The Exhaustion of the American Teacher 

With the 2012-2013 American school year still in its infancy, it's worthwhile to note that the people doing the actual educating are down in the dumps.  

No Country Left Behind: Rhetoric and Reality of International Large-Scale Assessment

Few arguments about education are as effective at galvanizing public attention and motivating political action as those that compare the performance of students with their counterparts in other countries and that connect academic achievement to economic performance.   

Shall We Corporatize Public Education Too?  

  Lately, much has appeared in the print media about the malaise of public education in the United States. Numerous reforms have been proposed, many of which involve empowering school administrators, testing students regularly, eliminating collective bargaining rights and tenure for teachers, holding teachers accountable for student performance, and creating more charter schools.  

Today's lesson: charters do not outperform unionized schools

But if you want to fight the union, at least use the facts. And the central fact is this: the nonunion charters are not outperforming the unionized schools. No, it's just the other way around. 

A Parent's Letter to President Obama  by Diane Ravitch

Please, sir, stop talking about rewarding and punishing teachers.

Please, sir, stop encouraging the privatization of public education. 

Please, sir, speak out against the spread of for-profit schools.

Please, sir, withdraw your support from the failed effort to evaluate teachers by the test scores of their students.