John Merrow asks… is it possible that we’re heading in the wrong direction?

Yes, it’s more than possible.

While he talks about lots of things in the comparison with how other good school-nations do it (including getting better teachers from the get- go and paying them well, etc., etc., and not focusing on charter schools, testing, accountability, vouchers, etc., etc., I will write about only one of those aspects. 

Testing and accountability…

I believe that our curent obsession with accountability to “get rid of bad teachers” is over the top– it’s like using a sledgehammer to kill a fly. It’s too much. Too complicated. Too, too, too. And it’s not going to change our system–as most teachers are already good enough and many teachers are excellent.  We are upending the entire system in order to be able to fire perhaps 5%- 10% of teaching staff.   Makes no sense to me.

http://takingnote.learningmatters.tv/?p=5060

I recently got a whiff of this…. I had put in a proposal to speak to the superintendents group about reforming special education and was told there’s no room on the program because it’s all devoted to evaluating teachers. Really?  I do believe we are heading in the wrong direction.