There should be no immunity to voices of others who operates beyond the confines of the classroom, but the power to choose and to decide must be that of the teacher who is accountable for results. In this the communication age, teachers have at their disposal a rich motherlode of innovative ideas from the variety of sources. Paradoxically, administrators reserve to themselves the prerogative to select and imposed their own ideas. Instead of such arbitrary mandates by administrators, a free market of ideas must prevail in which, within broad parameters, teachers are empowered to choose and to decide for themselves. To do otherwise is to diminish them to paraprofessional status, teaching assistants actually, without power, authority, or responsibility.
Accountability becomes chimerical.
In the halcyon days of early history, schools functioned with accountability. As the education profession evolved more responsibility ended up in the hands of specialists who, in the exercise of their responsibility, tied the hands of teachers. The complicated and bureaucratic system that ensued is now so taken for granted, so ingrained as conventional wisdom, that it has heretofore been beyond the reach of serious questioning. It is a case of the profession being hoisted on its own petard. The practical effect of accountabilty is to change roles of actors in the education scheme and the relationship between teacher and administrator and teacher and parent.