Stay out of politics.

A gifted 1st year teacher will be even better 10 years and perhaps a master's or doctor's degree later- or even very targeted in service programs and mentoring counsel. Unions have incentivized this approach to making teaching a real profession. Children will flourish in classrooms that allow for quality and quantity time with their teacher. Saying classroom size is not critical in the K-12 years is blatantly untrue and those who say it know it. Obviously 12 children who are considered high risk are going to be a much more challenging task than perhaps 40 well behaved, well fed, skillfully parented children in our higher economic school districts but even the most fortunate benfit from classes not allowed to exceed 25. Conservatives with the means to do it send their children to uncrowded schools with teachers of experience and impressive training. (Think board-certified ) Turning our public schools over to corporations is going to guarantee the job will be done as economically as possible and let's never ever raise taxes for education. I shudder to think what will happen to the special needs children I know so dependent on the public school systems. Even a $10,000 voucher will never be adequate for those children.

Arne Duncan hasn't wanted to hear from teachers before--why now?