It is as if Oprah is managing the national lexicon: "Everybody Gets An N-WORD!" And the verboten word-that-will-not-be-spoken in earshot of a teacher? That would be "Accountability." This little nugget was inadvertently dropped by the AJC's Edu-cheerleader, Maureen Downey, in a fairly recent op-ed piece bashing Kemp for not being a lap-dog for Public Schools. In her piece she ascribes to Georgia teachers dissatisfaction she claims is voiced nationwide leading off with:
Teachers are more than a little obsessed with pay/compensation and are always positioning themselves as under-paid, often suggesting that with a similar degree they would make much more in the real world. Clearly they've kept their distance from that reality. Fact is there is no "similar" degree as the real world eschews subtractive programs resulting in "major"-education degrees as they truly are less than a real degree. It is more than a little baffling where they think they'll get a job with tenure (official or merely by tradition), with guaranteed pay bumps just for hanging around or a defined benefit retirement. Given all that we now learn that they want to never confront a reasonable performance evaluation or accountability of any sort whatsoever.
But this one little line from the AJC begs a very important question. EXACTLY how should we, parents and taxpayers, judge teachers? How do we hold teachers accountable for doing the job the profession demands and the public expects of them? Maybe the teachers have an answer for that one.
"Too many mandated tests that hold too much sway over how students, teachers and schools are judged."Sure, they wedge "teachers" between "students" and "schools" to create an obfuscating trifecta but let's be honest, teachers' top five priorities are: (1) teachers; (2) teachers; (3) teachers; (4) schools; and (5) students. And the latter two are only a important to the extent that teachers are impacted.
Teachers are more than a little obsessed with pay/compensation and are always positioning themselves as under-paid, often suggesting that with a similar degree they would make much more in the real world. Clearly they've kept their distance from that reality. Fact is there is no "similar" degree as the real world eschews subtractive programs resulting in "major"-education degrees as they truly are less than a real degree. It is more than a little baffling where they think they'll get a job with tenure (official or merely by tradition), with guaranteed pay bumps just for hanging around or a defined benefit retirement. Given all that we now learn that they want to never confront a reasonable performance evaluation or accountability of any sort whatsoever.
But this one little line from the AJC begs a very important question. EXACTLY how should we, parents and taxpayers, judge teachers? How do we hold teachers accountable for doing the job the profession demands and the public expects of them? Maybe the teachers have an answer for that one.
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