Still Hating America.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Adder
I am not sure these things are as easy to separate out as you think. And, frankly, I am not sure you can be one of these things without being pretty strong in all areas.

I am not saying they should be separated out. I am just saying that is not what they should be judged on. When you hire a crossing guard the job is to prevent kids from getting killed. Yes many elements go into that, they have to control the kids, they have to be able to look for cars etc. And during their job they may also help people with directions, they may help new students find their class etc. But in the end their job is to stop kids from getting run over. That is the goal of their job and that is what they are judged on.

Yes, being able to control children, and see upcoming traffic is imortant and related to their job, but in the end the bottom line is if a bunch of kids at different times get run over on their watch, it is time to get a new crossing guard, especially if all their peers have not lost any kids (especially if they watch the same intersection and at the same time of day). If a crossing guard loses a lot kids, they can't argue that they shouldn't be fired becuse they control kids well, they see reallly well, and they help a lot of people with directions.

Similarly, a teacher that is moved from different schools and different classes, and consistently performs much worse than their piers in similar situations, they can't argue. Well even though my kids are not learning, I control them really well, I am a good disciplinarian, I am a good guidance counseler and friend etc. etc. The bottom line is - students are not learning in her classes and she needs to be replaced with someone who will educate children.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
Why not? This is how Spanky runs his business - each year he administers a test to his employees and fires the low scorers, regardless of what their performance numbers (aka, "grades") are.

Why haven't law firms instituted this?

I thought you retired with Wonk, no?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
Why not? This is how Spanky runs his business - each year he administers a test to his employees and fires the low scorers, regardless of what their performance numbers (aka, "grades") are.

Why haven't law firms instituted this?

Actually, you have it backwards. In a business who cares how someone scores on a test. If you have a salesmen his or her job is to sell stuff. If they don't sell anything, I don't care how they do on a test, or how clean their office is, or how well they are liked in the office, unless they sell stuff they are gone.

And remember, you are not testing the teacher, you are testing their students. It is how well their students do on the tests.

[Adder]

Originally posted by Spanky
Then how would you approach the drafting of state legislation that would attempt to create tests to determine teacher performance, that would make social promotion rare, and to help schools get rid of bad teachers?

I'm not sure I would, as I am not sure that these are problems that can really be solved at the statewide level. And I am not convinced the heart of the problem for struggling schools is bad teachers who just need to be fired.

What factors do you think are the main obstacles to effective education and how would you address the problems through state legislation?

I think the main obstacles are povery, unstable families, a culture that doesn't value education, and an influx of children whose native language isn't English. I think only the last of these can be meaningfully address with state legislation to provide for more ESL training and bilingual education (although this is probably an issue that has been addressed in California).

Do you think the lobbyists from the teachers unions would agree with the statement; "Testing can help measure teacher performance, Schools should be able to fire bad teachers, and Social promotion should be a rare exception rather than the norm." And do you think they would support legislation that would make this concept become a practical reality?

I think they would prefer that testing be used to identify student performance, as, afterall, that is what is being tested. Testing can be helpful to identify those students who need extra help, and I think the unions might support it if it was being proposed in connection with a program that would provide more tutoring, diversion programs, and targetted help for students who are falling behind.

These things, of course, would also have the benefit of reducing social promotion. Although ultimately the only way I can see to reduce social promotion and limit its use judiciously is to have in place a school administration that agrees that social promotion should be limited, and perhaps puts in place structures to help teachers decide when to use it (perhaps faculty committees or some such).

As for firing bad teachers, again, mostly I think you need to expect your administrators to do their jobs. You will have a very hard time getting the teachers union to agree to simply banning tenure (or extending the period before which it accrues, as you have suggested). I'm just not sure this one is worth the fight because I am not convinced that it is a primary problem with schools. That said, you may be able to acheive similar results by adopting training or mentoring programs for teachers that are not living up to expectations, and you may be able to provide incentives for teachers that come up with innovative curricula. Things like that may have the twin effect of helping teachers improve themselves and encouraging them to move on if things are not working.

But again, I am not sure that any of these things are really appropriate for state legislation.

