Taking educators to school IndyStar.com The Indianapolis Star:
"I can't remember the last time a politician told Indiana's medical school or law schools they had too much say in how doctors and lawyers were educated.Or that we needed to make it easier for laypersons to become doctors, lawyers, even chiefs of surgery and judges."
Yet there's manifest and manifold political support for state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett's siege upon the Indiana education "establishment," which would be the university education schools and the teacher associations.
The idea is that unsatisfactory student achievement is the fault of a closed teaching society that is loath to change with the times and dedicated to the welfare of salaried adults rather than the needs of children.
Refutation of these presumptions is ample. Innovation and self-criticism are staples of teacher education and are reflected in state accountability law that predates Bennett. Dedicated teachers, even those protected by unions from arbitrary firing, are not the exception.
"I can't remember the last time a politician told Indiana's medical school or law schools they had too much say in how doctors and lawyers were educated.Or that we needed to make it easier for laypersons to become doctors, lawyers, even chiefs of surgery and judges."
Yet there's manifest and manifold political support for state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett's siege upon the Indiana education "establishment," which would be the university education schools and the teacher associations.
The idea is that unsatisfactory student achievement is the fault of a closed teaching society that is loath to change with the times and dedicated to the welfare of salaried adults rather than the needs of children.
Refutation of these presumptions is ample. Innovation and self-criticism are staples of teacher education and are reflected in state accountability law that predates Bennett. Dedicated teachers, even those protected by unions from arbitrary firing, are not the exception.
