Teachers are hobbled by oversight at the State and Federal levels.  I had a gut reaction while reading Doug Noon's comments on NCLB and testing today.  He is right on the money, and I was extremely jealous that he wrote the following - not me!

"One of Darling-Hammond’s slides listed what she called the 'changing expectations for learning':

• ability to communicate;
• adaptability to change;
• preparedness to solve problems;
• ability to analyze and conceptualize;
• ability to reflect on and improve performance;
• ability to manage oneself;
• ability to create, innovate, and criticize;
• ability to engage in learning new things at all times;
• ability to cross specialist borders;

NONE of these expectations are addressed in any NCLB reform proposals, or its simplistic testing regime. If we’d have used an NCLB-style approach to the Apollo moon mission, President Kennedy would have simply ordered NASA to fly conventional airplanes higher and higher until they fell out of the sky, and then blamed the pilots for lacking the will and the know-how to get the job done."

The NASA analogy says it all.  Folks, our educational system needs to become less top-down, not more - as soon as possible. Teachers should be facilitators of learning for our students, administrators and support staff should be facilitators of efficiency for our teachers, and the state and federal governments should get the heck out of the way.