When you watch Amy Goodman’s interview with Karen Lewis, you will hear Mayor Rahm Emanuel speak eloquently about the importance of accountability. He wants principals to be accountable. He wants teachers to be accountable.
But does he really believe in accountability? As Lewis points out, the school board appointed by Emanuel is accountable to no one. Their decisions may be rejected by parents and communities, but the board is not accountable.
Does Rahm Emanuel believe in accountability for the principal and teacher of his own children’s school? They don’t take standardized tests. They are not held accountable for test scores. By Mayor Emanuel’s terms, he has chosen a school for his children where no one is accountable.
Is accountability only for the teachers and principals of the Chicago public schools?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It is only for the workers and the little people…what would accountability for Rahm, Arne and Barack look like?
That’s a twist on the Leonie Helmsley line. She was the widow of a super-rich real estate magnate. She said, “Taxes are only for the little people.”
Prison!!
I prefer a twist on the old Quaker Oats add, “Nothing is better for Thee than Me.”
If you want to find out what Emanuel thinks of accountability, try getting in to see him, even if (perhaps especially if) you’re someone who voted for him.
Shower before and after!
Teachers aren’t accountable at expensive private schools? Gibberish.
Teachers at expensive private schools are NEVER judged by the standardized test scores of their students. Their students don’t take those tests.
Oh, please, Diane, like we need standardized tests for expensive private school kids! We already know they’re brilliant. They’re rich and white – what more do you need to know?
[/sarcasm]
Of course they aren’t, because they can be hired and fired at will. When administrators have that kind of power and flexibility, they don’t need to build Rube Goldberg-esque evaluation schemes. Private school teachers are generally far more “accountable” than public school teachers, which is why most public school teachers wouldn’t want to change places with them if they could.
If your point is that Rahm Emanuel wouldn’t want his children to be subjected to public school-type standardized testing, then just say that. It would have the virtue of being correct.
Actually, flerper, the school that Emanuel sends his own kids to *is* unionized and teachers there *do* have due process.
AY AY AY.
No, they aren’t in the sense of what the Rahmbo would like to see for public school teachers, i.e., being evaluated on student test scores (which by the way is completely UNETHICAL) and some pseudo-science called VAM (coming our of the economist camp you know it has to be a “false” science).
Teachers at “expensive private schools” are held accountable by the whims of the administrators. Guess who’s butt the teachers have to kiss???
whose not who’s
I don’t know how true that is. Perhaps some schools. But from what I understand of places like Lab School, Francis Parker, and Latin in Chicago, teachers have a great deal of autonomy and the school functions on collaboration and respect rather than conformity and pressure. Elite schools that I’ve seen tend to follow very progressive models based on Dewey – there’s a recognition that school is preparing students to be part of a functioning democracy and that that can’t happen if teachers are used and abused.
Of course such models couldn’t possibly be transferred to public schools, at least not urban public schools. Everyone knows that at least 25% of those kids will never amount to anything (per Rahm) and the rest just need to be drilled in the basics so they’ll make good Wal-Mart clerks.
“Teachers at “expensive private schools” are held accountable by the whims of the administrators. Guess who’s butt the teachers have to kiss???”
In my experience, the butts of parents and even students.
Alan, I think you hit that one right. The parents and the students use the administration to be the firing squad made up of one.