To Dr. Diane Ravitch, who writes in her epistolary blog “Bridging Differences,”

So, the big idea today is that the way to fix American education is to identify bad teachers and fire them. I agree that we should get rid of bad teachers (but only after a fair hearing, in which charges against them are substantiated). But I also believe that this issue is a red herring that distracts us from far more important issues.

Right now, I would say that Bush’s No Child Left Behind and Obama’s Race to the Top are more injurious to American education than bad teachers. There is a way to solve the problem of bad teachers. They can be denied tenure or fired, but no one knows how to stop the damage done by NCLB and the predictable damage that will be done by RTTT.

*New award from NJ Left Behind in honor of Mr. Glenn Beck of Fox News whom Jon Stewart describes as “a guy who says what people who aren’t thinking are thinking.”