While the school is not a home, its teachers can influence students in remarkable ways. Good elementary teachers teach a love of learning, create classrooms that are caring and respectful, and enable kids to master basic skills. Good secondary teachers convey and create in their students a love of their subject matter, model decent and caring behavior, and create classrooms where kids are hungry to learn. The Governor s testing calculus narrows what is good and worthwhile in teaching to students standardized test scores. Good veteran teachers remain in schools, not because of prestige or money, but for the love it.
Teaching is their calling.
Reduce teaching to students test scores and we will destroy any attraction that is left in the honorable and quite cumbersome endeavor of teaching. Some states have developed teacher portfolios as a measure of a teachers abilities. A variety of professionally developed teacher assessment tools already exist. Principals, in conjunction with teachers and the larger community, could devise multiple measures for teachers effectiveness. In a fair world we would recognize teachers complex roles.