While successful, such programs can foster resentment from some administrators and teachers unions demanding 100 percent certification along more traditional lines. But there's a bigger issue here. Many young teachers like Sidley see the petty adherence to the certification rules as symptomatic of a pervasive problem. And I'm afraid they're right. In an effort to maintain standards and establish accountability, school administrators have resorted to mind-numbing but easily measurable criteria for both teachers and students.
Statistics create the impression that the administrators are doing something to improve schools.
But instead of encouraging achievement and fostering the energy good teachers bring to their jobs, this approach is almost guaranteed to backfire. Take a look at what happened to Yale graduate Anne Peacock. At first, Peacock wasn't sure if teaching was for her, but, like so many other young people who give the classroom a try, she soon fell in love with it. Last summer, she completed all the course work and carried her transcripts to the Alexandria personnel office, only to learn from the director of human resources that he was terminating her. Peacock says the director then suggested she take a job that the D.C. public schools had offered her.