The renewed war on the veteran teacher
Last Wednesday, my son, like so many youngsters around the country, began his second year of instruction at a local middle school tucked away in suburban southern California. Though the name and the exact location have changed, it is essentially the same middle school that both my wife and I attended roughly a quarter-century ago.
By and large, the names and faces of the faculty have changed since the (ahem) late 1980s. But, there has been one constant, and my wife and I could not have been happier to see that my son's 7th grade social studies teacher was, indeed, the same woman who had taught both of us all those years ago.
Indeed, she has been doing so for over a half century now. Yes ... you read the preceding sentence correctly.
When she hit the 50-year mark last year, there was a torrent of praise in the community. Deservedly so. After all, how many lives in this town of 30,000 or so had been enriched by her lifelong commitment to children and education?
Alas, not everyone feels that way. Indeed, the level of respect afforded to those who have devoted their adult lives to the education of children has diminished to the point that the prevailing zeitgeist suggests that comparably junior members of the profession are somehow inherently superior to their more experienced colleagues.
more . . . http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/09/01/1234916/-The-renewed-war-on-the-veteran-teacher?showAll=yes#
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the state of Texas has paid billions to that company (Pearson LLP - in London) for the standardized testing of the past decade.
I have no problem with accountability - and it seemed like the Stanford Binet tests that we took once every year or two were helpful for the teachers to gauge where students were - but this has gotten out of hand.
And you are absolutely correct. It's not only a corporate money grab but also a thinly disguised attempt to break the teachers' unions.
Welcome to DU 
