The truth is that legislators who may not have a lot of first-hand experience inside a classroom except as long-ago students make many of the over-arching decisions about schools. But, being a teacher is very different from being a student — as different as riding in versus piloting the airplane. The view from the cockpit is very different from Row 32.

If I could change just one thing about schools, I know exactly what I would do. I would take the very overdue step of putting teachers and principals back in charge of their own schools. Instead of making K-12 teaching as complicated, confusing and overwhelming as the federal tax code, I’d get the federal government to find something else to do.

Here is the one thing I would do away with. I would ramp down the hot political climate, eliminate the always suspect, ever-changing high stakes testing, and I would immediately stop grading schools and teachers. Grading schools and teachers makes it impossible for teachers to explain to students and makes as much sense as grading pilots on their on-time arrivals. Obviously on-time arrivals are subject to thousands of variables like weather, air traffic control and mechanical issues — all of which are completely out of the pilot’s control. Similarly, teaching results are not solely driven by the person in front of the class as teachers work with students with emotional problems, learning challenges, illnesses, behavior problems, language differences, special needs, crises, and parents who keep them home from school — and on and on and on.

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