Teachers have had nothing to say about their own level of preparedness. They're told to perform according to certain objectives or expectations whose formulation they had nothing to do with. They inherit a situation in which only one variable is subject to their control. That's how they cope with it. All this is going to change.
Teachers are more aware of their own deficiencies than any of the critics.
They are more painfully aware of the deficiencies of their schools than any of the distant students of public education. They are demanding, and they will ultimately gain, jurisdiction over the procedures of teaching, jurisdiction over the allocation of resources to the instructional process. These decisions ought to be made by the individual teacher in his or her individual relationships with individual students. The reporters who write of NEA's wish to take over public educa- tion are inaccurate. What NEA is talking about is a teacher takeover of public education.