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State's bad teachers rarely get fired

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Re: State's bad teachers rarely get fired

#31

Post by antidaily »

patio11 wrote: post #8
sgk284 wrote: post #4

Our startup (based in Seattle) was looking at ways to help analyze the performance of teachers. It turns out that the unions lobbied for legislation in Washington that forbids such software from being installed in the schools. The unions don't want mediocre teachers to be found out. It's really a crappy situation and really took us by surprise.

If the unions didn't zealously represent mediocre members, there wouldn't be any point to having them. (There might have been decades ago when management quite literally hired private armies to beat down their employees. Taking a look at the private sector, we can see that non-unionized employees are largely not beaten down by private armies and also don't come to class falling down drunk. Unions have and will contin…

Non-unionized employees can also be paid less and receive less benefits which is great. Because that's how you find the best of the best - offer next to no salary or benefits. It's so simple - you task these underpaid drones with teaching a meaningless standardized test to kids who are physically and sexually abused at home and come to school without a jacket (or breakfast or a packed lunch). If the kids don't do well, clearly it's the teacher's fault and they should be forced out immediately, which will be easier without union representation. Also, to save money, it's important to threaten older, experienced teachers with cut retirement benefits if they don't retire early (happening in MI) so that cheaper, newer teachers can be hired in their place. And even though all studies show that academic achievement starts at home, don't blame the parents. Ever.

Re: State's bad teachers rarely get fired

#33

Post by [deleted] »

ryanhuff wrote: post #13

Its in vogue to bash the teachers these days. In California, the teachers unions have been more prominent in recent years in state-wide political debates, and that seems to have had an impact on public opinion, which is unfortunate. Regarding Bill Gates TED-talk, he compares US and Asia test scores. I don't see how having cheerleader style teachers can mitigate the challenges that many children from under-performing…

[deleted]

Re: State's bad teachers rarely get fired

#35

Post by marltod »

antidaily wrote: post #31
patio11 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the unions didn't zealously represent mediocre members, there wouldn't be any point to having them. (There might have been decades ago when management quite literally hired private armies to beat down their employees. Taking a look at the private sector, we can see that non-unionized employees are largely not beaten down by private armies and also don't come to class falling down drunk. Unions have and will contin…

Non-unionized employees can also be paid less and receive less benefits which is great. Because that's how you find the best of the best - offer next to no salary or benefits. It's so simple - you task these underpaid drones with teaching a meaningless standardized test to kids who are physically and sexually abused at home and come to school without a jacket (or breakfast or a packed lunch). If the kids don't do wel…

Interesting rant, however you have not explained why you think Union Teachers are better than non union teachers at educating children? Tax payers pay taxes so that children in their communities get a good education. Why would tax payers pay a teacher 80k a year when there are qualified unemployeed people willing to do the job at 40k.

Re: State's bad teachers rarely get fired

#36

Post by deadmansshoes »

sgk284 wrote: post #17
deadmansshoes wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you going to analyze teachers performance based on their students results? If so you will be penalizing those in worse areas. And you will make teachers teach to your performance criteria. Besides how many programmers would like their value to be assessed by a piece of software?

The software was actually an early warning system for students (software that detects anomalies in a student's progress). For instance, if a student suddenly started doing bad in three courses it signals different things than if a student starts doing bad in only one course. You could normalize data to get relative values across teachers and classes. The intent was to find individual students or classes that needed m…

If you start measuring there will be high and low values. As soon as this happens people will look to blame someone. Parents never blame their own "angels" (or themselves), so it will be the teachers who lose out. If parents care about their children's education they can tell if a teacher is useless.

Re: State's bad teachers rarely get fired

#37

Post by antidaily »

marltod wrote: post #35
antidaily wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-unionized employees can also be paid less and receive less benefits which is great. Because that's how you find the best of the best - offer next to no salary or benefits. It's so simple - you task these underpaid drones with teaching a meaningless standardized test to kids who are physically and sexually abused at home and come to school without a jacket (or breakfast or a packed lunch). If the kids don't do wel…

Interesting rant, however you have not explained why you think Union Teachers are better than non union teachers at educating children? Tax payers pay taxes so that children in their communities get a good education. Why would tax payers pay a teacher 80k a year when there are qualified unemployeed people willing to do the job at 40k.

The narrative used to be that teachers were underpaid. Now, because the states are broke and property tax revenues are lower, we're trying to squeeze teachers by paying less and making them work more hours ... and still get kids to do better in school. Just not sure it works that way.

I don't have any concrete facts on why unionized teachers are better, but they're paid more, have better benefits, legal protections... so maybe that makes them more motivated.

Re: State's bad teachers rarely get fired

#39

Post by ryanwaggoner »

"This American Life" had a great segment awhile back on the Rubber Room, which is this room in the NYC school system where teachers who are under investigation or something get stuck. They report there instead of their classrooms, and some of these teachers have been stuck there for years because they can't be fired. Pretty incredible.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/350/H...

Re: State's bad teachers rarely get fired

#40

Post by ori_b »

antidaily wrote: post #37
marltod wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting rant, however you have not explained why you think Union Teachers are better than non union teachers at educating children? Tax payers pay taxes so that children in their communities get a good education. Why would tax payers pay a teacher 80k a year when there are qualified unemployeed people willing to do the job at 40k.

The narrative used to be that teachers were underpaid. Now, because the states are broke and property tax revenues are lower, we're trying to squeeze teachers by paying less and making them work more hours ... and still get kids to do better in school. Just not sure it works that way. I don't have any concrete facts on why unionized teachers are better, but they're paid more, have better benefits, legal protections..…

No, more motivated would involve having a risk of losing the benefits if you don't teach well. Rewarding... well.. nothing, simply for the sake of rewarding breeds complacency and apathy, not motivation.
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