by Les Thompson

Created on: July 12, 2008

This question, Should teachers be held accountable for low student test scores? is being debated constantly.This debate has been brought to the fore, even moreso, by the ongoing Presidential Campaign. Each candidate is trying to placate his constituency by deferring to the teachers' unions and by establishing his position on the No Child Left Behind Act. This Act passed by The Congress of The United States, essentially to assist in the improvement in the academic performance of students in all the States, has been controversial ever since its implementation, and continues to be so at this hour. Yet, it may be argued that regardless, each teaher has always, even prior to this Act, been considered by a great proportion of the parent community to be responsible, in some part, for the academic achievement of his or her charge. I must confess, I am biassed here, and will support the reasons for my bias as I continue this piece.

What, I know, or nearly all I know, is due in large part, if not in the whole, to the dedication of my teachers, the books, and other learning tools, to which I was introduced by them; to the insistence , by their persuasion and their uncompromising demands, that I learn, and that I learn well. That I know enough now, and that I continue to want to know more; that the enough I know tells me that I know very little; that the more I want to know exposes me to the realisation that I will never know very much, is the legacy bequeathed by most of my teachers in my kindergaten, primary, and secondary years. I have said so oft, and repeat that here. How then did they achieve that?

I can recall, at four (4) years my teacher, then my mother, would take me in her arms and have me repaeat what she he had told me sometime before. Soon, my attitude, and my brain I suppose, made learning become routine. At primary school, my teachers tested the classes on each topic they taught. Very often these tests were done without our being told they would be. We had to know; and we came to be proud that we had to know. It made each of us students better; certainly it made me a more dedicated student. Indeed, it has not only affected our academic performance, it has affected all aspects of our lives. Yet how does that support my opinion that teachers should be held accountable for low student test scores?

There are the constant arguments by teachers, and their unions, that socioeconomic factors make it difficult, if not impossible, for them to affect positively the scores

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