Reply #120: It's late at night, so without reading all the up-thread stuff...

[RiverStone]

I'll say --- just like any profession, there are good and bad teachers. I've been in public education about 20 years, the district I currently work in has EVERY student on a free and reduced lunch. The poverty level is that high here.

You can have gifted teachers working with students from very challenged socio-economic conditions and not see the same progress as a teacher who works in a district with students of wealth and privilege.

How do you account for the audience (s) being vastly different? Rural Appalachia, inner city L.A., and here in depressed timber country in WA state --- just getting 50% of the students to pass a standardized test may be HUGE when you consider the depressed environment many of these kids live in.

I don't know how one measures "merit" when the kids that are being served are so different. It is far, far more than the results of testing; it is about preparing the whole kid for life. That's the real measurement of success.