This issue is where obama really shows his DINO colors. He claims he wants to "reform" the educational system by basing it off teacher performance? The measure for teacher performance? Test Scores!

This is a fat load. While its' fine to orient manufacturing or sales compensation to performance, I'll note that the product in those industries does not actively attempt to thwart the principle actor's best efforts.

A typical classroom in the US is 10% interested, 50% apathetic, and 40% hostile to the concept of learning. A teacher can only do so much in such an environment, and if you think they should be able to engage those students.. the best in these other sectors are paid according to their talent, teacher salaries have been terrible for years (in canada they make 90k USD a year, a very competitive salary, and roughly triple the US)

I disagree. It all comes down to lack of money. In a big population there will be more bureaucracy, as in California. That per se will not detract from the quality of education. We had a bureaucracy in place when the California schools were #1, before Prop. 13 starved them of funds, and there has been a direct correlation between the lack of funding and the decline of the school system here. I am a homeowner, and I am not a teacher, but I think that Prop. 13 must be fixed to exclude the developers and realtors and their downtown buildings and apartments that were the real focus of Prop. 13. If the whole thing had to go, I'd do that too, but I think most homeowners are convinced they couldn't afford it.

As a new instructor in a public institution, I find way too much time is spent "checking up on teachers" using inadequate and essentially meaningless measuring methods. It's check-the-box evaluation. The teachers all seem extremely competent and dedicated. The administrators seem to chase their tales all day long chasing a miasma of perfection that ignores anything questioning their authority or pre-conceived notions. Thus, nothing gets done. Paper towel usage in the restrooms is rigorously tracked, but serious problems at home that hinder a student's progress are ignored. This is the problem, but the process is grid-locked by administrators trying to stay out of the classroom by preserving their pointless jobs.

Erica Goldson is fundamentally correct. I agree that current education is over-managed on all levels in order to promote "competition." There is a place for competition, but real education promotes exploration and critical thinking. As a retired teacher, I strongly support public education, but do not see many examples of either private or public education that really promote creativity and critical thought. That's where we need to go.

Yes, but...

You say this:
(They need to scream bloody murder at stupid policy, reject inappropriate use of market forces, point out mainstream media educational naiveté, and demand that policymakers listen before serving up dysfunctional programs like No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top.

And when they do so and are dismissed as self-serving whiners who don’t want to be held accountable, they should take to the streets in protest.)

but you forget the power of today's media. They will be dismissed and forgotten, as nothing of value can be accomplished in our present political situation. And if educators take to the streets, the entire U.S. public will largely not back them up because then where will children go when parents head to work? This country is full of individuals who get their 'news' from a single source, often biased. and assume that there is only one correct way to think - often as the person they listen to thinks.

Our educational system has been falling by the wayside for decades (imho, a deliberate act by Republicans who despise public education), and the apparent number of adults that lack the ability to think critically about an issue affects every public policy issue, including public education. I about guarantee the public will respond to educators' street protests negatively.

And then there's the fact that most people in the U.S. aren't willing to give up their job to fight for legislation or fairness. We're all complacent - and as such, all complicit in our country's downfall.

I honestly hope I'm mistaken on all accounts.

FINALLY, someone who truly sees what's happening and where public education in America is headed. Alas,my cry for sitting on the steps of the capitals in Albany and Washington received nods of agreement but no movers and shakers. I fear it is already too late.

@Anon: sure, homeschoolers are out there, disgusted at the failings of public education *as it exists,* many for the reasons listed in this article. I certainly considered homeschooling my first child and would be doing it with my second if I didn't need to work for a living. (And yes, for the record, I am a teacher.)

The problem is precisely that homeschooling can only be a remedy for those parents who have the financial means and the education and the cultural support. If you think that that's fine, each to his or her own, then imagine just what this country and culture will look like in 25 years.

Jefferson wrote that (only) public education would ensure the freedoms of a democracy "to enable* every* man to decide what would secure or endanger his freedom." Nuff said.

Perhaps it would be best if, as my wife and I witnessed in Japan, groups of strong-willed young parents would create their own schools out of their own ideologies, whatever they may be. There are plenty of educational methods to choose from. Since they will need state certification for issuing graduating students accredited diplomas their curricula will have to include the basics for college entrance and their children will have to pass those board tests if they choose higher ed. In fact, the one-room schoolhouse can be quite inspiring for both children and teachers. All you need is a couple of families to start such a school. Dedicated, energetic, resourceful teachers can be found and payment can be arranged through some wages, some bartering, whatever. Since new teachers in the public and charter schools are averaging around $33K now, it doesn't take that much to motivate them. But you do need to give such a teacher lot of other support... not criticism and distrust. Good luck, I'm afraid you're on your own now.

It's a deliberate scheme from the right-wing to make U.S. citizens as stupid as possible. Only the rich and the stupid would be in favor of Republican economic policies. And look at how many people already vote Republican. It will only get worse.

You are kidding about the TV, right? Most kids today spend most of their time online. I agree that children today need to be "unplugged" for some time - both inside schools and out - in order to develop a healthy, balanced, and purposeful education.

Racists have been trying to destroy public education since the Civil Rights Movement. It seems racist white people would rather DESTROY the public school system than let the schools be segregated. It seems they have succeeded.

Lets learn from Cuba, don't they still have good education?

They got our steps, too. All is not well.

