No one ever allows San Diego practitioners to make those choices. No one ever even asks their opinion, so the cycle of failed initiative continues. And teachers and parents continue to do the best they can for the children of San Diego. What amazes me most about the Institute's Fix the broken educator and you will fix the child scapegoat approach is that it is misguided and ignores problems like poverty, attendance, health care, second language learners, etc. That approach drives away the very people we need to do the job.
Inadequate pay is drawback enough when trying to recruit the best and brightest.
We may be naive but we aren't stupid. A few brilliant minds outside of education believe that educating children really is not that tough. They believe that anyone can teach, and they will according to these enlightened few. They think that they know about education because they went to school and they have children of their own. That kind of thinking seems to be what's driving the current education factory mentality of the Institute.