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Posted on 03/28/2009 2:42:25 AM PDT by Scanian
Public education today is a mess. It has been ruined by parents whose legitimate concern for their kids has been translated into illegitimate interference with the educational process. Aiding and abetting the parents are legislators who have passed laws that empower parents and students at the expense of professional educators, and a judiciary that imposes its will on the educational process without regard for the realities of education.
About thirty years ago, it became fashionable to think that everyone who had an opinion about education should weigh in on the appropriate way to teach children. A thriving cottage industry grew up in our colleges and universities, an industry that ever since has been churning out doctors of education whose graduate theses elaborate experimental ideas about the best way to give children a proper education. Armed with their freshly minted credentials, this class of modern day education wizards has been stunningly successful at infiltrating its ideas into the educational fabric of our society.
Capitalizing on our country's almost compulsive preoccupation with things quantitative, these wizards have infused their experimental ideas with methodologies derived from the so-called science of statistics. Waving the banner of statistical analysis, they elaborated theories of education that fly in the face of common sense, theories that have now been widely adopted in school districts throughout the country at the expense of proven methods of educating children employed for over a century.
Ever ready to please parent-voters by trying out the newest and most politically correct solution to the age-old problem of producing an educated citizenry, and with a grateful glance in the direction of the education wizards just in case someone might need to be blamed for future failures, our legislators have mandated or approved such miracles of modern education as:
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
The author lost me right there at the beginning. Parents are to blame to a degree, but for doing nothing, not from excessive interference. The real problem is the NEA and its subversive anti-American zealots. Parents need to take control back at the local level and the feds need to stay out of education.
That’s when he lost me to. Anyone with children in school KNOWS, parents have Zero power. Parents are just the babysitter for educators so they can have a summer break. They are in school 9 months, plus or minus a few weeks when us parental babysitters get the privilege of actually being with the children we wanted. Now they want them to go longer? Sorry honey, if you couldn’t teach them in 9 months, maybe you should try another vocation. Before anyone even says it, I cannot homeschool. I would love to, but my ex- husband prevents it legally.
Couldn’t agree more. The Leftism MUST be removed from our schools before we can ever hope to restore our country to its former prominence. But, how to do it-? It seems nearly impossible here in Socialist Maryland. The ignorance/stupidity of the voters here is truly bewildering.
You hit the key: how can voters educated by these weirdos be smart enough to see they have been mere tools?
We can argue that they will wake up one day but I certainly do not see it.
Agreed! My guess is that this article is actually a screed against home schooling!
Mark
Thirty years ago, I naïvely set out with the GI Bill to get a Master's Degree in "Educational Psychology". It was best to "tow the line" in Liberal thought and to regard the children's self-respect by handing out an "A" at every opportunity. Of course, even my frequent Contrarian views got A's.
:-\
Blames parents for interfering in their child’s education. Amazing.
i m a innur sity publik scewl teechur. While I agree with you about the NEA, this article does point out a major parent problem. Many parents, even good parents, are too quick to take their child’s side. I can’t tell you how many times I have spoken with a parent and they have asked for my “side” of the story. Our school is way too customer friendly. Students get away with just about everything, including threatening teachers, because we don’t want to upset the voters (or the NAACP).
Our schools could be changed tomorrow.
1. Double teacher’s salaries.
2. Do away with tenure.
3. Zero tolerance of discipline problems.
This is a satire post right?
Leave it to the Educators?
Is this perons real? Do they have children.
Hey assclown. The children are OURS. Not the Governments. They get educated the way WE decide, not some Government OPfficial or Teacher Union Thug.
Were do all these morons come from.........
AFTER SOBER and judicious consideration, and weighing one thing against another in the interests of reasonable compromise, H. L. Mencken concluded that a startling and dramatic improvement in American education required only that we hang all the professors and burn down the schools. His uncharacteristically moderate proposal was not adopted. Those who actually knew more about education than Mencken did could see that his plan was nothing more than cosmetic and would in fact provide only an outward appearance of improvement. Those who knew less, on the other hand, had somewhat more elaborate plans of their own, and they just happened to be in charge of the schools.
