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Bill Gates: End teacher bonuses based on master's degrees and seniority

nytimes.com

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Re: Bill Gates: End teacher bonuses based on master's degrees and seniority

#11

Post by adamsmith »

JshWright wrote: post #4

It 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.

If times were good and budgets were flush you can be sure reform proponents would suggest using the excess capital to grandfather the old systems in and support the new ones.

However, that's not the case we're in right now. That doesn't mean it won't change in the future. It's also possible (likely?) that reformers' strategy for lean times will be less successful than the strategy for times of excess. Only time will tell!

Re: Bill Gates: End teacher bonuses based on master's degrees and seniority

#12

Post by gf44 »

chipsy wrote: post #6
gxs wrote: post #2

I 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 ar…

"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."

You do realize you're talking out of your ass right? 99% of inner-city youths don't do drugs, aren't in gangs, and aren't involved in criminal behavior. Nice way to stereotype them though.

Re: Bill Gates: End teacher bonuses based on master's degrees and seniority

#14

Post by Mahh »

chipsy wrote: post #6
gxs wrote: post #2

I 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 ar…

The families of many of those students you refer to are just as shattered as their neighborhoods and that may be what makes it easy for them to be susceptible to influence from the neighborhoods. They wouldn't particularly care if boarding schools could help their kids or not, even if they could have access to boarding schools.

Following this thought, the importance of education(what life would be as compared to without) needs to be understood by that society, but the ones who need to listen probably wouldn't care to listen to preaching about education's merits.

Re: Bill Gates: End teacher bonuses based on master's degrees and seniority

#15

Post by andrewce »

This response comes via the Washington Post, and offers sourced rebuttals/refinements:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/guest-bloggers...

Also: while I've got a world of respect for Bill Gates and his philanthropic efforts, I'm not sure that he's the most qualified to discuss education reform.

I'm certainly down with schools restructuring their budgets, but there's wasted money all over the place, and even if we got rid of seniority and degrees as a means of determining salary, it's unreasonable to think that that $59 billion would be spent only on the students, or that it would be trimmed entirely.

Even if we switch to a system of merit pay, that money has to come from somewhere.

Again, loads of respect for Mr. Gates, and full agreement that budgets should be overhauled, but it's gonna take more than just cutting out seniority-based pay.

Re: Bill Gates: End teacher bonuses based on master's degrees and seniority

#16

Post by yp90 »

Mahh wrote: post #14
chipsy wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ar…

The families of many of those students you refer to are just as shattered as their neighborhoods and that may be what makes it easy for them to be susceptible to influence from the neighborhoods. They wouldn't particularly care if boarding schools could help their kids or not, even if they could have access to boarding schools. Following this thought, the importance of education(what life would be as compared to with…

"The families of many of those students you refer to are just as shattered as their neighborhoods and that may be what makes it easy for them to be susceptible to influence from the neighborhoods."

I find the stereotypes here frankly appalling. Have you guys even lived in the ghetto, or even taught in one? Inner city students are just as motivated and understand the importance of education as any other kid living in middle suburbia. They've known that since it was ingrained in them as kindergartners. It's not a people problem. It's a systems problem.

Re: Bill Gates: End teacher bonuses based on master's degrees and seniority

#17

Post by alphaoverlord »

JshWright wrote: post #4

It 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.

If a graduate degree is mandatory, why is there a bonus? Can't they raise the base?

Re: Bill Gates: End teacher bonuses based on master's degrees and seniority

#18

Post by WalterBright »

wheaties wrote: post #3

This 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…

There is no bureaucratic rule that can be devised that can separate good teachers from bad ones. Every such rule can and will be gamed. It's like the difference between art and porn - the difference is obvious by inspection, but impossible to codify.

With a free market school system, people will know who the good teachers are and will pay for them (supply and demand).

With a government school system, this simply will never work, because the people paying the salaries will never be the ones judging the teachers.

Re: Bill Gates: End teacher bonuses based on master's degrees and seniority

#19

Post by _delirium »

WalterBright wrote: post #18
wheaties wrote: post #3

This 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…

There is no bureaucratic rule that can be devised that can separate good teachers from bad ones. Every such rule can and will be gamed. It's like the difference between art and porn - the difference is obvious by inspection, but impossible to codify. With a free market school system, people will know who the good teachers are and will pay for them (supply and demand). With a government school system, this simply will…

Unless the teachers are going to be individually contracted by parents, don't private-sector schools have the same evaluation problem? They still have to separate good and bad teachers via some sort of process, probably overseen by management (aka bureaucracy). The similarity of the agency problems is one reason corporations internally often look so much like governments.

Re: Bill Gates: End teacher bonuses based on master's degrees and seniority

#20

Post by HaloZero »

alphaoverlord wrote: post #10
wheaties wrote: post #3

This 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 student…

The argument against standard test scores as the metric is that it covers two basic competencies, reading and mathematics. Which are of course fundamental but there are edge cases of people who have no interest in those fields but would prefer foreign languages, arts, etc. Teachers in the arts can inspire and help provide to students but don't have any standardized evaluation method.

Plus for students who are younger where one teacher teaches all subjects, the focus on mathematics/reading will increase compared to arts. The arts education significantly reduced during No Child Left Behind b/c of the requirements.

You can obviously argue that competency in basics should be achieved before arts too though. Just pointing out an issue

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