All of your concerns are valid and are once again the reasons we need competition against the government monopoly where petty bureaucrats fight while children are left to pay the price.

Ahh, the old teach to the test objection....

Look, if the tests measure the ability of a student to read, write, comprehend and compute...then F**K YES, teach to the test. If the tests are unreliable then design tests that are reliable.

Why is it that tests are reliable enough for teachers to use them to assign a grade in class but when it comes to testing the effectiveness of a teacher....then they suddenly become unreliable?

I was unaware that Charter Schools hired convicted sexual predators.

Teachers need some job protection.

Yes, and that protection is called being good at what you do just like the rest of us have to do in order to keep our jobs.

You want to throw out the "top"...let the money follow the child and let public / private schools compete for the children and you will see the "top" disappear.

Education is a different playground. I have know many good teachers that were fired for bad reasons, you know, like hiring the Supterintendant's relative. Happens all the time.

Look, I know teachers render a valuable service but.....BOO F**KING HOO!

Welcome to the real world. Good people get fired for bad reasons ALL THE TIME.

If there were real competition in K-12 Education instead of a Government monopoly then administrators couldn't get away with behavior like that for very long.

What starts out as a good idea, teachers joining together to look after their interests...

The problem is that the rank and file teacher may have thought that they were getting together to look after their interests but the Union Organizers know better.

Also, what in the above essay is against the interests of the teachers? Getting paid to do nothing? Immunity from being fired? All of those things are great for the teachers but not so much for the kids or us chumps who have to pay for a failed educational system.

Maybe the premise that teachers should unionize is what needs to be challenged.

Maybe public education should be exposed to the same force that allows virtually every other institution in the U.S. to develop excellence....competition.

Let us all remember that this is the same government that murdered their own young people in Tiananmen Square by running them over with tanks and shooting them. Oh, and they did this in front of the whole world, just Google for the images.

What's a few thousand dead Falun Gong? Pshaw...plenty more where that came from.

“America must always stand on the side of human dignity.” – President Barack Obama

Unless of course it is against the number 1purchaser of our federal debt.

Just words in the air Mr. President....words in the air.

I read dozens of the Doc Savage paperbacks and was disappointed by the George Pal movie.

I always expected Doc Savage being delivered more like Indiana Jones

Let me put out an example using hyperbole (exaggeration for the sake of emphasis).

Let's say the president in office was (insert dream candidate name here) .

Let's also say some members of the left in this country thought he/she was really the bastard offspring of Bigfoot and a Space Alien and drew attention to this issue spent a lot of time, money and kept everybody from paying attention to the legislation passed by the president/congress.

If I were that president I would encourage this inanity because it keeps people from paying attention to the real things I am doing. F**k, I'd even send them some money to continue the search for my Bigfoot-E.T. parentage.

The author is correct.

We are, to use a phrase, "...straining at gnats while swallowing camels..." with this issue.

President Obama, his appointees and the solidly left congress have turned the wheel of State a hard left.

Pres. Obama and congress are doing real damage right now to the country and setting up entitlements that will hamstring the economy for decades to come.

There are plenty of real and present problems to oppose without the distraction of this non-issue.

You need to correct the "you" to "you're" (which is a contraction of "you are"). Not a big deal but it helps.

Also, the author is right. This issue is a distraction from all of the destructive and long lasting things that Pres. Obama and his administration is doing.