[tybrad]

I am in agreement with you that group work is overdone. The flavor-of-the-day thinking was to model the workplace where collaboration is the key. This is a 90's baby and individual achievement and accountability has fallen because of it and too many teachers will give the same grade to all members the group. Collaborative work is important, but my students know that I'm watching, looking, and listening and that there will rarely be identical grades. It is a cheat for lazy teachers in my opinion, and will be taken advantage of.

I do not resist some sort of public accountability, but there are a few things to consider.

1. Do it so that the analysis is not stilted for anyone or anything but student gain. There are way too many adult agendas going on so that this is not really achievable.

2. It can never be fair to everyone. Different cultures, different preparations, different out-of-school support structures, etc. That's the art of trying to write a test. And which subjects? Why Biology and not Chemistry? Why Algebra? Most will never use it again in their lifetime for christ's sake.

3. Set it up by educators who have been teaching and managing in a current generation's classroom- not one from 20 years in their past, if even at all. Politicians and most administrators- keep your noses out of it! You have no grounding in reality. This is tried, but then political harpies and barrister-types swoop in so that the implementation is sloppy, not well thought-out, and will not stand the test of time. The perfect example is NCLB; a decades old idea that politicians and lawyers began fiddling with. Who doesn't want an NCLB idea to work? But it can't. What you end up with is band aids, open sores, redundancy, work-arounds, taken over schools (with what remedial result?), resentment and apathy. When you are told that you cannot do your job without outsiders controlling the marionette, it just follows- regardless of profession. And why ANYONE would want to enter into special education is beyond me!

I'll tell ya; people better stop playing the one-upsmanship/dominance game that goes on with education and educators. There is a content shortage as it is in some areas, and pre-service students see all of the hours, agendas, legalities, nonsense, and pittance of a pay scale. It's just not worth the hassle for many potentially great ones who either never enter, or are out within 3 yrs. Then what? There is no other profession that ends up with a lower hourly pay than there is in K-12. But the populace knows better. They ALWAYS know better, no?

This is in NO way condoning the cheating scandals that go on around the country, and there does need to be criminal pursuits taken in Atlanta. But that still does nothing for your youtube mother.