels of experiences and backgrounds. Children who sometimes don't have breakfast. Or a bed. Or sometimes have too much breakfast and beds. To expect ANYONE to level that playing field in a year for high stakes testing is ridiculous. Would we expect a disease to be cured after one visit?

Students should be progress monitored using multiple modes of assessments. If a pattern emerges that students in a class are rarely or never making progress, someone should start stopping by the damn classroom and find out what's going on. Not a Dog and Pony Show evaluation, but several unannounced visits. No teacher's success should ever be linked to 1 test on 1 day.