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Analyze and you will not find it difficult identifying reasons for the sharp fall in the quality of our teaching. Teachers unions that were hitherto protecting those who are incompetent were squared off by reformers and this made it very hard for principals to hire bright and enthusiastic teachers as their replacements.

Research findings have always proved that the only way to enhance student performance is to give them good teachers. The power of capable teachers cannot be underestimated. Our system deliberately ignores teacher performance differences that are obvious.

Frustrated by this, schools adopted certain strategies by which bad teachers can be eliminated and the good ones rewarded. Reformers programs that aimed at enhancing quality of teachers resorted to installing accountability and weeding out incompetents predominantly as a protection from teachers unions.

All this led to a situation where the urban superintendents are trapped between unions and bureaucracy. As they sought to extricate themselves out of this trap, they identified solutions in measures described above. Reformers on the other hand strongly believed that monopoly power over public education was being grossly misused by education professionals and the only answer to this was to loosen the grip with deregulation.

Charters and vouchers came into existence to challenge their control and disrupt bureaucratic methods. Inexperienced, young, incapable education entrepreneurs thus found their way into the system.

In countries that perform extremely well superintendents can get into schools by raising standards and play a major role in redesigning the curriculum, revamping education system, change textbook publisher assessment, state standards and increase teacher pay. In our country, sadly, their hands are tied.

The only viable solution is to change the entire system. In order to destroy what is created by professional educators, our state boards, legislatures and governors are buying reformer’s agenda and use market mechanisms to achieve their goal.

Our education marketplace is clearly deconstructed and reformers strive to infiltrate entrepreneurs offering innovations in a bid to replace the system. They do not realize that our problem lies not in lack of innovation but in the lack of an effective public education system. This is the job of our government not reformers.

People hesitate to go into teaching today what with the poor training, low pay, mass layoffs, meager on-job support and draconian accountability requirements. In a situation like this, powering our way towards setting in place a world class teaching force seems like a distant or even impossible dream.

Carefully listen to the right and left reformers and you will find them chanting that our country is exceptional and no matter what you learn in other countries, nothing could apply to us. Ironically, the only thing we are exceptionally good at is our stubborn insistence on not being willing enough to learn from others. It is definitely time for us to negate our pride and embrace powerful measures and agenda adopted by growing countries that are fast racing past us.