Saturday, September 01, 2007

Great Teachers Left Behind

One would think a PhD in classics from Harvard, decades of teaching experience at the high school and college levels, and superior results in the classroom would qualify one to teach Latin in California high schools under guidelines imposed by "No Child Left Behind" legislation drafted and passed into law by the Bush administration.

But no.

Jefferds Huyck and other master teachers like him are not "highly qualified" according to education officials' interpretation of the NCLB law.

Apparently, "No Child Left Behind" really means that all teachers and students in our public schools will now have to sink to the same level of mediocrity.

What's wrong with this picture?

Everything.

If a man like Mr. Huyck isn't deemed highly qualified to teach in the public school system until and unless he spends $15,000 and two years in a teaching school with freshman undergrads learning how to craft their first lesson plans, it's rather the politicians and bureaucrats who've required his dismissal that are unqualified and ought to be swiftly replaced.

A recent article in the New York Times gives all the details.

Read all about it, right here.

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