You cannot create quality through testing, punishment, rewards. It cannot be done, and it is, to me, beyond disgusting to see our politicians adopt and stay with ‘tough on schools’ in speech and deed. ‘Merit pay’ and so forth are simply the flip side of the coin; see for example Alfie Kohn, Punished by Rewards.
I sure hope politics hasn’t beaten Wes Clark into ‘understanding’ school ‘accountability’. He remains the only politician I have seen express doubts about the notion; he said it made no sense and he was right.
I had more reasons to like Wes Clark than just that he was a general and Bush was a deserter.