Here is a quote from a footnote in Charles Dickens' book "Our Mutual Friend" to show you how wrong headed and ancient history this effort to connect testing scores with teacher evaluations and school funding:
 
In the chapter "Of An Educational Character" Dickens criticized the rote, catechizing education that was prevalent in those days. The foot note reads as follows:
 
7. "the habit of questioning and being questioned": Dickens had expressed his hostility to "mechanical" educational practices in Hard Times, but in the 1860s there was a particular edge to his scorn for "catechizing". The 1861 Report of the Newcastle Commission had recommended payment to schools by results, and the Revised Code put into effect the much-quoted motto of its architect, Robert Lowe, that "if it was costly it should at least be efficient; and if it was inefficient it should at least be cheap". As many critics lamented, including Kay-Shuttleworth, the consequences of making government grants dependent on exam results was to put a premium on mere rote-learning: "every pupil who glibly parroted the right anwers to the questions the inspector set was worth as much as 12 shillings per subject to the next year's grant"...
 
This shows that we have not advanced in Education at all with No Child Left Behind which Diane Ravitch - the architect of that failed plan - readily admits herself, and the Race to the Top will fail as well because it is just No Child under another name. It is time for Teachers to be consulted in what the future of education must be. We have regressed 150 years in this country and are back in the 1860's in our attitudes to education which will guarantee a society of well educated rich and uneducated poor in the future because we are setting our children in Public Education up to for failure; Public Education is being destroyed. Otherwise we will once again have little sweeper boys on the street trying to make a penny like in the days of Charles Dickens back in the 1840s etc. That is the goal of the super wealthy....to take everything for themselves and leave nothing to the poor whom they consider to be lazy trash even though they use them to take their trash out. Overriding greed will destroy this country.
 
"I believe that the heaviest blow ever dealt at Liberty's Head, will be dealt by this nation in the ultimate failure of its example to the Earth."
 
--Charles Dickens in a letter to John Forster after his first trip to the USA

Amen on the homeschooling.

And I typed that with a more or less straight face.

I see homeschoolers almost every day, since I'm a librarian. Some of them are quite competent; one parent has set up a collective of parents with various subject knowledge so their group of kids gets well-developed lessons.

Some of them can't even do basic arithmetic and feed their kids Bible stories instead of science.

The private religious schools send their students to the public library looking for religious periodicals to which we don't subscribe, books on lives of the saints, and anything else they can't or don't want to buy. The average student I've assisted finds about 1/3 of the materials they need, but seldom do they request that the library purchase these items.

It can make for an interesting day at work.

While i consider the net much more valuable than TV (to the point I haven't had cable service for 3 years, and the cable I had before then was gratis and unused), TV is what you make of it.

I grew up through the transition from television to internet, and when TV was dominant, i'd watch a lot of documentaries (history, science, etc) and shows which provide little to no exposition and complex moral situations, and compel you to deduce what is going on.

While such complex viewing material is scarcer with each passing year, there is no guarantee TV will rot your brain.

Home education is not a "scam," and the fact that so-called educators are saying so, on the internet, only indicates their own pedagogical failings. Read some John Holt or John Gato, for goodness' sakes. Learning is a natural process. Some of our finest Americans have been "home schooled." Some of you really sound like your minds are filled with stereotypes and brainwashing.

I believe that families should have reasonable choices, and that home education should be one of them. I do not think children should be political footballs for the failures of the educational system.

- more -

more

By high school, it's a little easier, I think, because it's classroom to classroom for actual subjects, at least. So once you're in the classroom, a lesson in the subject takes place. If the student is mature enough, they can at least, use the school to some extent for their own purposes, rather than be used by the school.

But still, it's a factory, that the kids have to get through, ITO their future roles in a war-based economy that's shipping our jobs overseas while it imports slave labor from Latin America, illegally.

The school's role is to prepare them for their future roles in that kind of society. To make immoral trade-offs on their bodies and souls.

And I say that, not as a fundamentalist Christian, but an agnostic and secularist.

Personally, I don't think any amount of research is going to save our dysfunctional education system. And really you can't blame the kids. We live in a society that puts sports above learning. In school kids are managed, put in place, and bored to death. Most American kids are very apathetic and the learning environment even more so.

Is it possible that business leaders are correct about the need to change our educational system to better reflect the changes in the world beyond school? I recently heard Willard R. Doggett of the International Center for Leadership in Education say that we need to alter current educational practices to meet the challenges of the 21st Century. I agree!
We are not focusing on the needs of our students with respect to the future. We are mired in the past. Teaching must begin to focus on what a student will need to do in their career, not what we think they should be able to answer on a test.
In order for the United States to remain preeminent and compete in the world arena, our students need to be able to meet real world problems head on. They need to be able to synthesize information and apply what they have learned to the challenges they will face once they complete their educational journey.
All the infighting, political wrangling, name calling, and blame laying does not solve the problem, but they do illuminate it!
How will we rectify the situation and move forward? I do not know. I only know that everyone must be willing to make changes to the system we currently have: teachers, administrators, civic and business leaders, and government alike.
Here is an idea. Let's look to the most successful school districts and see what model they are using to help students meet the challenges of the future. That would be a good place to start.

Delegitimaizing American education is just another symptom of how American labor, educated or "not" educated (meaning a high school diploma is too much for some employers if they want to pay someone with a 2nd grade education and willing to take 3./hour).

Isn't American education in on the secret yet?