Leonard Pitts jumps on the bandwagon.

[Reader Rabbit]

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/07/31/1755488/teacher-unions-fighting-accountability.html

God, I'm so sick of this.

[Schema Thing]

1. Jesus kills a kitten every time a teacher is criticized.

[Starry Messenger]

2. He's getting hammered in the comments.

If that's any comfort. lol Do some journalists just write this shit off of faxes they get from central casting? We need to create an "anti-teacher Bingo card" because the same damn points just get hit over and over.

[daleanime]

3. That's sad....

No Leonard, there's not a "groundswell building out here", it's being manufactured out there. When you show me a accurate, productive way to measure a child's progress-maybe we can talk about singling out teachers.



But I doubt it.:argh:

[Larkspur]

4. And if you tell the Leonard Pitts that parents should also be held accountabe for their kids

education, they will scream in protest. It's always easy to blame the teachers, but parents are also a large part of the education picture for kids. If parents don't teach their kids self-discipline then the kids will be a distraction in class for other kids and the teacher.

[Diane R]

5. He wrote an excellent column, and I agree with every word.

[LWolf]

6. What a surprise. nt

[Catshrink]

7. Of course.

[YvonneCa]

8. After blaming teachers and their unions for...

....preventing change in education, he says the following (and my responses):


Enough. It is time teachers embraced accountability. Time parents, students and government did, too.

That assumptoion that teachers aren't and don't want to be held accountable is a total STRAW MAN argument. The real question is, "How to we fairly measure what teachers do?"

Because ultimately, what is as stake here is not grades, not jobs and not blame. No, this is an argument about the future -- and whether this country will have one. The fact is, it cannot in a world where information is currency and American kids are broke.

I completely agree with this...as most teachers do. I GET the 'fierce urgency of now' part of this debate and I agree. What I don't buy is that it is/was teachers or their unions that have prevented solutions. If we must cast blame...try politicians. ;)

People like my correspondent need to understand: There is a groundswell building here. Lead, follow, or get out of the way.

I hope there is a groundswell building. And I hope (and pray) that it includes teachers. If teachers aren't part of the solution, this effort will fail. TEACHERS MUST LEAD.



Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/07/31/1755488/teacher-unions-fighting-accountability.html#ixzz0vTdWFIVc

[txlibdem]

9. Quit blaming teachers!

It isn't the 8th grade teachers' fault that Jimmy or Jane is disruptive in class or cannot do the work because it's too far beyond his level. It is the current K-12 grade structure that forces all kids to jump ahead a level when September comes. The student may have been overwhelmed by the studies during the previous year, or a hundred other things may have happened to impede his or her actually learning the material they should know in order to be successful in the upcoming grade level.

Teachers should be jumping up and down screaming to change the K-12 system of classrooms full of students locked together with in veritable shackles. Students learn some things fast and others slow. They may need almost no help on Algebra but need constant help with Geometry. Or vice-versa.

Teachers should be marching on Washington to demand that students receive individual self-paced instruction. Teachers should be a RESOURCE for students and should not be tasked with pouring all knowledge into their noggins. The child must be in the driver's seat, he or she must be 100% accountable for his or her education.

Sure there are bad egg teachers that should be fired. There are bad egg policemen and firemen, bankers and stock brokers, too. But selling out our kids for the profit of a few greedy idiots who couldn't care less about your kids, or the future of our economy.

End this idiotic rush to privatize schools in America. We will regret it if we don't