http://www.huffingtonpost.com/todd-farley/teacher-merit-pay_b_800119.html
"intractable?" heh. says the pot to the kettle.
from your link:
It doesn’t matter what the average score on the test is or whether some drivers scored above or below you. What matters is whether you can show you have the driving skills and knowledge of traffic laws to “meet the standard” and get a license.
that right there is why teaching to standardized corporate tests won't allow america to compete.
but there is no more WASL, and teachers no longer write or score the tests.
nor did the teachers' unions push for NCLB or the washington ERL. they don't like teaching to the test. and not because it's more work. because it gets poor results.
so why can't johnny read? (you forgot to mention veejay, samir, tran, and hideo, btw.) my opinion is that he's self-absorbed, self-entitled, distracted, and spoiled due to the culture he lives in. he's more interested in bling than knowledge of the universe. in a consumer-driven society, his parents are willing to buy him whatever he needs to compete instead of making sure that he comprehends.
another possibility is that his family is so poor that he has to work after school. or he's distracted by hunger. or he's a part-time criminal. maybe he sells ecstasy to suburban johnny.
if we're going to fix it, we need to raise per capita spending on education instead of cutting teachers' pay, driving good people out of education, and increasing class sizes. we need to improve the funding stream, too, so that it's not solely carried by property taxes.
we need to recognize that one size does not fit all. using rigid standards isn't the answer. teachers need the flexibility and resources to be able to recognize individual strengths and weaknesses in their students, and they need to change strategies accordingly.
so here are my ideas: by law, states have to meet standards set by NCLB. fine. but get rid of these damned testing companies - and with them, their fees for doing us the "favor" of evaluating our students. charge the school boards, the PTA, individual parents, and teachers with writing those tests, and codify it. maybe throw some tradesmen, college professors, judges, and business leaders in there if they want to put in $.02 about what kids need to compete in the world. (it takes a village, right?) on test day, get volunteer students, TA's, and professors from local universities to help score them, and give the students incentive to do so by way of class credits.
and, in my opinion, we need to get trade unions into our schools on career day. let kids know that building things isn't just for poor people and immigrants, and that there's a lot of honor in that.
frankly, though, i don't think conservatives care that much about education; caring about other people's success is anathema to their world view. they don't care about teachers; why do they claim to care about students? to them, it's merely about cost. they claim our budget is broken because we're spending too much on education, and they're holding students' proficiency and teachers' paychecks hostage in order to get their taxes reduced. they're all about the costs to them, personally.
reality: school boards are the ones who grant all of these concessions you complain about when they negotiate with teachers' unions. don't like the contract? get new negotiators. it's not illegal to fire teachers who don't perform, nor does it violate contracts. the simple fact is that school boards simply choose not to fight those battles - for example, laying of the most recently-hired teachers first, instead of veterans who don't perform as well.
then there's empirical evidence: the gulf coast states have very few unionized teachers. according to your logic, they should be outperforming new york, illinois, and california. but that isn't the case.
is it even remotely possible, in your opinion, that poverty has a negative effect on education? and that increases in poverty exacerbate the problem?
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