Bill Gates: End teacher bonuses based on master's degrees and seniority
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Re: Bill Gates: End teacher bonuses based on master's degrees and seniority
#2I went to an inner city Los Angeles high school. You wouldn't believe some of the individuals that can pass as qualified teachers. People that they themselves were never taught correctly, and went straight into teaching after college. This of course is the double whammy - poorly academically prepared people, with little real world experience - so they fail students on both counts.
And yet...the most annoying part of this experience was the attitude of the other students. I despised my high school mostly because absolutely nobody cared. I think it's hard for people from better areas grasp this. People really do tell the teacher to fuck off. People really do just talk amongst each other, listening to music, while the teacher tries to talk over them. And because no one puts in any level of effort whatsoever, you can get an A by simply just showing up.
I don't doubt we need better teachers. I don't doubt it at all. All I'm saying is we need better teachers at the youngest grade school levels to reach children while they are still, I guess reachable. And more importantly, we need a better way of educating parents to get their kids to care.
Then, we can really start holding teachers accountable.
Re: Bill Gates: End teacher bonuses based on master's degrees and seniority
#3This is easy to say but hard to do. "Based on excellence" is the mantra I've heard from software development circles for years and yet...
1. How many of us have lost productivity because some other developer ran rough-shod through code caring not for maintainability, readability, or even extensibility? Which one was praised and which one rewarded? Doesn't apply to teachers? Ever have a dud who couldn't do simple math in charge of the algebra class? Guess what the next teacher has to deal with.
2. How do "normal" people in managerial roles judge competency between two people in such roles? When looking at our own industry we see how difficult it is for "normal" people to make those sorts of judgement calls. Some schools require only 2 years teaching experience before moving on to superintendent roles. Some states more. With such divergence what can we expect?
3. How will we measure such excellence? What metric? What new system will evolve to capitalize on this metric despite the spirit of the metric? Unintended consequences?
Re: Bill Gates: End teacher bonuses based on master's degrees and seniority
#4It would suck for the folks who paid tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege to teach in states like New York where a graduate degree is mandatory for public school teachers.
It's going to take almost two decades for the master's "bonus" to cover the cost of my wife's graduate degree.
Re: Bill Gates: End teacher bonuses based on master's degrees and seniority
#5It would suck for the folks who paid tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege to teach in states like New York where a graduate degree is mandatory for public school teachers. It's going to take almost two decades for the master's "bonus" to cover the cost of my wife's graduate degree.
I this was about rewarding the teachers than i'd feel bad for you. But this is about how to improve education for the KIDS, so your point is meritless. I completely agree with Bill.
Re: Bill Gates: End teacher bonuses based on master's degrees and seniority
#6I went to an inner city Los Angeles high school. You wouldn't believe some of the individuals that can pass as qualified teachers. People that they themselves were never taught correctly, and went straight into teaching after college. This of course is the double whammy - poorly academically prepared people, with little real world experience - so they fail students on both counts. And yet...the most annoying part of…
For the most needy inner city kids, I think boarding schools might be appropriate even at an early age. Their home environment and neighborhood is so shattered that what they need most is a stable day-to-day existence shielded from drugs, gangs, and criminal behavior. If they don't get that, by the teen years, they're stuck in feudalistic "ghetto thinking," start getting into increasingly serious trouble, and just aren't able to take school and its discipline games seriously anymore.
Of course, fixing the quality of instruction should probably come first.
Re: Bill Gates: End teacher bonuses based on master's degrees and seniority
#7This is easy to say but hard to do. "Based on excellence" is the mantra I've heard from software development circles for years and yet... 1. How many of us have lost productivity because some other developer ran rough-shod through code caring not for maintainability, readability, or even extensibility? Which one was praised and which one rewarded? Doesn't apply to teachers? Ever have a dud who couldn't do simple math…
Generally people seem to support either performance improvement measured by exams (i.e. how much students improved over the course of the term) or some sort of peer-review system.
Both have their own problems, but both seem to be much better than the arbitrary system of seniority. There is evidence to show teachers get better with experience, but almost all of that improvement happens within the first few years of a teachers career.
Re: Bill Gates: End teacher bonuses based on master's degrees and seniority
#8This is easy to say but hard to do. "Based on excellence" is the mantra I've heard from software development circles for years and yet... 1. How many of us have lost productivity because some other developer ran rough-shod through code caring not for maintainability, readability, or even extensibility? Which one was praised and which one rewarded? Doesn't apply to teachers? Ever have a dud who couldn't do simple math…
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Re: Bill Gates: End teacher bonuses based on master's degrees and seniority
#9End capitalist bonuses based on currency accumulation and seniority.
Re: Bill Gates: End teacher bonuses based on master's degrees and seniority
#10This is easy to say but hard to do. "Based on excellence" is the mantra I've heard from software development circles for years and yet... 1. How many of us have lost productivity because some other developer ran rough-shod through code caring not for maintainability, readability, or even extensibility? Which one was praised and which one rewarded? Doesn't apply to teachers? Ever have a dud who couldn't do simple math…
This might sound trite, but I think the solution would be to couple standardized testing with performance based pay. Unlike code, it's hard to aim for solely short-term gains. As long as teachers aren't cheating, I can't imagine many ways to teach students that aren't inherently beneficial to the student. Teaching better study habits, etc might not be directly related to their material, but it still helps the students.
Also, I think there are fairly generalizable development timelines for children. While standardized testing can never be a gold standard in determining progress, I think we can both agree such testing does measure a worthwhile metric. I would definitely agree that there are edge cases, both in terms of individual students and in terms of school districts, but linking pay with progress seems on face value to be a good idea. That, plus independent school districts, is system-based evolution. Such selection depends on creating the right relationship between effort and reward.