Those who knew less, to be specific, were the members of the National Education Association's Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education, a.k.a. The Gang of Twenty-seven, now long forgotten but certainly not gone. They builded better than they knew, and their souls go marching on in every school in America today. The Commission was established in 1913, the year that also brought us the income tax. Many of its members were functionaries of school bureaucracies, from the United States Commissioner of Education himself down through supervisors and associate superintendents and principals and even a high school inspector, whatever that was, to no less a personage than a senior educational secretary of the YMCA. Professors and assistant professors of education represented the higher learning. One of them was chairman of the committee on mathematics, naturally, while the committees on lesser disciplines, notably classical and modern languages, were directed by high school teachers. The stern sciences were served by a professor of education, while the smiling sciences like social studies and the other household arts were overseen by federal bureaucrats. In the whole motley crew there were no scientists, no mathematicians, no historians, no traditional scholars of any sort.
That was surely no accident, for it seems to have been an article of the Commission's unspoken agenda to overturn the work of an earlier NEA task force that had been made up largely of scholars, the Committee of Ten, called together in 1892 and chaired by Charles W. Eliot, then president of Harvard University. That committee had come out in favor of traditional academic study in the public schools, which they fancied should be devoted to the pursuit of knowledge and the training of the intellect. But what can you expect from a bunch of intellectuals? The Eliot Report of 1893 was given to things like this:As studies in language and in the natural sciences are best adapted to cultivate the habits of observation; as mathematics are the traditional training of the reasoning faculties; so history and its allied branches are better adapted than any other studies to promote the invaluable mental power which we call judgment.Obviously, the Eliot committee did its work in the lost, dark days before the world of education had discovered the power of the bold innovative thrust. All they asked of the high schools was the pursuit of knowledge and the exercise of the mind in the cause of judgment.
The Gang of Twenty-seven, unhampered by intellectual predispositions, found that proposal an elitist's dream. They concluded, in other words, that precious few schoolchildren were capable of the pursuit of knowledge and the exercise of the mind in the cause of judgment. That, of course, turned out to be the most momentous self-fulfilling prophecy of our century. It is also a splendid example of the muddled thought out of which established educational practice derives its theories. The proposals of the Eliot report are deemed elitist because they presume that most schoolchildren are generally capable of the mastery of subject matter and intellectual skill; the proposals of the Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education, on the other hand, are "democratic" in presuming that most schoolchildren are not capable of such things and should stick to homemaking and the manual arts.
_____________
In the cause of "democratic" public education, the Gang of Twenty-seven compounded illogic with ignorance by deciding that the education proposed by the Eliot committee was primarily meant as "preparation for the college or university." True, relatively few high school graduates of 1913 went on to college; but even fewer had done so in 1893. Indeed, it was just because so few would go on to more education that the Eliot committee wanted so many to have so much in high school. But the Gang of Twenty-seven decided that since very few students would go on to the mastery of a discipline and the rigorous training of the mind in college, which colleges were still fancied to provide in those days, there was little need to fuss about such things in high school. They had far more interesting things to fuss about in any case, their kinds of things. They enshrined them all, where they abide as holy relics of the cult of educationism to this day, in their final report, issued in 1918 (and printed at government expense, like all the outpourings of educationism ever since) as Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education.
Cardinal Principles was a small pamphlet, not much larger than The Communist Manifesto or a man's hand. It rejected the elitist and undemocratic education of the dark past and provided in its place "preparation for effective living." It made us the effective livers we are today, and it sends forth every year from our public schools and colleges all those effective livers who will make the future of the nation.
_____________
It is a thematic illusion of our educational enterprise that understanding can be had without knowledge, that the discretion can be informed without information, that judgment need not wait on evidence. Before we can ask what are the right relations between producer and consumer, for instance, we must know what are all the possible relations between producer and consumer. We must know antecedents and consequences; we must know functions and contexts. We must, in fact, know more than we can hope to know, which is why thoughtful people only reluctantly and armed with as much knowledge as possible leap from knowing into judging and decide to "hold" some truths self-evident.
On the other hand, Cardinal Principles, in speaking of its fifth main objective, Civics Education, leaps blithely into: "Too frequently, however, does mere information, conventional in value and remote in its bearing, make up the content of the social studies." Mere information. What the Commission might mean by "conventional in value" I just don't know, but I do know, along with all who have ever studied, that only a fool is willing to take the risk that this or that bit of mere information is "remote in its bearing." Facts seem unrelated only to those who know few facts.
