Anyone who has ever spent any time as a teacher knows that classroom challenges change each and every day. That’s what makes the profession interesting and fun. I spent eight years in an inner city school a few decades ago. I learned more about myself from those classroom teaching situations than any other time of my life. Those kids give you instant feedback and make you humble. It’s my belief that I was a very good teacher. As an effort to improve our schools two major cities are releasing teacher rankings, relative to one another based on student performance. USA Today recently outlined that 18,000 New York City teachers are in a searchable database on how they stack up. The same type of database is in Los Angeles with 11,500 teachers. The unions have always opposed publishing results from the classrooms. Someone is finally getting the message that this is just a bad idea. The thought process might be right but if you have ever been in a classroom situation you know this would not work. Arne Duncan, the Education Secretary at one point thought this type of accountability was on the right track. Even he has changed his mind, stating, “Do you need to publish every single teacher’s rating in the paper? I don’t think so.” For the most part, with some exceptions, our teachers are dedicated and work hard or they would not be in the job. It can’t be for the money. Can we improve, certainly, but publishing teacher rankings is a huge mistake and will set our educational system back significantly. Teachers need better pay so the best will be attracted to the profession. Oh, one other item can help significantly more parental involvement.Educator Public Ratings