Quote Originally Posted by Franconicus
My wife's friend and her husband went to Texas to work as teacher for one year. They said that the teachers are judged with the mark the pupils get. So every teacher tries to improve the marks (not the performance). Before a test every question and solution was explained to the pupils. Then the test was run. Even then the result was very bad. So she started to help the pupils even during the test. Is this common?

In Germany there is no real conceppt to judge a teacher.
You're talking about standarized testing. This has been an effort to put some level of accountability on teachers. While the idea seems sound at first, the results have been mixed, at best. The idea is that if the teacher is doing a good job, their kids should be able to pass basic aptitude tests. If their kids can't, then it's clear the teacher isn't doing their job. (Also, substitute school district for teacher). While I agree with the basic premise, there has been no consensus on what is important for kids to learn and what isn't. As a result, the testing process itself has become rather onerous, and too time consuming as a portion of the educational experience. There's also some things on basic educational aptitude tests that I doubt a lot of college educated adults would get right (for example, in the 4th grade one, a sample question: what is the difference between a codependent clause and a subordinate clause).

Gawain raised another issue we have, that our teacher's union has the goal of making teacher's lives easier, not producing better teachers. They resist any efforts to improve the basic qualifications to be a teacher.

All that being said, nobody wants to be a teacher, and even those that do won't stay at it for long. Despite all the money flowing into the school board, teachers don't do all that well salary wise (of course, they do get a 3 month vacation every year, something none of the rest of us get). They also don't get much respect and they don't have much authority. I was beaten by my teachers for talking in class (of course, they were nuns). Now I'm not saying that was right, but my point is, if you're worried about getting a week of detention for being 2 minutes late to homeroom, the idea of skipping class never enters your mind. Discipline in public schools is non-existant, and most school boards/administrators, to appease parents and avoid lawsuits, hamstring principals and teachers from disciplining even the worst offenders. It's impossible for anyone to learn in an environment where the school bully beats up the teacher, let alone his classmates.