News-Record.com

The following is a Counterpoint column:

By Lois L. Bailey

I think the federal and state governments should enact laws that would require doctors to cure all patients. We don't care how unique the circumstances are for each patient, even though some may not follow their doctor's instructions and some cannot speak English and some have handicaps. That is not the point -- doctors need to be made accountable. In addition, I think we should pay them bonus money based on the amount of time they keep their patients alive. If the 2005 patients exceed the number of patients from 2004, doctors will be declared competent and successful professionals.

At the same time, courtroom lawyers should have to increase their rate of "not guilty" verdicts from year to year. If they do not, they are not doing their jobs adequately and their firms should be put on a "watch list."

Crazy, you say: Who would demand such requirements of professionals? Well, those are the constraints within which teachers have to work every day.

I totally empathize with Betty T. Kane (Counterpoint, Sept. 16). What a slap in the face to teachers and students at Jefferson Elementary to have an NR -- no recognition — because they did not achieve "improvement." Any institution, group, business, etc., that has a 95 percent success rate is just that, a success.

First of all, the growth analysis is a misnomer. If one is comparing 2005 students to 2004 students, it is like comparing apples to oranges. The students at any school are not identical two years in a row. Therefore, for growth truly to be meaningful, one needs to measure the same cohort. The students who attend Jefferson in 2004 are different from the students who were there in 2005. One would need to compare the scores of each student who took the test in 2004 to how he or she did in 2005.

However, the major injustice of this whole issue is that teachers are being judged by a test that students take three days out of the year, when we all know that there are many variables other than teachers that affect student outcomes. Who can honestly say that teachers at so-called "high risk" schools are not as deserving as teachers at "excellent" schools?

I know from more than 30 years in education that teachers at all schools are working around the clock to help all students. To label schools and teachers based on test scores is educationally unrealistic and unsound.

You would not rate doctors by the health of their patients, so why are we doing this with teachers? Politicians should not be making educational decisions. Until we demand otherwise, we will have these irrational proclamations.

The writer lives in Greensboro.