Let them eat cupcakes. Plus why Michelle Rhee is lawyering up.

[Blanks]

70. I appreciate your position on this.

I can't tell you how to do it. I don't have the solution.

All I'm trying to tell you is that there is a problem. Unfortunately, the education system has been trying to fix this for years and it doesn't seem to be getting better.

If it can't be fixed within the system; it isn't difficult to conclude that it needs to be fixed from outside the system.

I don't think dragging this woman through the mud (as well as anyone who disagrees with you) helps your case. I've been insulted, bullied and ignored when I point out that the system could improve.

If educators don't believe the system can improve; they will be pushed aside and people outside the system will try to improve it. I think that's what we're seeing here.

What you have to keep in mind is that those of us who aren't involved in education were taught our professions by folks with no education - in education. The best teachers that I had probably never took an education class in their life. So when I am attacked by being told that there are all kinds of educational tools that I am not privy to as a mere engineer...

History professors teach history because they have a passion for history; not because they've been trained to teach. I had no interest in history until college for that reason; history with no passion is boring.

I don't know what teachers need to do in order to win this battle, but I'm sure all of the draftsmen who lost their jobs were bitter when CAD software replaced them. The ones who continued working learned the new system, I expect that's what's going to happen with education.

It isn't fair, it isn't ideal, but it's the reality. I don't know what this new 'system' is going to look like, but if I were an educator I'd be trying to figure out how to fit into this system. Either that or devising a plan to compete with it, but I don't think there's any stopping change.

To continue the draftsmen analogy; CAD software takes a long time to get set up and made things a lot worse initially. Once the kinks were worked out; there was never talk of going back. I imagine its easy to find short-comings with these education reforms for the same reason, but once the kinks begin to show positive results; the people complaining will not have much credibility.

When I complain about my experience with the education system; I am not typically complaining about teachers. The teachers take offense, but my criticism is not directed toward the teachers themselves. Most if the issues that I have had; have been with administration, but if the teachers want the system to work; they are going to have to involve themselves in cleaning up the administration. Since that is outside the scope of a teachers responsibility; it falls to someone else. That 'someone else' is who teachers are complaining about.