Simone Ryals teaches gifted children at an elementary school in Florida. She's won awards and is beloved by parents, administrators, and the students who thrive in her classrooms. But because the state raised the bar for scores on standardized tests, and some of her students didn't finish as high as last year, Simone finds herself classified as an inferior teacher in need of serious improvement -- a status that will be printed in newspapers and posted online.
She wrote about the impact of that classification on her blog, and because she's emblematic of the pressures that too many good teachers are under (causing too many of them to leave the profession they love), I invited her to discuss it on my America Weekend show. Listen, then click here to subscribe to these podcasts via iTunes!