Reform: Speculation & Innovation Vs. Real-World Experience

Much will be made today of Randi Weingarten's speech on evaluating teachers - USA Today and the Washington Post felt the need to cover it and I'm sure bloggers and pundits will follow suit.

But I'm feeling particularly impatient with speeches and new initiatives these days, fearing that too many folks confuse what is essentially speculation and conjecture about what might happen (or is beginning to happen) with real news about things that have really happened in the real world.  (So old-fashioned, I know.)

This is especially the case given that the Times' Ian Urbina has just turned in a fascinating roundup about state exit exam requirements that chronicles the trend towards softening and slowing the exams even as they spread nationally (States Lower Test Standards for a High School Diploma).

Once considered legally problematic, the tests have spread to 26 states, are part of the NCLB school rating process in 24 states, and affect two thirds of the nation's students.  And yet they have many of them been watered down so much that they challenge few teachers and students and trip up only the most disadvantaged.