Quote:
Originally posted by Spanky
That is its main purpose. If you test the students at the end of the year, and compare their scores to the previous year, you know how well the teacher did. Is the teacher there to do something else other than to teach reading, writing and basic math? If not, then what could be more objective than that? What other factors are there to consider?
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Damn. I had a long, kumbaya-like post about how we could have gotten along better, but the damn computer just ate it and I don't have the energy to re-write it.
So you will just get the end, which was to say that I don't disagree with everything you say. Testing can help measure teacher performance. Schools should be able to fire bad teachers. Social promotion should be a rare exception rather than the norm.
But I don't agree with you that any of what you say is absolute good with no countervaling considerations. And I don't agree that your three points are the main obsticles to effective education. Nor do I agree that teacher unions are the main problem facing schools because they disagree with you.
My point here is that we could have had a much more meaningful discussion about this had you not begun (and continued it) with the quotes above. And you would have sounded decidedly less like a partisan hack.
