Schools are not factories, teachers are not machines, and children are not products.
When non-experts (general public serving on decision-making school boards) (government lobbyists, committees, legislators) (media misrepresentations) exert more influence on the content, structure, and direction of social science systems, the system will become more and more incapacitated...this is what has happened since Reagan's interference in 1983 through his committee of non-experts assembled to "study" America's schools. Competition with other nation's performance (a direct legacy of the Sputnik Era) fueled Reagan's assembly which included only one professional classroom teacher. Inflammatory name of their final report? A Nation At Risk...
Like the "Reformation" and the "Inquisition" defamation and bullying and punishment are the tactics used by big guys coming down hard and fast on the "little guys." The little guys in this case by the way are mostly little women...80% of secondary teachers are female; 90% of elementary teachers are women. Women have generally not been looking out for their backs; instead they have been dedicating before time, during time, and after school time to our kids.
After forty-five years of serving teachers and kids and parents and administrators (Preschool through Graduate School) in my various roles, I know without a shadow of doubt that the very great majority of classroom teachers are good professionals with good intentions doing extraordinary work with the greatest range of children worldwide. In no other nation do we find EVERY child arriving at the school door from the truly widest range of backgrounds: severely under prepared to anxiously over-prepared homes.
Let educators once again use the science they spend four to six years studying at the onset of their career choice. That is before recent efforts to fill overly difficult classrooms with teachers who will work under grueling conditions because no one wants to fund these properly! That is before city, state and federal government began recruiting non-educators with ANY undergraduate degree and placing these unfortunate recruits day one in the most challenging classrooms -under supported, under "enculturated," under prepared, under financed, and finally undereducated.
We now have problems in education because as a nation we do not value the development of children, nor do we value the majority of those who daily engage and advocate for children (mothers, teachers, social workers, day care providers, preschool teachers and service providers...the list can go on). This practice is testimony to systematic under-valuing and demeaning of the true experts by those who regulate "the big bucks."
When will America graduate from the industrial era of thinking...and put it's logic, appreciation, authentic support, and money where our future's resources truly are? Children, Families, Schools are our future...handle them with CARE and INSIGHT.
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