It seems to me that in the age of "accountability" where teachers are evaluated on "junk science"and schools are rated on high stakes Common Core tests that are not grade appropriate, the students and their parents are given a pass. In New York, The State uses the 6 day tests to determine 50% of a teacher's grade while the students scores are ignored for promotion decisions (however, these useless tests are used for student placement decisions).
The drumbeat of "accountability" is constantly brought up by the education deformer organizations and their media allies. However, when you push through the "accountability" rhetoric you find that these education deformer organizations will ignore the two most important part of the "accountability" equation, that is the parent and the student. In the education deformer world the teacher is the most important part of a student's educational success. To these organizations the fact that a teacher makes up only between 1% and 14% of a student's academic success is simply an inconvenient truth they choose to ignore. In fact, one of their education deform heroes. Joel Klein and his allies hold teachers primarily responsible for the achievement gap between disadvantaged and middle-class children. In a 2010 “manifesto,” Klein and one of his protégés, Michelle Rhee, the former schools chancellor of Washington, D.C., summed up their campaign like this:
“The single most important factor determining whether students succeed in school is not the color of their skin or their ZIP code or even their parents’ income—it is the quality of their teacher.”
Joel Klein, as Chancellor, falsely claimed that he was able to narrow the achievement gap only to be canned as Chancellor by an embarrassed Mayor Bloomberg after it was shown that the income/racial academic achievement gap actually widened!
The frustration level of educators who suffer through disrespectful students, uncaring parents, and unrelenting administrative pressure and yet are blamed for a student's failure that they have little or no control over. This is not just a New York problem but is found nationally as teacher shortages spread throughout the country. Moreover, even in countries like Australia, teacher frustration has resulted in aschool approving this messageto parents when they call the school While I agree with the frustration of these educators, I don't agree with the messages conclusion and maybe they should be lmore understanding of recent immigrants to the school district. Otherwise, I wish all schools would record similar messages and place "accountability" squarely where it belongs on the parents and the students and not scapegoating teachers.