To be honest it seems that many of the arguments are the same old rhetoric that we have heard for years. I certainly didn't come away with the magic bullet to fix what is wrong with our schools. Charters are no better than public schools, some are good some are bad. Teacher quality is the central argument behind how to make our schools better and teachers did get thrown under the bus in my opinion.
When someone attacks the profession that we have given our lives to, how do they think we will react? The point that seems to get overlooked is we care about every aspect of a child and not just their test scores. To evaluate anyone or anything on two days of standardized tests is ridiculous and many teachers pointed that out. To have people that have never been in the classroom on a daily basis, and profess to be experts in a field is equally ridiculous.
We do, however, need to listen to the things that are being said, both good and bad. We all want our schools to be better and we wish to have positive relations with our students. That is why we, as educators of the whole child, must get out from behind our desks and learn, via Twitter, staff development, attending conferences, and having conversations with our peers on best practices.
Who knows this may be a good thing for us, at least it is getting education in the forefront and by starting the conversations, perhaps the policy makers (politicians) will listen to us when we talk to them about education reform.
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