Sommers could not attend the meeting in person, so he appeared via Skype, the teleconferencing program.
“The world isn’t fair,” Dove said. “It rewards results. It doesn’t reward the best of intentions.”
That’s borne out by the fact that 85 percent of businesses that pay a living wage require a score of 22 or higher on the ACT.
“Educations is like businesses. Teachers groan when they hear that ... but customers are our kids,” she said.
While certain factors can’t be controlled, local educators can control their curriculums and how they deliver them, she added. Since voters are continually turning down levies, “we’re going to have to be more efficient when it comes to education,” Dove said.
By 2013, if a district is not a “Race to the Top District,” teacher evaluations will be based 50 percent on student achievement, and 50 percent on the practice of the educator, Dove said.
Walt Davis, a former professor at Sinclair Community College, told Sommers, “I took years of calculus and never used it once. I wish I could reclaim all the years I spent learning Latin. Mandarin Chinese would have been better.”
Sommers replied, “The notion is that the curriculum is not built on what we’re actually using. It’s based on a world that doesn’t exist.”
Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2836 or erobinette@coxohio.com.
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