Think about the immense accomplishment of safely putting a human being on the moon and then returning that person back home to planet earth. Truly, it’s almost unreal when you think about the size and scope of the achievement… and yet, we did it.

But to listen to teachers in America today say, “There is no way to measure teacher effectiveness,” you’d think that interplanetary travel was nothing but a puny science activity compared to the beast that evaluating the professional work a 7th grade English teacher in Anaheim, California would be.

I just don’t buy it.

I mean right now I can fire off an email through a mobile, handheld device from the center of Detroit, Michigan that could be read in China, forwarded to South America and then replied to by a person in Israel all within a matter of minutes, yet gathering reasonable insight into the professional performance of the math teacher down the hall is entirely unachievable?

It’s not.

And we should stop saying it is.

Obviously, this opens up a whole can of worms as to “how” we can measure teacher effectiveness (because that is the real question) so over the course of the next few days, months, and so on, I will speak to a variety of the “how it can be done” aspects to this conversation.

Not that I actually have all, or even any of the answers.

But I do know that the first thing we all must recognize is that yes, it can be done. It is not impossible. It is not beyond human capability. It is not a smaller feat than inventing the wheel, discovering fire, harnessing electricity or slicing bread.

So how about we ask that all teachers in this country take a deep breath and admit the obvious: it’s possible. Truly, before we are able to measure teacher effectiveness, we are all going to have to calmly acknowledge that yes, indeed it can be done.

It might not be easy.
It might not be quick.
It might not be cheap.
It might not be impeccably flawless beyond the pale of any and all criticism (because so many other things in this world have risen to that level so why shouldn’t measuring teacher effectiveness do the same? Author’s note: dripping sarcasm.)
But it is not impossible.

I do wish cooler heads would prevail for this national conversation. Before we can measure teacher effectiveness we are going to have to realize that splitting the atom, mapping the human genome and getting a taxicab in New York City in the pouring rain have all been done.

Measuring teacher effectiveness can be done as well. The question is not one of “if” but of “how”.

And like I said, more on that in the posts ahead.

In the war of digital vs. paper books, it looks like the paper tigers actually keep packing punches no one might have quite suspected they held in their arsenal. 8 tracks buckled like an accordion at the sight of cassette players. VHS tapes folded like a beach chair at the sight of DVD’s. But paper books, what have they done as the digital enemy intruder sought to encroach upon their territory?

Simply fire back more shots across the bow than anyone might have expected they were capable of launching.

BTW, the following piece of news falls under the umbrella of “Nutty stuff you can make up” or “Truth is stranger than fiction”.

Anyway, remember George Orwell, the author who wrote about big brother erasing all non-flattering material about the government after the gov ascended to role of guide for determining was appropriate for intellectual consumption by the citizenry… and what was not.

That was in 1949. He wrote this before there was google, email, cell phones or even rollie wheels on suitcases. (What a good invention, those were, huh? Do you remember the days of actually carrying heavy bags through airports? Now we all just get to crash into one another’s lower extremities when they are not looking. Much better, no?)

So now, 60 years later, Amazon, with its groundbreaking new kindle, decides to prove it cannot only add books to your life, it can subtract the ones you have already bought if they so choose. And what title is it that they apply this unknown power to?

George Orwell’s book 1984, of course. You can’t make irony like this up.

Now, they are still selling it here, but who’s to say they won’t yank the plug again on this purchase… or any other purchase one might make. I guess we always knew they had the power but it seems that until you actually have achieved totalitarian rule, you should not flex totalitarian powers. It’s just not polite.

Books are sure proving to be a pretty sticky technology, huh? And until some people start raving about how much they love the smell of the inside of a kindle, I have a feeling this battle is long since over.

I smell the future… and it smells like plastic made in China?