U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan was in Princeton today touting education reform that, to put it bluntly, will do little to fix public education.
Duncan, along with President Barack Obama and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, wants to tie teacher tenure to performance ratings — a questionable practice that is likely to elevate unreliable tests to even greater prominence and leave teachers at the whims of administrators. Tenure needs reform, but tying it and teacher pay to flawed evaluative systems will create more problems than it solves.
And yet, Duncan, who ran the Chicago school system, supports “pending legislation in Illinois that makes teacher tenure requirements more stringent and allows school districts to lay off teachers based on performance.”
“This bill could be a blueprint for the country,” said Duncan.
It is a blueprint for change, certainly, but it’s not change we should be willing to accept.
- Send me an e-mail.
- Read poetry at The Subterranean.
- Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
- Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Hank Kalet 