Grading Education Reform

....an interesting presentation of some of the faulty logic in contemporary school reform.  Something similar was suggested when the IDOE decided to get in the business of mandated the curriculum of Schools of Education--would it even be thinkable to imagine that the state would do this for the School of Medicine?  Thoughts?

My View: Instead of slogans, try this to improve schools

Written by Steve Fox

For their efforts in school reform, I would like to award a grade of F to: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Arne Duncan, all members of Congress who have voted for No Child Left Behind
legislation, all state governors and legislators who have supported standardized testing, accountability and choice as the answers to education problems, and all state superintendents of public instruction who have supported those simplistic answers.

That grade should result, at the minimum, in lowered pay for these policymakers, possibly reassignment to new jobs or, in some cases, dismissal. If any are already retired or have been fired by the voters, then we can require them to do public service, assisting teachers in their overcrowded, underfunded classrooms.

I apologize for any hurt feelings or damaged careers that result from my rigorous grading. However, we must put students at the center and not worry about the concerns of adults.

Now let's move on to some meaningful school reform.
Students are people, not widgets. We cannot evaluate student learning the way we might evaluate production on an assembly line. Try this interesting analogy. Give all the doctors in Indianapolis 180
patients each. These doctors have one year to work with these patients and improve their health. By the end of the year, we would ideally like to see 100 percent of those patients with passing scores on all
their medical tests. And we would like the doctors to spend at least 25 percent of their time with each patient doing repeated tests. Also, these doctors must follow medical and health procedures designed by policymakers who have no medical training. These doctors should not belong to the American Medical Association, because we all know the AMA is a selfish organization that cares only about defending bad doctors. Also, we are not interested in the patients' overall health, or any squishy talk about holistic medicine or mind-body connections or social conditions that affect health.

Just deliver the results, please.