The Ultimate Teacher Rant

I recently read an editorial style piece in the Huffington Post (find it here) that left nothing but a bad pessimistic taste in my mouth. The author, a veteran teacher, gave an overview of what seemed like every new piece of educational policy to go into effect in the past decade. And then proceeded to detail how each of these policy initiatives destroyed education and is currently destroying the teaching profession.

While not all of it seemed to miss the mark, I found it, on the whole, hard to swallow. Yes - it is clear that our schools have lost art programs, physical education classes and extracurricular activities in order to allow for increased test based instruction on math and reading. Yes - it is likely that teachers have lost an amount of autonomy in their classrooms as the era of high stakes testing was ushered in. But could it be true that every reform has harmed our nation's classrooms?

For example, the author takes an extremely hard stance on student survey's being integrated into teacher evaluations. Is this horrifying to me as an educator? Probably  But that does not mean it is not a valid measure of teaching success and it does not mean that this reform won't help create more positive, productive classrooms. As teachers, I think it is important that we examine reforms and new laws relating to education from not only our vantage point in the classroom but also from the perspective of educational advocates who want to see meaingful, lasting and impactful change.