Part 2

The other thing that Morning Joe never mentions is that like private schools, charter schools can pick and choose who they want. How many special ed kids are accepted into charter schools? How many children with behavior problems are allowed to stay in charter schools? Charter schools can turn away kids, public schools cannot. Public schools cannot require parents to sign a contract like charter schools can, requiring that they help their children with schoolwork. So of course charter schools "should" have higher scores.

I'm a special ed teacher and most of my students would not be even allowed in the door at most charter schools. So basically the goal of the Republicans must be to turn public schools into the dunping ground for special ed students and those with behavior problems that charter schools refuse to take.

Ahh...charter schools...if you listen to Morning Joe, you would think that charter schools are the way to go because public school teachers (union public school teachers) hate poor children. The reality is all charter school are not created equal. Sure the one founded by John Legend in Harlem has done wonderful things and parents cry if they cannot get their children in, but Morning Joe would have you think that all charter school are great.

In our area, fly by night charter schools have sprang up all over the place, getting their share of the public school funds. However, if you look at their test scores, they are worse than the urban public schools that they are supposed to be a solution to. Staff turnover (both teacher and administration) is terrible, very few stay more than a year if they can help it (or until a public school job opens). I work in a public school in a poor socio-economic area. We get students all the time from charter schools and they are always at least 1-2 years behind, event though their transcripts say they were grade level or even high ability. Meanwhile, our public schools suffer from the huge budget cuts by our great Republican Mitch Daniels and we lose more money to the charter schools.

All politicians use teacher's and education as punching bags because it is all too easy to pump themselves (and a guilable public) up with easy, meaningless slogans for an important part of society that see's little change despite all the years of rhetoric.

all the education researchers i've heard from have been appalled at the trend toward measuring teacher quality with high-stakes standardized testing. this strategy is simply not supported by any reputable research, and the studies which were thought to support it turned out to be based on widespread fraud - schools raised their scores by gaming the system and failing to document the dropout rate of the lowest performers .

For a start let's have all teachers take the same SAT tests that high school seniors take. Those who can't get above the average scores of high school seniors after having completed a college education (many with master's degrees) and with several years of professional experience, are probably too dumb to be teaching our children - separate them from the workforce to the extent that you can (where you can find qualified teachers on waiting lists for the jobs). Give teachers a 5 percent bonus for signing on for this - it can't be fun for reasonably bright teachers to be surrounded by those who are below the average of 18 years olds on the SATs.

This isn't the whole answer but it's a start.

Nothing will really help until critical thinking and intellectual achievment become socially acceptable. I love it when people tell me schools should be run like businesses. I point out that that would mean I could fire incompetent, lazy, or insubordinate workers (students) and send back defective parts (students who come to school unprepared, unhealthy, unrested, or otherwise unready to work). Suddenly, business models don't look so good.

Everybody know that elected officials of School Boards are bottom feeders & are bored of education. It's a money thing.

It never did make sense to me that in that Rhode Island high school, where they have huge numbers of limited English speakers, tremendous poverty and a transient population, firing ALL of the teachers
was a solution to low test scores. You fire the Gym teacher because Math and Reading scores(in English) are low. There are huge problems there...AND when students occasionally come to school, don't do homework or study, it is definitely the Gym teacher's fault the student can't Orwell.. ..What this DOES say to skilled teachers is....STAY AWAY from this school, your hard work and dedication will not matter to this administration.
I saw Bill Bennett , the right wing know-it-all Reagan Ed Sec. announce that large class sizes have no effect on student learning. I wondered then why expensive private schools number 1 selling point is small class sizes. I don't think the people spending big $$$ at Choate would agree.
We have a societal problem that the most dedicated teachers can't fix by themselves.

Good commentary, and there's no doubt that state and local officials know better what their public schools need to succeed. But federal money can go a long way to help the state shortfalls stemming from this Great Recession, and adhering to federal guidelines or prescriptions may not be all that bad.

The facts are plain to see for any who wish to understand them: America's children are falling behind when compared to foreign students in industrialized and even developing nations, and they routinely excel past American students in most every subject. The implications for the American economy are staggering.

Our politicians and the plethora of education PhDs need to get on the stick and do a better job...and quit blaming teachers and parents. Our leaders need to lead.