Ed Manning has written an inciteful and amusing piece on The Drum (http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4386710.html) concerning the education of our children, the mistreatment of our teachers; indeed the whole education debate, inluding the unjust and unjustifiable absurdities being bandied about in the process.
Universal education to the secondary level is undeniably beneficial to society on almost every level. Even the Heckles and Jeckles of the twitteratti would have trouble finding an argument against it. It enables the basis of a skilled workforce competitive on the world stage and a politically aware electorate able to intelligently choose between candidates, truths,.half-truths, lies, propaganda...etc. The way  we educate our children creates the society of the future.
So what of the stories cited of parents raging onto school premises when their child is punished for infringing rules or misbehaving, or whatever, lambasting the teacher about how their child is special and therefore above the rules or should enjoy priveledges because he/she is so special? What sort of future society will this create?
Manning notes the emphasis on measurement of performance, the implication being that if it can't be measured it doesn't exist, and cites teachers' expertise in this area, all marking in essence being measurement. This is an inevitable consequence of our entrepreneurial market economy/society, which has many benefits but also may benefits which need to be taken with a pinch of salt. This emphasis on measurement is one of these. Many things can be measured with varying degrees of ease and accuracy. Others can not. On Corporate balance sheets these are classified as intangible assets, characterised by goodwill, but there are others which are excluded because they are too difficult to measure: the common goods. To say that they do not exist because they are difficult to measure is absurd.
In education there are many of these intangible things and their effect usually overrides the effect of measurable or measured components. To attempt to reduce them all to a bunch of KPI's whereby to judge the performance of teachers is farcical at best and deceptive at worst.
It remains to be seen where all this will lead.