There Ought to be a Law . . .

This could be a lot of fun. Send in your new laws and we'll post them.

There ought to be a law that says that if you have a teaching license and are assigned to a school, you must teach children in some capacity every day.

There ought to be a law that requires that school principals spend at least one full day per week in a classroom and that school administrators and school board members spend at least one full day per month.

There ought to be a law that stipulates that teachers alone are responsible for the content and design of their professional development meetings and workshops, instead of administrators.

There ought to be a law that eliminates standardized testing and its attendant punishments.

There ought to be a law that states that if a school meets 36 out of 37 NCLB criteria it will be labeled a success instead of a failure, as is now the practice.

There ought to be a law that requires that candidates for any administrative position in the public schools have at least 10 years of classroom teaching experience before applying for the job.

There ought to be a law that allows students to choose which language they are tested in instead of being forced to take tests in English only, especially when taking the tests in their native language would result in higher test scores for the student and for the school.

There ought to be a law that requires state legislators, school administrators, school board members and other policy makers who are complicit in the culture of testing for punishment, take the 5th grade standardized tests and that the results of those tests be published in the local newspaper or online.

There ought to be a law that assures that families of public school students without internet access be given that access at home, along with the necessary hardware and software, until the student graduates or until the family can afford the access themselves.

There ought to be a law that says that those who demand supplemental or redundant data from classroom teachers be the people who collect it and enter it in the appropriate data bases so that teachers can be teachers instead of data entry clerks.

There ought to be a law that requires that school based teachers with a license but no classroom assignment, such as instructional coaches and district content coaches, be placed in classrooms to relieve overcrowding before established classroom teachers are transfered to other schools.

There ought to be a law that clarifies the mission of the public schools as the education of the whole child first and preparation for the workplace a distance second.

There ought to be a law that forces the federal government to take into account factors such as household income, parents' education levels and home language before punishing schools for not making adequate yearly progress.

There ought to be a law that prohibits the local Chamber of Commerce from meddling in the affairs of the public schools.

There ought to be a law that public education be fun, relevant, data lite and student centered, instead of boring, irrelevant, data heavy and adult centered, as has been the trend since the passage of NCLB.