How about talking to the teachers?

Following up yesterday's post about the Metlife Survey of the American Teacher, we came across this post from Linda Darling-Hammond.  In it she points out that the internal and external disincentives that educators face are causing more to struggle with staying in the job and will undoubtedly impact recruiting new educators. 

"We have never heard more policy rhetoric about the importance of developing, recruiting, and retaining strong teachers, especially in our most troubled schools. Ironically, our policies have also never done more to ensure that good teachers will have little incentive to serve and stay in those schools."

Further reliance on standardized tests as the end all, be all measure of what a student has learned and how well a teacher has taught it, will not solve this problem.  Ignoring the impacts of poverty and other social issues on students and their ability to learn will not help recruit and retain the best possible educators.

So maybe it's time to gather more input from the teachers.  Give them the opportunity to have authentic participation in looking at how to deal with the affects of poverty in their schools and giving them more latitude in providing instruction in deeper and more meaningful ways.  The politicians and pundits need to start talking with educators, rather than talking at them.