When I Was Young, I Was Religious.

Well, Teachers Have Been Profoundly Demoralized In Recent Years And Are Often Treated With Contempt By Politicians. There's A Great Deal Of Reckless Rhetoric In Washington About The Mediocrity Of The Teaching Profession - And I Don't Find That To Be True At All.

Children, Of Course, Don't Understand At First That They Are Being Cheated. They Come To School With A Degree Of Faith And Optimism, And They Often Seem To Thrive During The First Few Years. It Is Sometimes Not Until The Third Grade That Their Teachers Start To See The Warning Signs Of Failure. By The Fourth Grade Many Children See It Too.

Racial Segregation Has Come Back To Public Education With A Vengeance.

President Obama Still Places Far Too Much Emphasis On Relentless Testing With Standardized Exams.

As Damaging As The Obsessive Emphasis On Testing Often Proves To Be For Kids In General, I Believe That The Effects Are Still More Harmful In Those Schools In Which The Resources Available To Help The Children Learn The Skills That Will Be Measured By These Tests Are Fewest, The Scores They Get Are Predictably The Lowest, And The Strategies Resorted To By Principals In Order To Escape The Odium Attaching To A Disappointing Set Of Numbers Tend To Be The Most Severe.