The Facts on Education

Much praise has been heaped on Davis Guggenheim's movie "Waiting for Superman" which is part of a recent wave of propaganda aimed against teachers and public education. Recently Newsweek ran a front page story proclaiming "We Must Fire Bad Teachers!" It sounds peculiar because anybody who suggested that all the problems with the health care system were caused by "bad doctors" would be accused of simplism.
Much the same can be said about the new anti-teacher movement.

The important thing to remember is that we don't have a "system" of public education because every school district in this country is basically a system into itself. While some school districts have problems, it is not fair or accurate to imply that the problems of one district reflect on all the others. The New York City School District's "Rubber Room" is a problem peculiar to that district.

Another big issue is teacher tenure, which supposedly allows "bad teachers" to stay in their jobs. But in fact, half of all teachers quit after 5 years, while in New York City the attrition rate is 25% after two years. It seems that the real problem isn't the retention of "bad" teachers but the loss of good ones.

I emphasize this because education is important for democracy. A free society cannot be based upon an ignorant population which can be fooled by junk history, junk science, and junk economics.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/pdf/govpub/1024teachersal.pdf