Hostility blogging; A primer, or On Getting Schooled

Today's post is not for your benefit, silent millions. It is for T. R. Donoghue, who has made a recent (and admirable) foray into the packed field of pointless Matt Yglesias-related invective. Go read his post.

The analysis is cogent, but in some ways lacks sufficient rancor. Here, my friend, is how it is done:

Today, our hero educates his adoring public about the value of teacher metrics. Ha, ha, just kidding:

Whenever you propose trying to measure anything in education, people come out of the woodwork to point out that there are some flaws in almost any measurement system you can devise. This is true enough, but the current practice of simply not measuring whether or not training programs improve teacher performance is even worse.

And that's the argument... err, declarative statement, in the spot where one would normally place an argument. The problem, of course, is that many teachers think a bad system of teacher evaluation is far worse than no system at all. A bad system risks punishing good teachers who end up on the lousy end of a demographic trend, or vice versa. Ydiot figures that teachers are wary of the bureaucracy's clumsy meritocratic instruments for good reason.