As you might expect, Civics Education--what a noble cause!--is given enormous power to alter and dilute the content of traditional academic subjects:History should so treat the growth of institutions that their present value may be appreciated. Geography should show the interdependence of men while it shows their common dependence on nature. Civics should concern itself less with constitutional questions and remote governmental functions, and should direct attention to social agencies close at hand and to the informal activities of daily life that regard and seek the common good. Such agencies as child-welfare organizations and consumers' leagues afford specific opportunities for the expression of civic qualities by the older pupils.And, not content with prescribing an "appreciation" of institutions that would satisfy Lenin, ignorance of the constitution in the name of responsible citizenship, and literature as an instigator of social compliance, the Commission decides also that "all subjects should contribute to good citizenship." (My italics.) While they would probably not suggest, in that cause, that the binomial theorem be put to a vote in class, their descendants and adherents will, in fact, suggest that mathematics, obviously "remote in its bearing" on good citizenship, is not really at the heart of the educational enterprise.
The work in English should kindle social ideals and give insight into social conditions and into personal character as related to these conditions. Hence the emphasis by the committee on English on the importance of a knowledge of social activities, social movements, and social needs on the part of the teacher of English.
While its concrete proposals for Civics Education are very much like its proposals for all the other educations, Cardinal Principles, in the name of "attitudes and habits important in a democracy," goes an extra step and prescribes what should actually happen in the classroom. It urges "the assignment of projects and problems to groups of pupils for cooperative solution and the socialized recitation whereby the class as a whole develops a sense of collective responsibility. Both of these devices give training in collective thinking." Here we can see the theoretical foundations of the rap session, the encounter group, the values clarification module, and the typical course in education, but also something far worse.
Our government K-12 schools were a leftist idea from their very beginning in the mid-19th century. If the concept of compulsory government owned and operated K-12 schools is a leftist idea then how can we “remove” leftism?
The bedrock goal of government education has been to produce a pliable, conforming, and sheeple-like citizenry. Government schools have succeeded admirably in this. How is it possible to fix something that has never been broken?
Now, finally after several generations of government indoctrination, we now have parents in the home who no longer remember freedom well enough to overcome their children's school indoctrination. That our nation voted in Obama is proof that parents no longer have the will, knowledge, or understanding to teach freedom ( and basic education skills) to their children, as was done by parents in the past. This is why schools seem broken to you.
Some conservatives wrongly believe that government K-12 education can be reformed. Others know that government education must be abolished. We could do this if conservatives could: 1), recognize the fundamental problem, and, 2), get organized.
1) Remove your own children from government schools.
2) Organize with others to starve government K-12 education of money through the ballot box.
3) Organize conservative private education foundations that would award private vouchers to every child in the nation.
Amen.
I agree with the consensus here. It sounds like the education establishment is trying to blame the parents for the education establishment’s failures.
Last November’s Presidential election demonstrated to me how woefully ignorant and gullible the products of our educational establishment have become. Pushing a few buttons, like the ones labeled “hope”, “change” and “yes we can” seems to have activated implants of those same names in the graduates of our Socialist education factories.
This would be a form of mind control, not education.
The problem with American schools is the same as the problem with Soviet agriculture. It’s a supplier driven monopoly demanding ever more resources and providing fewer and fewer increasing shoddy products.
School choice is the obvious answer. Privatize schools, the way cell phone providers are privatized. If you insist, let the government issue vouchers that will cover the cost. People may not love their cell phone provider, but they have choice and can find the one they hate least.
I don’t care if voucher schools teach Islam or Roman Catholicism or Mormonism or Creationism or Darwinism. Let the market decide.
But then, after establishing the utter failure of the teachers and administrators he proposes that:
If our nation is to have any chance to reinvigorate its historical commitment to producing a civilized society, it must re-empower educators to educate. This means that education policy must be structured to support the educators who labor day in and day out to do the educating. It means that educators must be protected in the educational decisions they make, not made subject to the interference of parochial-minded parents, vote-seeking politicians, frightened administrators, high-minded jurists who lack educational experience, or intermeddling theorists masquerading as education wizards. Protecting our teachers from the decisions of educationally ill-informed people won't solve all of the problems of public education, but it will reverse the direction of the last thirty years and set us back on the high road of civilization.
