My throat is throbbing and sore.  My feet are achy.  I’m basically a walking zombie.  Why do I feel this way? 

It’s the first day of the school year.

This is my 24^th year of teaching.  And every opening day I have to brace myself for the amount of energy I’ll need to pull the day off.  I only have one hour to do much work with each group of 35 students.

The first day with students sets the tone for the rest of the 179 days.  My tradition is to shake each of my student’s hands as they enter the classroom, look them in their eyes and greet them with a smile and warm greeting, Welcome to Sophomore English.  

I constantly walk up and down the rows of students.  I want them to feel special in my room and to know that I expect high standards both from them and from me.  There’s not much time to do much work.  And I intend to make the most of the precious minutes I have with these young minds.

Teaching can be easy; teaching well is not.  I’ve always said that what is remarkable is not that there are bad teachers in America, but that there are exceptional ones.   There are few rewards in the teaching profession.  To make a difference in young people’s lives is a trait that one either has or doesn’t have.  You can’t teach passion in teacher training classes.

Now, if I can only muster enough energy to play catch with my sons.

Using student test scores as part of a teacher’s job evaluation while not ideal is at least a step in the right direction towards shattering the outmoded concept that all teachers are the same.

The debate shouldn’t center on whether teachers should be evaluated using test score results.  Rather, the conversation needs to involve completely rethinking the way teachers are compensated.

Testing students at the start of the year, then again at the end, provides data that is quick but insignificant. Test score results by themselves mean little in terms of a teacher’s abilities.

It’s not so easy to evaluate how well a teacher communicates with her students, how clearly and coherently she answers student questions, how thoughtfully designed her assignments are, or how patiently she works with individual students.

However, if test scores are going to be used to determine which teachers are doing a better job of teaching, then what must follow is an acknowledgement that certain teachers are better than others.  And, if that is so (and who would argue with such logic), then those more effective teachers need to get paid higher salaries, while ineffective teachers receive less or, without further improvement, get fired.

Paying teachers for the quality of their work is a foreign concept in the teaching profession. When a teacher is observed by an administrator, the visit is carefully pre-arranged at a time of day when the teacher can control as much of the lesson as possible knowing her superior will be present.  What often happens is a highly rehearsed and unrealistic picture of what goes on in that classroom day in and day out.

All teachers get paid the same regardless of the type of job they do.

Quality is not acknowledged, applauded, spotlighted nor rewarded.

Because the system has low expectations of teachers, teachers, in turn, have low expectations of themselves as workers and, not surprisingly, this domino effect translates to the low expectations they have of their students.

The very forms that are used to evaluate teachers clearly show that quality is not part of the evaluation equation. On the evaluation form are listed several teacher behaviors each with two boxes for an administrator to check off: meets standards or does not meet standards. Notice the absence of a third option “exceeds standards.”

So why should teachers desire to earn higher than average marks when they are not expected to be that good?

Thankfully, a few forward-thinking school districts and states including Denver, Houston, and Florida, have what’s commonly called a performance-pay system, often overriding union’s objections, that takes into account student test scores and pays better teachers more money.

One study found that when teachers get paid according to their performance, their students’ performance increases.  In other words, money does motivate people to work harder. Who would have thought?

Excellence in public schools is a random occurrence. There’s nothing in the system to guarantee powerful instructors.  In this era of accountability there is none where it really counts and that is with the teacher in the classroom.

Give principals the power to fire bad teachers.  Each day an incompetent teacher is allowed to be in the same room with young people is another day of learning permanently lost.

The solution to many of public education’s problems is not a new reading program, not a new computer, and certainly not more testing.  The solution is to have higher quality teachers by providing meaningful feedback and paying them well for good work.

People will work harder if their jobs are on the line.  Teachers need to trade job security for professional integrity and join the rest of the American workforce and embrace with open arms the right to be fired and the right to be rewarded.

Teachers are the experts in the education field and their voices need to be at the forefront of changing the way this country’s children get educated.  Unfortunately, no one is listening.

A big “thank you” to Bill and Melinda Gates for donating billions of dollars to public schools.  But Microsoft should not be the face of education reform.

Creating a reality TV show with Tony Danza as a classroom teacher may garner ratings, but all it does is bring more attention to Mr. Danza than those who year after year positively impact young people’s lives.

Congratulations to filmmaker David Guggenheim on his education documentary “Waiting for Superman” but he shouldn’t be the one on Oprah.

The people who deserve to be in the spotlight, who should be the stars of the public school reform show, are the classroom teachers.

Many bright instructors are in America’s classrooms right now who could do wonders in transforming public schools if given the opportunity.  Why won’t anyone listen to them when it comes to how schools should be run?

When 46 of the nation’s governors held a groundbreaking meeting on high school reform in February of 2005, no teachers were present.  This is like holding hearings on tort reform without a single attorney there.  Why would anybody intelligent do that?

It seems no matter how hard they work, when it comes down to it, teachers are shut out from the decision-making process.  Just when teachers feel they have reached a certain level of respectability in their profession, sit on committees, chair departments, mentor other teachers, they quickly slip back to reality:  they wield no authority.  Despite their achievements, in the eyes of those in charge, they remain teachers, nothing more, and most definitely not needed for establishing education policy and reform.

