re: #87 Obdicut

But the rubber room thing, as I pointed out, is jsut as bad for a competent teacher who gets accused by an incompetent principal.

If we really want to fix education in this country, it’s not going to be done by letting administrators have more power to fire teachers. It makes no sense on the face of it; why do you blankly assume the competence of those administrators?

If we really want to fix administration in this country, let’s look to successful models, like the Finnish one. It involves beating back against the anti-intellectual strain in our country, valuing teachers more, having higher standards for entering the teaching profession. It involves shifting funding away from administration, and back to the teachers themselves.

[Link: bertmaes.wordpress.com…]

[Link: neatoday.org…]

I see schools and teachers barely treading water.

If the Charter School idea is a non starter, why does Obama want to see more of them?

Also, are there any examples of funds shifted from admin to teachers that have proved successful? Also, why should we assume that teachers are better equipped to handle to funding than administrators? Shouldn’t teachers just each and leave administration to administration?

I do agree we need higher standards for entering teachers. I would also add I like the idea of having professionals with real world experience (scientists, etc) encouraged to teach.

That and subject competency exams for teachers. I believe that is critical.