JOHN ROSEMOND | Parenting Should teachers be above scrutiny?

It seems I've gone and done it again -- infuriated some people, that is. In this case, the people are mostly public school teachers.
One teacher reported being so enraged as to be shaking as she responded to a column of several weeks past in which I asked: Are public school teachers, on average, becoming increasingly lazy or increasingly dedicated and sacrificing?
It would appear that merely asking the question is politically incorrect, and that a good number of teachers believe they are components of a holy bovine that should be off limits to taxpayer scrutiny. A significant number of educators who responded said that the column was "damaging to teacher morale," "insulting," that it "played into the hands of irresponsible parents," and the like.
Mind you, of the approximately 200 letters and e-mails received from angry educators, not one offered evidence that I was wrong when I wrote: "Thirty years of meddling by teacher unions and the incorporation of various "progressive" philosophies have resulted in a public education system that rewards mediocrity in both student and teacher."
No argument
Some, including the superintendent of an Ohio district, were unable to offer anything more intellectually challenging than ad hominem attacks. (Overall, public school teachers disagreed by 6-4 whereas everyone else agreed by 9-1.)
The evidence in favor of my critique -- including testimony from a good number of teachers -- abounds, but (as many respondents pointed out) the problems in America's public schools don't begin and end with teachers.
It is also fitting to indict parents who send to school underdisciplined children and then demand that these same children be rewarded for being lazy, administrators that pressure teachers to reward lazy students, budgets that assign more money to administrative salaries and benefits than to the classroom, school boards that buy into just about any dumb "reform" that academia and the National Education Association is currently peddling, gullible lawmakers who pass laws that mandate counterproductive approaches to problem students and students with problems, university teacher-education programs for dumbing down standards and teacher unions for meddling, meddling and more meddling. Excuse me while I pause for breath.
No right
I was told by some teachers that I have no right to criticize because I've spent no time in the classroom. Notwithstanding that I taught full time for a year and part time for several years after, it's an interesting argument, by which reasoning one has no right to criticize the president unless he was once the president.
I was accused of over-generalizing. That was interesting because in the first paragraph of the column in question, I clearly state that not all teachers fit any one description, that the issue concerned the norm and where the norm was headed. I'm reasonably certain, in fact, that the overwhelming majority of public school teachers are not lazy but rather selfless and dedicated.
No options
Most parents cannot afford private schools, nor is it possible for most parents to effectively home school. Most parents, in other words, have no choice but to send their children to public schools. Therefore, the obvious solution lies in seeing to it that all parents, no matter their individual circumstances, have choices where the education of their children is concerned. Teachers unions do not like that idea. Why? Because it just might put them out of business.
I cannot do justice to these issues in one or two columns; therefore, I have dedicated a page on my Web site at www.rosemond.com for the specific purpose of continuing this fascinating dialogue.
XJohn Rosemond is a family psychologist. Questions of general interest may be sent to him at Affirmative Parenting, 1020 East 86th Street, Suite 26B, Indianapolis, IN 46240 and at his Web site: www.rosemond.com/.