Check out the video of Matt Damon. I usually hate celebrities getting involved in "causes" and I am not 100% behind him on this either, but I am close. I will explain why in a minute. Anyway, his discussion on why teachers teach is justified. His knock on the MBA idiots who try to micromanage students as numbers is right on. The parallel to medicine and how doctors are being treated is very similar. Eerily similar. He could be defending us.
The difference I see, however, is that teachers are unionized. I have spoken to teachers who are friends. My wife was a teacher. My mother was a teacher. In each school teachers know who the bad ones are. The problem is that the union protects them to a fault. Now the administrators are using this standardized testing as a means to remove them. I say get rid of both the testing and the unions but that is for another argument on another day.
As far as doctors are concerned, the P4P or standardized testing or "quality" or physician profiling, is only being used as a way to pay doctors less (and control them). There is no proof that it improves the quality of care. The difference between physicians and teachers is that bad doctors are sued and brought before the board because they have no union protecting them. And that probably is a good thing.
The point is that we are heading down a path. That path leads to a cliff were we are being pushed off by these same MBAs that Damon talks about.
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