Please Forward to Arne Duncan, Rick Snyder, and Dave Murray

Howard Gardner, professor at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, believes improving U.S. education lies in treating - and paying - teachers as professionals. Please, professor, enlighten us:

Just as we would like our doctors and lawyers to behave professionally, we should want the teachers of our children to behave like professionals as well. But it’s hardly a secret that many of our teachers do not consider themselves, and are not treated, as such. And it is even less of a secret that most people in positions of power today—whether CEOs or legislators—do not want “the teachers of another person’s children” to behave like professionals. If teacher-proof education isn’t an option, these potentates at least prefer teachers who do exactly what they are told and whose rewards or sanctions are based simply on test scores or some other easily measured result.

Seems like common sense. Read the rest of Gardner's piece at The Washington Post, along with others that are part of a roundtable discussion on teacher incentives.