Don’t mind me; I’m just relishing the irony of you saying that maybe the teacher should exercise some professional judgment when it comes to parental demands.

Dick: most of the homework I assign is reading. Sometimes the kids even do it.

“Rigor” is an empty term. And “achievement” has been reduced to arbitrarily set cutting scores on ungrounded statistical scales.

Instruction is instruction whether it’s in the classroom or at home. The thing is, in eiher locale, a good deal of it is misinstruction. Some kids learn without formal instruction and others learn despite the misinstuction. Schools base their success on these kids, and slap psychobabbled “deficits” to “explain” the failures of the rest.

We do exist! My K-12 education was a joke, with a content-free curriculum and stupid, vapid teachers (this isn’t sour grapes; they were very pleasant people who treated me well; but they knew nothing). My college education, outside of my science courses, was hardly any better. So I’ve dedicated myself to serious study of history, philosophy, literature and political theory to compensate for the loss. I know a lot, but I can’t compensate for that lost time.

Still, at least I was able to recover. If I had gone to a “relentless school,” how could I ever have had time to think for myself? Many people on this website seem to like the idea of kids being chased up a ladder with a whip, and that does, indeed, inhibit creativity and independent thinking. It makes kids good at following orders and learning what others want you to learn. When the carrot and stick disappear, so does their “desire” to learn. They’re apathetic without them.

Are “rigorously” trained students “lifelong learners?” Well, I have many friends and acquaintances who were students from “rigorous” schools who are very, very accomplished (doctors, engineers, etc.), and all they do in their spare time is play video games and watch TV. Without a carrot and stick — which is what we’re all talking about here, right? — they have no energy left to care about anything. Their intellects are powerful, but they can’t grow anymore. Like I said before, it’s the apathy.

I believe that these words “rigor and achievement” have no meaning in this context. What’s “rigor?” It’s easy to devise curriculum that’s extremely hard that has scanty intellectual content. (A note to “Physics Teacher”: How about those murderously hard physics and math problems from the old Cambridge Tripos exams? Many are pedantic and relatively useless, but they sure are “rigorous.”)I think that lots of people believe that, if kids are being made to sweat, they’re somehow learning. The intellectual content is just assumed to be there, but usually, it isn’t. They’re learning to obey powerful strangers; such subservience is the real “worldview that makes the underclass.” Sure, some of them are “rich,” but in the eyes of those AIG executives, everyone here is the underclass.

Drivel….

If these parents believe that their children would benefit from doing page after page in some workbook, there is nothing stopping them from picking one up at their local bookstore and assigning it to their offspring. Then the rest of the children would be free to use their afterschool time in more worthwhile pursuits.

The federal government has defined “achievement” in terms of scores on ungrounded statistical scales. And “rigor” is associated with an impossible statistical formula termed “adequate yearly progress” Even worse, “proficiency” has been reduced to arbitrary cut scores on the ungrounded tests.

Neither the media, nor the Obama administration have recognized that the common definitions have been abused in this way. Yatvin lapses into EdTalk in the quote, but she makes reasonable points in the rest of her letter about rewarding merit and about reducing strictures for all schools, not just for charter schools.

The other letters the Times posts are also very thoughtful. Read all of them and then decide.

Ed Schools and the Academy in general can be faulted for allowing the debauchery of terminology to occur, and the media can be faulted for swallowing governmental press releases whole. Consequently neither President Obama nor the public is getting a straight story, and we don’t yet have any “Change we can believe in” in el-hi schooling.

There ARE people in education programs as students and professors who are there pursuing a passion to help kids and become incredible teachers.

The fact that someone has passion doesn’t mean they’re doing something optimally. There were surgeons during the civil war who were passionate about saving lives and limbs, but they did this with filthy saws and whiskey. This is where ed schools are right now in their evolution.

The civil war surgeons had a much better excuse.

Not that the traditional prep system isn’t without faults and need for reform,

Other disciplines aren’t without faults. Education training is without merit to begin with.

but let’s not paint all traditionally certified teachers with the same brush.

I didn’t seen anyone painting traditionally certified teachers with any brush. I’m a traditionally certified teacher and I’ll be the first to tell you that these programs are trash.

Saying that any idiot can get a teaching degree is not the same as saying that every holder of a teaching degree is an idiot. Any idiot can scratch his head, but it doesn’t follow that everyone who’s scratched his head is an idiot.

The problem with these programs is that they a) do not filter out idiots, and b) they teach nothing.