So basically Gladstein thinks that schools would somehow improve if we just let the folks running them now keep running them without any outside input. And, as he notes in his article, we should shut down any school choice options since they are, in his mind, what caused the entire educational establishment to do all the things they have done in the past 30+ years that reduced the quality of our educational system. Funny, I thought they were more likely the result of left leaning political ideas and the objectives of the teacher's unions combined with the dysfunctional structure of public schools.
Bottom line - the author's ideas are ridiculous.
Conservatives should stop attempting to: 1) reform government schools, or 2) use various forms of government money to fund their worldview.
Instead do the following:
1) Organize private ( conservative) education foundations that will sponsor conservative teachers willing to open tuition-free one room school houses, homeschool cooperatives, virtual schools, and mini-schools. The conservative foundations would certify the teacher, approve the curriculum, and test the students.
2) Remove your child from the government indoctrination camp. Encourage others to do the same.
3) Organize with neighbors to elect representatives who utterly oppose government K-12 schooling and work for its complete elimination.
4) Organize ballot initiatives that will starve government K-12 schools of money.
Please remember that the government school purpose from its inception was to produce compliant sheeple. It is succeeding admirably in its goal. It is impossible to fix something that is not broken. Instead government education must be abolished.
The author of this article is obviously a product of the failed school system he describes since he is unable to make a coherant argument. He starts out saying that parental interference is the problem, then in the next paragraph blames Drs of Education for bringing unproven and obviously flawed theories into the classroom. The teachers unions have managed to discard EVERY PROVEN TEACHING METHOD in favor of a bunch of new age hippy BS that has done nothing but destroy the educational system. For example the educational district I live in is considered one of best in NY state. I work with people from China and India who send their kids back to school in their home countries because of the poor education they are getting. These highly educated scientists and engineers prefer schools in THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES to those in the US. My suggestion is to go back to teaching as it was done in the 50s. Same methods, updated cirricula, same discipline and standards. What’s been done since has been a disaster.
Well, those might be the key to change. But, school systems are sort of like incubators and the salary thing might just entrench some of the problems.
And school choice plans have been consistently voted down with public-school parents being a integral part of the opposition.
1) I contend that very little learning actually happens in school. It is parents and the children themselves who are doing the vast bulk of the hard work **at home!**. In reality all academically successful children are either nearly entirely homeschooled or “afterschooled”. The institutional school is merely sending home a curriculum, grading projects, and administering testing.
2) So....When educators invent “new” reading and math programs it makes it very hard for the parent to teach their children at the kitchen table. The “afterschooling” which is nearly everything any child will learn is now impossible.
3) Parents have had no role in implementing wacky education teaching practices. Educators have willing cooperated in this endeavor. Sensible parents, on the other hand, have fought vigorously for rational reading and math programs. That we have a thriving tutoring industry in this nation is proof that parents are turning to private alternatives to see that their children do learn to read and do math.
4)Institutional schools that have high standardized test scores also have parents who significantly encourage learning in the home. In their children's early years these parents have read to their children from infancy, demanded that their kids learn their math facts, check homework for completeness and accuracy, visit museums and the library, turn off the TV, and at the first sign of trouble seek private tutoring...etc. These parents are doing *everything* successful homeschooling parents are doing. Then when these “afterschooled” kids do well on government school standardized tests, who takes the credit? Yes, of course! The teachers!
I agree with you 100%. I have nothing to add except anecdotal support, and I’ll spare you that.
Wow that writer got a piece of my mind!
Both my kids learned to read using McGuffey primers. They are so good!
My wife is a teacher in Middle School. I can easily agree that the education of today is NOT the education we received in the 60-70’s and in many ways it has failed to achieve the needed results. The primary difference in the education process that must be changed first is Discipline. For example, in a class of 20 7th grade children, most will be good students, but there is always the one or two clowns that don’t want to learn, so they waste class time with being silly, being disruptive, abusive to other students or teachers, refusing to participate in classroom tasks, and even violent. In the far past days, this kind of problem was easily handled, because the Teacher was given authority to handle discipline. We got spanked, verbally reprimanded, sent to the Office for more, and our parents would do the same or worse when they were informed of our misbehavior.
