Grading Schools and Punishing Teachers:

The most recent controversy in public education comes from President Obama taking the stage with former Florida governor Jeb Bush in the latter's efforts to destroy the teachers' unions by grading schools on their performance and punishing them economically when they fail to live up to standardized testing. (See Nick Anderson's Washington Post piece.)

How do I know it's an attack on unions? Easy. If these folks, including the president, were serious about education, they would focus on school boards, not teachers.

If the citizens of this country ever become united again in their desire to have sound education for America's children, they will elect school board officials who will insist upon it.

The truth is, however, that there is very little that the federal or state governments can do about improving education. Education is something one achieves, not something that is imposed upon the student. All a teacher can do is direct students toward materials and activities while trying to maintain order so that the student can engage with the material and the activities that will lead the student to becoming educated. At best, the teacher is a facilitator and a minor role model. The most important role model and facilitator in the student's life is spelled "p-a-r-e-n-t."

Starting tomorrow, PBS will re-air Ken Burn's Civil War saga. It is worth noting that Abraham Lincoln was self educated, as most people were during that period. The fledgling public school system was primarily manned by folks who had failed at everything else in life.