more bad conservative ideas

[chelidon]

morrigandaughtr, your recent post made this story appallingly perfect:

Houston to tie teachers' pay to test scores

Because after all, heaven forbid (literally), that we teach children to think. That could upset the whole system. No, we need to teach children to parrot back verbatim the correct responses to the correct questions, and any teacher who dares to actually teach, we'll just have to punish them, of course.

As I wrote the other day: "My couple of years working in one of the top 5 public school districts in the country (Fairfax, VA) really soured me on standardized testing, and most of the rest of the teachers and administrators (and, I daresay, all of the *good* ones) held nothing but contempt for No Child Left Behind, and the hugely negative impact it had on any actual learning, in the interest of instead developing and meeting standards. The Republicans pushing the agenda devalued the source of any such argument as merely poor teachers afraid to put their work up to any kind of objective judgement. Feh."

The world of the neocons is looking more and more like the planet Camazotz, ruled by IT, in Madeleine L'Engle's Wrinkle In Time. Where are Mrs. Whatsit , Mrs. Which & Mrs. Who when you need them? I guess that's us, eh?