The problem is not just the Houston district’s linking of teacher pay to student test scores. In the secondary schools, teachers work under policies pushing us to inflate grades of students who have not learned, and weak discipline measures encourage us to tolerate even students who misbehave incessantly.

In my school, groups of students roam the hallways in groups during class time throughout the day, and students who violate the rules receive penalties that are so light they come back and repeat the same offenses the next day, and the day after that.

I was reassigned because I refused to reopen grading for six seniors who had failed their Government classes. I had 28 students in one year pass Advanced Placement tests at a majority-minority school, the best record at the time for our district. Yet none of that mattered when I failed a small number of seniors.

The Houston policy holds teachers accountable but does nothing about the permissive discipline enforcement and tactics pressuring teachers to inflate grades.

I all for accountablity if we have the power to carry out the resonsiblity being put on our shoulders.

You complain about Randi’s speech, even though she clearly called for trained evaluators and peer review. But what about the one-sentence change which provided the 34th reason for firing teachers? Nothing was said about efforts to determine validity or trust-building processes. Would you ever sign onto something like that with methodology sight unseen?

You guys are smart enough to know that most of these primitive VAMs in evaluation proposals will be thrown out in court. Your continued misrepresentation of the unions’ offers seem to indicate that your real goal is bitter and expensive court battles. Yes, endless litigation will hurt the unions.

How much harm are you willing to do to students in order to corner the unions into the mother of all labor battles? Nobody will win unless you back off from those scorched earth tactics.