Why I Decided to Become a Private School Teacher - Teacher in a Strange Land - Education Week Teacher

Sound familiar?

Why I Decided to Become a Private School Teacher - Teacher in a Strange Land - Education Week Teacher:

Good teachers can now be fired because of bad math. As mandated by Race to the Top and the NCLB waivers imposed under current Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, which require districts and states to use standardized test scores as a significant portion of teacher evaluations, the Florida Senate passed bill 736 last spring. Under Race to the Top and Senate Bill 736, teachers with two years of "ineffective" rankings will be fired and their teaching license will be revoked by the state of Florida, thus banning them from teaching in any other public school in the United States.

Well, not exactly. These fired and banned teachers will probably be able to find work at a charter school where teachers don't have to have professional teaching licenses and are not subject to this new teacher evaluation system, despite the fact that charter schools also receive public funds. The exemption of charter school teachers from both the state and federal mandates, leads one to believe that politicians are less interested in accountability than they are in busting unions and making sure no teacher lasts long enough to collect a pension. In the name of firing the worst teachers, we will be firing some of the best.

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