"Who Cares If Good Teachers Are Fired?"

Stop your whining, already:

Jacobs listed what the NCTQ considers the key "early lessons" for states embarking on these sorts of policy changes. Among other things, she said:

• "Teacher effectiveness measures don't have to be perfect to be useful. Some people are concerned that not every i is dotted and they're rolling out these systems. But keep in mind how unsatisfactory the [previous] systems have been." She added that an evaluation system "doesn't have to grind to a halt to be fine-tuned." (See my recent story on Tennessee's teacher-evaluation system, which is causing an uproar among teachers because it is far from fine-tuned.)

So what if we fire Mr. Chips and Mr. Holland but keep Cameron Diaz? Their lives are just an "i" to be dotted, right?

Hey, all you bright and talent young people! Doesn't this sound like a GREAT career choice? The pay may stink and you won't have good benefits anymore, but at least you can be fired arbitrarily based on admittedly flawed evaluation systems!

Don't all push to get in...