[Adder]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
Why not? This is how Spanky runs his business - each year he administers a test to his employees and fires the low scorers, regardless of what their performance numbers (aka, "grades") are.

Why haven't law firms instituted this?

I think Spanky used to work for GE.

[Adder]

Originally posted by Spanky
I am just saying that is not what they should be judged on.

And that is where we disagree. I think these other things are also an important part of their responsibilities. Which is not to say that I disagree with you that they also need student to learn.

ETA: Whoever taught the two of us to spell, and type, and distinguish between homonyms should not only be fired but summarily executed. We are both atrocious at all of these things.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Adder
I think Spanky used to work for GE.

If you ever have the opportunity to work in the management of a school you will see that welch's method could do a lot of good. Although the 10% cull rate would probably need to be a bit higher.

[Adder]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
If you ever have the opportunity to work in the management of a school you will see that welch's method could do a lot of good. Although the 10% cull rate would probably need to be a bit higher.

While I tend to feel that way about anywhere I work, let's remember that at a school you need to replace them with someone better (which is not always true at a place like GE).

[Adder]

Originally posted by Spanky
We did have an argument about one thing. When Wilson was governor here he pushed really hard to reduce class sizes. I think he made the absolute limit of a class size in K-12 either 25 or 30 kids. When he did it it caused huge trauma in the school system (they had to go on a massive teaching hiring binge and it was also really expensive) Anyway, they were planning on pushing the limit up through Junior High and High School. But Davis (the next govenor) never followed through with that. Evers said they didn't follow through because there was no evidence that the smaller class size improved education and so resources were being put elsewhere.

I thought that was wrong. If the stats showed that reducing class size didn't improve things, then something was wrong with the stats. I just couldn't believe that the reduction in class size wouldn't help and thought they should continue the policy in Junior High and High School.

Btw.. I almost forgot that I agree with you on this. While I have heard (but not checked myself) that smaller class sizes have a bigger effect on younger kids, I can't see how it would be bad for older kids.

That said, I have always preferred bigger classes myself. It comes from not actually wanting to talk to the professors. And the bad things that happen when I do. I think there is still a prof at my law school who resents my suggestion that charitable giving isn't necessarily selfless. And man, if you haven't thought of that one before, you have no place teaching a seminar on jurispurdence.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Adder
While I tend to feel that way about anywhere I work, let's remember that at a school you need to replace them with someone better (which is not always true at a place like GE).

In the early years of application that would not be so hard, after that the cull rate would probably need to be lowered.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Adder
I'm not sure I would, as I am not sure that these are problems that can really be solved at the statewide level. And I am not convinced the heart of the problem for struggling schools is bad teachers who just need to be fired.

I don't think it is the heart of the problem. But I do think if you have data out there that shows who is performing and who is not it will incentivise those who are not doing well to do better and those that are doing well will want to stay and continue to do well because their accomplishments are being acknowledged.

Originally posted by Adder
I think the main obstacles are povery, unstable families, a culture that doesn't value education, and an influx of children whose native language isn't English. I think only the last of these can be meaningfully address with state legislation to provide for more ESL training and bilingual education (although this is probably an issue that has been addressed in California).

That doesn't do me much good, because they only think I can do is influence state legislation.

Originally posted by Adder
As for firing bad teachers, again, mostly I think you need to expect your administrators to do their jobs.

I like Ty, am really wary of giving school administrators too much discretion over firing. That is why I like the tests. Since the administrators are not incentivised to make the system better I am afraid they will start firing teachers for all the wrong reasons. If you have the tests, then a teacher can use the tests to defend themselves if some idiot administrator is trying to get rid of them because they were not PC in class, or wasn't polite to them the last time they met.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Adder
Btw.. I almost forgot that I agree with you on this. While I have heard (but not checked myself) that smaller class sizes have a bigger effect on younger kids, I can't see how it would be bad for older kids.

