Former Teacher, Current Congressman Speaks out on Education

 There is at least one, single congressman who sees the truth in education politics. 

 He states,  "... even progressive Democrats fall for 'accountability,' over-testing and phony education 'reform.'" 

Thank you, U.S. Representative, Mark Takano (CA).

(All emphasis below is mine.)

 

 Takano gives the following example as why test and punish goes against logic: "Remember when you were in kindergarten and your teacher gave you a biology lesson on plants by planting carrots to watch them grow? As little kids, we would be anxious to see whether there was any progress in how our plants were growing, so we would make the mistake of pulling the plant out of the soil to see if the roots were growing. That’s what test-driven accountability is like, constantly pulling the plant out to see if the roots are growing." 

"Keeping class size small is also important. There’s something that happens when you go over 25 students. It changes the dynamics and becomes way more stressful."

"Let’s also slow down before we quasi-privatize with charter schools. As far as I can tell, charters actually become more opaque in terms of what they’ re doing. They become less accountable. I’d rather keep schools under the model of the local school board with a lot of transparency of how money gets spent... "

"Teaching is a lot harder than being in Congress. The teachers who I’ve seen who are really good — and I wouldn’t rate myself as an exceptional teacher, I would rate myself as middling — they’ve answered a calling in some way. They’ve found their place in the world. So I get really angry when I hear people say we need to cash out the teacher pensions and pay a lot more money up front to lure smarter people into the profession. That’s just another scheme."