The recent formation of Michelle Rhee's StudentsFirst.org is a reminder to many educators of how many times we've heard that claim in its various forms:
- We're going to put students first.
- It's all about the kids.
- Nothing is more important to us than educating the next generation.
Such statements have become clichés--but have they ever, on any consistent basis, been true?
One need only spend a few hours in most inner-city schools to answer that question. To be sure, some teachers and administrators sometimes actually can manage to put students needs ahead of all else--though there isn't much of an institutional mechanism to require it. In fact, putting students first often requires us to break the rules.
Current calls for "reform" and "accountability," including those of StudentsFirst.org, claim that compelling teachers and administrators to put students first requires firing teachers deemed ineffective and assumes that standardized test data can make such determinations and therefore