(Another special edition from a regular Left Ed commentator known to all. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
To listen to the discussion going on right now about teacher quality one would think that most teachers were suspect, poorly trained, over paid, inefficient and in need of firing. All we need to do, the reformers cry, is the simple task of reforming America's failing education system. Of course the key to doing so rests universally with dealing with the rampant hordes of bad teachers. Bolstered by their evil teacher unions, these bad teachers have systematically taken over our schools, held local school boards hostage, and under the guise of fair wages and better working conditions looted taxpayer coffers with their outrageous salaries and benefits. Then thanks to tenure's legendary job for life benefits, they get to kick back and ruin our children's futures care free.
Sigh. The fairy tale above throws so much crap at the wall that its easy for the public to lose one's way in figuring out is what is truth or fiction. That's probably by design. It allows "reformers" to move the Overton Window on Education to the right more effectively that way because something is going to stick. For example, what were you people thinking in New Jersey when you elected this guy:
On merit pay, Christie said he wants to prohibit seniority or graduate degree attainment in fields other than math and science from influencing salary increases for teachers. The large pool of funding needed to start a merit pay program would come from the savings of firing bad teachers through tenure reform, Christie said.
In this short quote there is so much being flung at the wall that one might miss the larger arguments being made by "reformers" like Gov. Christie.