The problem was the statistics used to determine if the small class size helped younger kids said that the small class sizes did not help. As I said, I think the stats had to be bad. When it comes to giving money to school bureaucracies I like the pull system instead of a push system. Davis here in Cali threw money at the schools and it did nothing. But if in California you passed a law that no school could have a class size greater than twenty, and then the districts started screaming for money to do it, then you give them the money because then you know it is going towards something productive. That is what Wilson did with the K-12 class reduction program and I think it was money well spent (sorry Slave and Penske)

Originally posted by Adder That said, I have always preferred bigger classes myself. It comes from not actually wanting to talk to the professors. And the bad things that happen when I do. I think there is still a prof at my law school who resents my suggestion that charitable giving isn't necessarily selfless. And man, if you haven't thought of that one before, you have no place teaching a seminar on jurispurdence.

I am with you there. After my first year I tried to stay anonymous in class. In our school the professors had the option of being able to slightly adjust your grade based on class performance (they were called push points). If a professor used push points I avoided their class like the plague.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Adder
ETA: Whoever taught the two of us to spell, and type, and distinguish between homonyms should not only be fired but summarily executed. We are both atrocious at all of these things.

Its OK as long as NCS (or for that matter the NSA) is not paying attention.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
Yes but none of them would really have that much influence on how much a student would learn in a single year. In other words they wouldn't effect how teachers were reflected in the test much.

Let's recap the bidding. You said:

Spanky, post #767
If you test the students at the end of the year, and compare their scores to the previous year, you know how well the teacher did. Is the teacher there to do something else other than to teach reading, writing and basic math? If not, then what could be more objective than that? What other factors are there to consider?

So I responded:

T.S., post #768
Can you really not think of things that would affect scores other than a teachers' performance? See, e.g., the list here. Hard for individual teachers to do much about most of those factors.

The page I linked to there, from a report by the National Science Foundation, says (in part):

• Many factors influence student performance, either directly or indirectly. Access to challenging courses, qualified and experienced teachers, school environments that support learning and teaching, and opportunities for using computers and the Internet are all important factors. Educational policies on curriculum standards, testing and accountability, and instructional materials also help define the broad learning context, and their practical effects on curriculum, teaching methods, and learning materials all shape the experiences of teachers and students. Looking at these and other factors affecting education provides a context for the student achievement results reported here.

In other words, your surmise that teacher performance is the only thing that affects a student's test score is wrong. It's not just the teacher. It's a bunch of other things as well.

What other criteris would there be besides tests scores?

My point, as explained above, was that a lot of things other than teacher performance affect student test scores. So you can't just look at test scores and start canning teachers.

Actually that is the way if may "sound" but addinng data makes it more objective. You just don't fire a teacher over one or two years data, or from one placement. But over time, if a teacher pefroms significantly less well than their peers in many different situations over time, that is about as objective and as fair as you can get.

I agree with the general proposition. But how you decide which data to look at, and how to weigh the different facts and circumstances -- that becomes highly subjective. No doubt that a teacher who is at the bottom of every measure is a bad teacher. That's the easy case.

Actually, I think you are wrong. That is where annual testing comes in. It is not hard to test for progress in basic learning skills.

You're right -- I misspoke. My point is not that you can't quantify how much a third grader learns, because there are ways to do that, although they have their various problems. My point is that you can't quantify how much of that is attributable to the teacher, as opposed to various other things.

If there are multiple tests giving in multiple situations, and teachers results are matched against their piers and they are doing signficantly less well, I think it is that simple.

You sound like Ross Perot. "It's just that simple."

But what do you do after the very simple cases?

In any event this is an irrelevent argument. The point is whether you agree that annual tests should be taken and such data collected. Right now we are not using annual tests so we can't even use such data as part of the teacher evaluation. I think collecting such data would be really valuable for both the student and the system. You can debate its relative, cut don't you agree such information is really useful?

I think there should be regular testing. Whether the tests are well designed and implemented, whether they are given too frequently or too infrequently -- I don't know enough to have an opinion on those questions. But this is a difficult area, and I'm suspicious of anyone who thinks there are simple answers.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

It sounds like a good job by the Bush Administration to get us back to something like the Clinton Administration's policy for dealing with North Korea. It's only too bad that they did nothing for many years. It's not necessarily a good policy, but it sounds to me like the best of a bunch of bad options.