Education

I was listening to noted educator Michelle Rhee recently and something she said really caught my ear.  She said that we need to evaluate the ability of our public school teachers and keep the good ones.

We pay people sometimes up to $12 million a year to toss a ball through a metal hoop on the wall (or for that matter use a stick to whack a tiny ball and run like the devil was chasing you.)  If they don’t do it well enough, we get rid of them and find someone who does.  This is purely and entertainment business.  Teaching in a public school is a fundamental value in society that needs to be done extremely well. However, in that teaching environment we pay them more to stay in the system for years, and we pay them more to take classes on how to teach…and never assess their ability to do the job.  If they don’t do it well, we don’t pay them less or fire them or trade them to the minor leagues because tenure rules and unions protect them.  They basically have to molest a student to get tossed.

Where is the logic in all this?  In private secondary schools bad teachers are more often evaluated and removed because those schools have to compete for students based on quality of education and achievement outcomes.  And those teachers are usually the lowest paid teachers in the land earning usually half what public school teachers earn.

Our country is steadily falling in its educational ranking world wide.  We don’t train enough scientists and engineers in this country anymore and have to import our skilled technically trained workers from places like India and China and Japan.  Half our kids in many places never even finish high school anymore.  The dropout rate is enormous and should frighten every American.

Why should we be frightened of evaluating the performance of our teachers and holding them accountable?  I remember a comment Dave Barry made once.  It goes something like this:  “In Japan the people are really serious about things and education is important even to the point of going to school far longer hours than we do…but hey, in America we can throw a really great party!”  Is that all we’ve become is a bunch of people intent on pleasure and the easy life?