Arne Duncan was right when he said to me, "we need to create a culture in which our best teachers and principals want to work with our neediest students."  The problem is that what we are doing is resulting in the exact opposite.

Not only are the best teachers and principals not working in our neediest schools, but the threats of penalties, sanctions and firings are driving them away in droves. Today, working in a high-needs school is more likely to be a career-killing experience.

However, the real damage that high-stakes accountability is having on public education may not be in what happens to those already in education, but in the fact that many will now never enter teaching.

Take special note of what 20-year veteran, Victoria Robinson, wrote in the Chicago Tribune.

"As an undergraduate, many of my non-teaching peers devalued my decision to pursue a teaching degree."

"Along with signing my first contract, I took a vow of poverty."

"The most hurtful public message was that I was to blame for just about every academic, social, economic and political problem in America. American students' test scores are inferior to students in other countries — blame the teachers. American kids are disrespectful — blame the teachers. The American work ethic is slacking — blame the teachers. And if my student doesn't earn all A's, it must be the teacher's fault. I am just a teacher."

"I am just a teacher in a society where nearly 30 percent of the children eat their only hot meal of the day at school. I am just a teacher in a country where out of more than 49 million public school students, 4.5 million have special needs; more than 1 million are abused, of which half are victims of neglect; and tens of thousands of families experience homelessness each night."

The Bottom Line

One leading expert once told me, "All we need to do to improve schools is hire great teachers." While it has never been easy to attract the best and brightest to the teaching profession, the current climate of "reform" is making that virtually impossible.