School iPads to cost nearly $100 more each, revised budget shows

[Igel]

39. We did that once.

It was a disaster.

We hired a lot more teachers. Except that there wasn't a huge surplus of unemployed highly qualified teachers. So we got a lot of underqualified teachers.

So we had more scripted lessons imposed, and since there were so many underqualified teachers the impetus for more and more and more testing and more scrutiny and closer monitoring grew. We got more testing and closer monitoring.

And then the requirement that all teachers be "highly qualified" according to some rather arbitrary standards. Of course, no regulation ever gets rolled back, even if the original reason for it ceases to exist--somebody will come up with a new original reason. Retcon was a standard feature of bureaucracies before it became the province of bad prequels and sequels constrained by the original story.


Let's not do that again, shall we? We're still suffering from the "cure" for that wonderful night of binging.