Whenever politicians talk about what needs to be done in education, they always seem to forget to invite the people who have the most direct connection to the students: the teachers.  Despite many of them sending their own kids to private schools, and having never spent a single day teaching a class, these lawmakers think nothing of dictating educational policies without the representation and advice of the people who do the teaching.  It makes about as much sense as having these same politicians debate a new surgical procedure and not having a single surgeon in the room.  That would never happen in the medical community, but it happens all the time in education.

It is frustrating for teachers to work in a system where they are accustomed to being the leader in the classroom, yet subservient to principals, superintendents, and, above else, politicians.  Teachers’ thoughts and concerns are ignored, discounted, overruled.

The California State University found that “having meaningful input in the decision-making process” increases teacher retention.  Teachers not feeling that their input is valued end up exiting the profession.

The time has come for teachers to be in charge of their own profession.  Teachers need to chair committees, lead state school boards, run for state superintendent positions.  The President of the United States should create a new position of Education Czar, a post that carries one stringent requirement:  several years of exemplary teaching experience.

The greatest resource a school has to offer is its finest teachers.  If given the chance, they might just be able to transform America’s schools.

No one in a position of power, from presidents to principals to managing editors, believes that school teachers have anything worthwhile to say in fixing America’s declining public school system.  Teachers are rarely consulted, their advice never used in any decision-making capacity on how best to teach to children. Most definitely, they are not the face of the teaching profession.

Whenever the media, especially television, use on-screen attorneys to dissect the latest headline-grabbing trial, it makes sense to have those who have studied and practiced law to discuss the law.  And when the story revolves around terrorism, all kinds of security specialists surface including ex-secretaries of state and CIA officials.  Yet when the subject turns to education, who are the experts sought out by the media? Former U.S. education secretaries, think tank opine-ers, or anyone with a household name of Bill as in Bill Gates or Bill Cosby.  Almost all newspaper op-ed pieces on education are written by people with these pedigrees.  Rare it is to find a byline of an actual classroom teacher.

Oh sure, every September there’ll be a “first day” diary written by a local teacher. And once in a while a newspaper will track the year of a teacher, but even that is written by a journalist.

Would a person give more credence to a friend or neighbor on how best to treat a medical condition than what an actual medical doctor has to say?  Yet year after year anyone with name recognition chimes in on how best to teach kids despite a total lack of teaching credentials.

Believe it or not, America does have talent and it’s in classrooms all across America.  The teaching profession has its own superstars.  But the media doesn’t seem interested in either seeking them out, or in giving space in print, on air or online to these special educators who not only do incredible work with young people, but who strive to better education.  The word “hero” gets bandied about too easily these days, but some of these folks would be candidates for such an honored title.

It’s wonderful that President Obama is willing to rattle the teachers union status quo about merit pay, it’s good to see Education Secretary Duncan taking risks by stating teachers need to be held accountable, but neither of these gentlemen have teaching experience.  And the president’s two daughters attend private school, just as the majority of politicians’ children do.  These folks may be the least qualified to stake a claim on what’s best for kids in this country’s public schools.

It seems that the media listens to everyone who has an opinion about teacher and schools except those who actually teach to America’s youth.

When I was doing research for my latest book and came across a report from the College Board, the folks behind the SAT and AP tests, I noticed on the very first page at the top was a quote triple the size of the other text attributed to former IBM CEO Louis V. Gerstner Jr.  When I read it my eyes bugged out—it was a quote from my first book.  Not a word altered, moved or deleted.  Verbatim.

To the College Board’s credit, once I brought the matter to their attention, they were apologetic and made the correction.  In a way I understood why I wasn’t credited. Who am I?  I’m not a billionaire or celebrity or national politician. I’m just a classroom teacher.

One of the paradoxes in good teachers is their innate desire to help others and, at the same time, not take credit for it.  This selflessness has to change.  Good teachers should stand up and speak out and take ownership of their own profession, and don’t let outsiders take away the spotlight of their work.  Until that happens, teachers will continue to be overlooked, their expertise unexplored.

Remember the old saying, “dress for success?”

Ever since Presidents have been removing their jackets and rolling up their long sleeves as a way to appear “cool,” proper dressing habits haven’t been the same in quite some time.  Nonetheless, I feel it’s important to dress appropriately when going to work.

One of the ways teachers can help raise the level of professionalization in their occupation is to dress properly for work.  While I understand the urge to deliberately dress down as a way to be on the same level with one’s students, an important ideal of education should be to uplift pupils’ minds.  Coming to work as if one is going to the beach doesn’t foster the notion that learning needs to be taken seriously.

I usually wear a sports jacket and most every day a tie when I teach.  I view it as a teacher’s uniform.  And while I would disapprove of a formal dress policy for teachers, some parameters couldn’t hurt (think the “What Not to Wear” TV program).

On the very first day of the school year, I saw one of my colleagues with an untucked shirt, shorts, and sandals.   This shouldn’t be the initial impression given to one’s students.  I wouldn’t want to see my doctor and have him come into the examination room with shorts and flip flops.  And I wouldn’t want my children’s teachers dressing likewise.

A school is a special place where special things take place.  Teachers should dress for those occasions.