How does one evaluate anyone then, given the long list of reasons as to why it is impossible? How do you fire anyone? How do you ascertain competence? And how do you find out if the students are learning anything? Are you telling me you can't fairly test for reading comprehension? Just ask the students to read a text they have not seen before, and then explain what it means. How could one teach to the test for that? Reading comprehension of course is the key here. The rest is more peripheral. If you can't read, you are going to fail, and have a menial job for life most likely.
Here's an idea. Why don't we try this approach for one major school district with problems, and see what happens over say 10 years, monitoring progress as we go? Why don't we experiment? What we do now ain't working, and there is no evidence spending more money on these dysfunctional school systems helps either. Read the Kansas City school district study, when a judge ordered the state to spend something like 15K a year per high school pupil, in 1980's to 1990's dollars. The result? No improvement in student performance at all. None.
The quality of the teachers needs to be improved. What is an objective fact, is that most, particularly in the dysfunctional school districts (it would be interesting to get a percentage from a study here) go to third rate colleges and get C averages. They tend to be drones.
Anyone here agree that there should be stricter tests in who in terms of teachers gets hired. I think it should be sort of like passing the bar exams or passing your boards. A master's in Education might help. Another issue is that administrators should decide which level of school needs the most cash poured into. Some say elementary is the most important, some say jr high is, while others say high school is. Some food for thought I guess.