Now, the teacher has no authority to discipline, a misbehaving child must be coddled and cared for so their feelings aren’t hurt. The teacher must fill out a series of forms, describing the behavior, the interaction with the student, the following of steps to inform the student and parent of the behavior, and possible future methods of response to this kind of behavior.... more paperwork for the teacher to fill out, and more contacts with the parent. After numerous infractions by the student, and stacks of forms filled out by the teacher, there could be an actual meeting between the teacher and the parent, to discuss the misbehaving student. These meetings must be coordinated with the schedules of the parent, the school administrator, any other teachers that have had problems with the student, and any other school activities that the many are involved in. It can take weeks to set up this meeting. All along the way to this meeting, there are numerous layers of documentation required to demonstrate that all involved have been given proper notice and responded, with any needed changed due to scheduling, sickness, other conflicting scheduled meetings, etc.
When the meeting finally takes place, and the teacher or teachers appear, along with the administration representative, and the parent with the student. There is usually a stressful confrontation where the teacher/school administration are accused of prejudice/unprofessional behavior/bullying/ incompetence. ONLY RARELY does the parent hold the student responsible for the behavior problem. After the meeting, the administrative representative will remind the teacher that these kinds of events go into the school record, and reflect poorly on the overall school performance records. The teacher is told to work harder to maintain better control of the classroom, or it reflects poorly on the school as a whole. The teacher is also reminded that too many events of this kind will reflect poorly when it it time to review the teacher’s records for the annual contract renewal process... (in other words; too many notes of this kind of behavior problems in your class will result in YOU being fired).
So what is the result? The student spent five minutes making a class disruption... major or minor. The teacher has taken hours of class, duty, and personal time to comply with ALL requirements of documenting and contacting appropriate persons involved. The student has learned that misbehavior is more costly for the teacher than the student. The parent has learned that a little hot air can get the teacher fired. The administration has more paperwork to deal with, and it reflects poorly on the school as a whole, because the teacher can’t control the student, so it’s the teacher’s fault.
Professional teachers with many years of experience are trying to hold on till retirement. New teachers with freshly signed certificates soon discover they need to look for other professional opportunities, and usually leave the Teaching profession after an average of two years. A whole lot of students are not getting educated, for lack of many things, and soon for lack of anybody willing to teach them. They learn early that students rule the schools and if they don’t want to learn how to read or multiply, they don’t have to.
The Federal, State, and local governments, news media, and parents; decry the sorry state of Education... and blame the teachers.
Just so you will know, where I stand. My wife and I spend approximately $5,000 out of our pocket each year, for classroom necessities like paper, pencils and other materials. In 2008 I personally purchased over 7000 pencils to freely distribute to students.
This has only described the deficiencies in a system dealing with discipline problems. I haven’t touched on all the fun involved in teaching non-English speaking/mobility/sight/hearing/emotionally/mentally/gender/
otherwise challenged students placed into the “Educationally Normed” classroom. And I haven’t really discussed that with over 120 students visiting the classroom of a teacher, each day. That teacher is budgeted 100 sheets of paper for making classroom handouts each week. The text books are years old and have numerous missing pages, but that is not in the budget at all. The teacher is required to take Continuing Education courses, at their own expense, to maintain their teaching certification, each year.
Yes, the Modern Education system is so much more progressive than the one I was educated in. There should not be any problems with students getting the full measure of their Educational opportunity, except for the failure of so many teachers to do their job.
Two more years and we’re out. If not terminated first.
The best retort to this hogwash is John Taylor Gatto’s book,
“The Underground History of American Education”.
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/
For those who prefer viewing videos to reading:
http://www.edflix.org/gatto.htm
This ping list is for articles of interest to homeschoolers. I hold both the Homeschool Ping List and the Another Reason to Homeschool Ping List. Please freepmail me to let me know if you would like to be added or removed from either list, or both.
Same here.
I firmly believe that God has raised up homeschoolers for just such a time as this.
I think that there is more truth in this statement than this person realizes, just not in the way he thinks.
I, for one, am proud to have *ruined* the public *education* my children would have gotten.
I firmly believe that God has raised up homeschoolers for just such a time as this.
Agreed.
I think we are on the right track.
Why are you cooperating with this?
In my profession, I would be censored by my licensing board and be shamed before my peers if I were guilty of malpractice. The excuse of parental, patient, and employer demands, or my personal financial stresses would never be accepted as an excuse.
I have never met a professional who was a government slave. Every professional still has the constitutional right to refuse the job or quit. Morally, ethically, and professionally the professional has a duty to his client ( and to God) to refuse the job and/or quit.
