With years of data, it seems possible to distinguish good teachers from poor ones. Does that indicate that, after collecting two or three years’ data on each new hire, districts should be using test scores for decisions about firings, tenure and pay?

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/01/16/can-a-few-years-data-rev...

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Granted, the King takes a dim-view of the argument that teachers, per se, are the cause of the U.S. economic decline. But saying that steps us forward too far to allow most readers to understand what I am saying.

Let's start from the beginning:

Education, be it K12 education or higher education (college, university), is not the antecedent of a robust and rich U.S. economy. What I mean to say is that a very good (whatever that means to you) education system does not, by itself, create a robust and rich economy!

That sounds like heresy, I know, but I'd suggest that one big reason it sounds so 'wrong' is the fact that all over the state and nation educators and their public relations machines (including very often local 'media') have been blaring the klaxon that implies that MORE spending and MORE social engineering in our education institutions can SAVE the floundering U.S. economy.

There are plenty of markers one could use to back-up what I say: State parks in GA, for instance, have faced severe cut-backs as a result of the fact that legislators 'spared' education proportional cuts that were made necessary by declining government revenues associated with the economic downturn. To read the news, however, one hears of a great cut, and reads, for instance, that the Regents plan to 'consolidate' their system was made necessary because of the scrooge-like state pols.

One could discuss recent federal reform rules like IDEA or No Child Left Behind. Heck, you could look at federal funding of the school lunch programs (now breakfast, snack-time and even dinner time) and see how it has jumped over time.

Almost everywhere one looks, we see evidence of an 'emergency' in almost all aspects of education:

Teach for America, for instance, recruits very young and pretty 'teachers' with the ostensible mission of displacing the 'old guard' troops of teachers who are not enthusiastic nor pretty, any more.

The idea, here, is to get young colllege co-eds to imagine a world where old, mostly white women teachers, are destroying the futures of the kids with their backwards notions and harsh demeaners.

Of course, this load of horse crap would not get far except for ...

The fact that a lot of the folks running the schools like pretty young coeds as teachers instead of the old 'hags.' And as a plus, you have the fact that the newbies are paid less because: They have no experience!

Now, following along that track, one might find the U.S., especially in the K12 system, has a revolutionary group out their called "Teach for America" that pushes to get rid of the most experienced teachers and replace them with the least experienced and the least effective. Imagine that!

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To Be Continued ...

18 January 2012

I wanted to back-up and re-frame my original question: Are bad teachers (in the public U.S. K12 system) the cause for a U.S. decline (say, measured by standard-of-living)?

The issue is NOT, really, whether or not its the teachers or the parents fault regarding whether or not little johnny does well in school. (Granted, it's the no-good, lazy welfare brood mares ...).

But the question IS, are bad teachers to blame for a bad U.S. economy? And if they aren't, and by extension, if 'bad' K12 schools are NOT responsible for the U.S. decline, then who or what is?

And, for that matter, if the schools are only remotely related to the U.S. economy, then why is the public willing to believe advocates who always ask for more funding and more control over local K12 schools? Why do our political leaders from the governor, on down, go out of their way to talk about consolidating and reforming both higher education and K12 education? When will they have REFORMED it enough, we wonder? And will there ever come a day when they STOP throwing money at anything calling itself 'education?'

Where in the hell is this all leading? Stay tuned!