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Now, that doesn't mean “below norm. “Well below norm, you” know -- below it.

Now, no one can tell me that this is not indicative of a criminal default and inefficiency on the part of the personnel charged with the responsibility of teaching. You don't have, in any normal group of children, any random sample of children, nearly 90 percent of them below norm -- an incapacity to learn. When you see their achievement at that level, or their lack of achievement at that level, you know it is there because they're not being taught. Minimally.

Now, this is associated with examinations and degrees in -- and what not -- that some individuals or groups are better able to have, or to pass, on than others, but not associated with any indications of educational effectiveness.

So, I argued for what I call performance certification -- that you certify and evaluate teachers on the basis of their actual performance, as reflected in the achievement of their children -- and consternation, you know. The organized teachers' groups don't want to be evaluated on the basis of their performance. They don't want to be held accountable, in terms of children. It's just tough, that these inner city children are illiterate.

Weren't there performance evaluations at one time?

I guess so.

Or was it kind of informal, the school superintendent, etc?