Lemming Tracks: Accountability? In Education?!

The Lemming is a self-described "recovering English teacher," with experience on the inside of American academia. Quite a few folks in the academic establishment were, in the Lemming's opinion, fine people. As for the government school system: the Lemming is glad to be out.

That doesn't sound very "apathetic." The Lemming's explained this blog's name, and just what sort of "apathy" you'll find here, in "."

This morning, the Lemming heard someone on the radio mention that the principal and most of the staff had been fired: something to do with the school's abyssal performance. I hadn't been paying attention, and there wasn't anything after that about where the school was.

The Lemming's curiosity was roused, and a Google search yielded - nothing terribly recent.

On the other hand, these articles from last year did turn up in the results:

• "R.I. School That Fired Entire Staff Rehires Them"
  CBSNews.com (May 17, 2010)
• "R.I. School District Agrees to Rehire Fired Teachers"
  Associated Press, via FoxNews.com (May 17, 2010)
• "UPDATE: Entire Beach High School staff to be fired as part of reorganization"
  Savannah Morning News, via savvannahnow.com (March 25, 2010)
• "All teachers, principals fired at poor-performing R.I. high school"
  Douglas Stanglin, USA Today(February 24, 2010)

These are the articles with a comparatively favorable fact-to-fluff ratio. As for the rest, the Lemming doesn't think it's much of an exaggeration to say that firing, and sometimes rehiring, a school's staff is - depending on who you read -

• An appalling affront on the rights of labor
• A long-overdue reminder that teachers should be competent
  • Administrators, too
• Measuring up to standards is
  • Unfair
  • Part of living in the real world

Since the Lemming's been inside the American academic establishment, whole schools failing to make the grade, when it came to teacher competence, was no surprise. Knowing the subjects being taught, and passing that knowledge on to students, hasn't necessarily been a top priority for quite a while. Indoctrinating students in the 'correct' attitudes - but maybe we've gotten beyond that.

Before anyone has a stroke, the Lemming's household, here in central Minnesota, has a good working relationship with the local school system. The folks running the place are okay, and do, in the Lemming's opinion, a pretty good job of teaching skills and passing along knowledge.

And all of the Lemming's kids who survived to school age decided they'd prefer home schooling, starting with grade seven. Home schooling? It may not be what you think it is. (A Catholic Citizen in America (May 20, 2010)

The Lemming's been a high school teacher: and the prospect of having job performance evaluated on the bases of what a few dozen teenagers absorb from your efforts isn't exactly a calming thought.

On the other hand, the Lemming thinks there's more than paying union dues to being a good teacher.

A problem that the Lemming sees with the idea of 'teacher accountability' is that folks working in the government schools will be evaluated by what some bunch of federal bureaucrats thinks looks good on their performance reviews.

Maybe the Lemming is being too cynical.

Apathy, 'Apathetic Lemming' style:

• " 'Search Neutrality:' Deciding What We're Allowed to Find?"
  (January 22, 2011)
• "American Midterm Elections, Reuters, the AP, and Me"
  (November 2, 2010)
• "Sandalwood Farms: A 'Radical' Idea Whose Time has Come?"
  (October 17, 2010)
• "FCC, Internet, Rules, Technology, and Business"
  (June 21, 2010)
• "EEEK! Synthetic Organisms From DARPA!"
  (February 7, 2010)