When educators invent “new” reading and math programs it makes it very hard for the parent to teach their children at the kitchen table. The “afterschooling” which is nearly everything any child will learn is now impossible.
Hear, hear!If it is important for the child to learn some new math, why isn't it important for the parents to learn that same math?
The answer is that it isn't necessary for the parents to learn that new math because in fact it isn't important for the child to learn that new math either.
Change for the sake of change advantages the educator and disadvantages the parent. Which is the entire point of the change in the math. Otherwise the advantage of having the parent on the same page as the teacher would dwarf any improvement that the new math might actually constitute.
ADA, coupled with some other legislative enactments, puts administrators and teachers in the position of having to please parents in order to keep students in their schools. The removal of a student from a school by a parent represents a financial hardship for a school, and in extreme cases may actually threaten financial catastrophe.
What an interesting statement! So obviously parents shouldn't be allowed to remove their kids from schools. I see. We should send them in, help with school field trips, and shut up and let the noble wise educators do their work.
Screw that. You can have my kids over my dead body. And a whole lot of other dead bodies too since we're well armed.
So obviously parents shouldn’t be allowed to remove their kids from schools.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Many parents are not “allowed” to remove their children.
The parents who are not “allowed” are those who can not afford to ransom their children by paying both school taxes and private or home schooling expenses.
Those parents who do remove their children from government schools are being “permitted” to do so, but only on the provision that they essentially pay a freedom of conscience tax.
So....Do you see the evilness of the government schools? They have power over all the children in the United States. Even those parents who privately or home school must bow ( directly or indirectly) to the power of the government school.
We teachers call it "the cure de jour"...
Reform Ha! Society needs to reform its own self. Not only are the public sKrewls inept, to me they mostly reflect the gradual disintegration of social morality in the entire country.
Point, defining down depravity, coarsening of the language of daily discourse, continually diminishing the knowledge required to display mastery of the subject(ie: all exceptional children who graduate will display proficiency in ALGEBRA, horse feathers).
Finally the universities, the colleges of education in the elite universities are the tenured havens of the likes of Bill Ayers and worse, from Boston to Berkeley to Austin or Peoria for that matter. Can such places be reformed? In all practicality, Home School if you can. The nightly news routinely blasts the audience with things I had never heard of until I too Abnormal Psych around age thirty. We get what we deserve, teachers unions, Bill Ayers, the trial lawyers and the corrupt political and business leaders. Right Turns, Tight Lines palmerizedCaddis
First, teach them to read. Then teach them to write. Then teach them arithmetic. With that foundation, they will pretty much be able to learn the rest.
This attitude is a reason to homeschool. I languished in public education for 12 years. It was a sentence to be served. I had a few good teachers, but not very many. Most were just there, reading the official material and going through the motions, but some were downright no good.
The truth is, most homeschooled students are academically so superior to the public school inmates, some spelling bees won’t allow them to participate becaus they make public schools look bad. The author of this article either didn’t know this or willfully ignored it.
http://www.wimp.com/thegovernment
This is a very good 10 minute video on where our country is going. It discusses the different types of governments in the world. This is not political. Both parties are responsible for the shift in the type of government that represents us. Can WE stop that shift.
Never saw this before...it should be passed on...
This article does not argue against parental involvement or decry homeschooling, nor does it advocate greater power for the pseudo-educators being churned out a mile a minute by our education factories. Moreover, it most certainly does not support the self-serving agenda of the NEA. If any of the commentators here would bother to read the article more carefully, and give a little thought to the words they are actually reading (instead of some other words that might be buzzing around in their heads), they might discover that the article points to a real and significant problem in education tody. It points out that good teachers (yes, there really are some “good” teachers out there, although they are becoming rarer by the minute) are being rendered impotent by the combined interference of bad parents (yes, there really are some “bad” parents out there who would rather their children be socially promoted than earn grades and behave properly), a benighted judiciary (no comment is required here, I suspect), an education establishment that is disconnected from proven methods of education (ugh...), and politicians who have no compunction about passing laws that make our schools the locus of modern social engineering. Those of you who actually have read the article and didn’t understand the author’s concern to re-empower “good” teachers so that they can actually do “good” teaching, should go back and re-read the article and then post some commentary. That way, other people will have the benefit of thoughtful commentary (I’m sure some of you consider yourselves to be “thoughtful”), and the cause of good education in America can be advanced just a bit.
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