I realize this is several months late but how do you hold someone accountable for actions that most of which are outside their control. IF you want some educational accountability first you need to go MUCH higher than a simple teacher... Try the state and the federal level that's where the real problem is with education. Saying teachers are responsible for the plight of education is like saying the weatherman is responsible for the tree that fell on your house during the wind storm.
Why is it in this country whenever there is some sort of deficiency in some facet we must ALWAYS look for some one to "HOLD ACCOUNTABLE" or basically BLAME.... Doesn't matter if your a iron worker a school teacher or in the space program whenever someone decide's that something went wrong or is deficient then someone needs to take the fall for it...
Thats whats really wrong with this country instead of trying to improve our process or fix whats broken instead we must first waste time finding the person who is at fault to make ourselves feel or look better... Then you wonder why country's like Japan and China leave us in the dust in almost every way...
You want to know what Japan does instead of wasting time blaming people for things that they cant control? Look up Kiazen and start reading.. Its part of the reason Toyota came over here and push our auto manufacturer's into bankruptcy.
I dont normally like Citing Wikipedia but in this case its the only real thing that give the break down of the process.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen
I'll give you the 5 main points of Kaizen....
Teamwork
Personal discipline
Improved morale
Quality
Suggestions for improvement
They apply this philosophy to all facets of life... Which is why they are so successful in most things that they do. They spend their time fixing whats broken. Out of all 5 what do you see that's missing from America? Oh yeah thats right... BLAME....
