The problem with this over-analysis of teachers and student achievement is that the public and politicians act as if it’s a one-to-one correlation. We tend to think that great teachers lead to great students, when there are far too many variables (community climate, poverty, parental engagement, school leadership, district-level resources) involved to put most of the responsibility for student achievement (or lack thereof) on individual teachers and schools.
On a related note, governors like Chris Christie in New Jersey are part of the problem regarding overheated rhetoric around teachers these days. His taped verbal beat-down of a teacher at a town hall last month and the relatively warm reception it’s received was both sexist and indicative of a nation’s screwed up priorities. If the people lamenting the lack of livable wages were police officers, firefighters, or EMT workers, Christie’s comments would have created enough negative publicity to hamper his efforts at re-election in three years. But because it was a shrill teacher, it was okay to tell the woman in so many words to get over it and be quiet. Until we see teachers as providing a a service as important and as patriotic as a police officer or firefighter, expect the battle for corporatizing K-12 education and teachers as customer service representatives to continue.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Notes from a Boy @ The Window 