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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

#81

Post by forkandwait »

gruseom wrote: post #75
forkandwait wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't pay them decently to start with, pay them better if they deserve it, and FIRE THEM if they don't?

Because "deserve?" and "fire" are hard functions to write. It seems easier to allow for a natural process of attrition. Edit: I think society should ask one to earn the privilege of being a teacher (what more important asset could we entrust someone with than children?) and to compensate those who have earned it well enough to make it well worth earning. What's a natural way to earn the right to be a teacher? By assi…

Is "earn" any harder to write than "deserve"? "Fire" is really easy...

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

#82

Post by gruseom »

forkandwait wrote: post #81
gruseom wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because "deserve?" and "fire" are hard functions to write. It seems easier to allow for a natural process of attrition. Edit: I think society should ask one to earn the privilege of being a teacher (what more important asset could we entrust someone with than children?) and to compensate those who have earned it well enough to make it well worth earning. What's a natural way to earn the right to be a teacher? By assi…

Is "earn" any harder to write than "deserve"? "Fire" is really easy...

If you think "fire" is easy, watch the lemon dance scene in Waiting for Superman.

You're missing my point about "earn", which is you don't have to write individual-testing logic if the general requirement is onerous enough. Those who really want to work with children will then have a natural advantage over those who are in it for other reasons. The latter will by definition find something easier to do, and it is greatly in society's interest that they do so.

Another advantage of this plan is that the degree of onerousness (how many years you have to put in, what you get paid, and so on) could be tested empirically.

ps: I like several of your other comments in this thread. Are you a teacher?

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

#83

Post by gruseom »

tptacek wrote: post #42
_delirium wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Private schools can fire teachers subjectively. A good private school principal can use gut feel to evaluate a teacher. But that doesn't scale, unless we find a way to identify and recruit very smart, very trustworthy principals on a large scale.

It's not obvious we'd be worse off if we just made public schools be like private schools in this respect.

(That's a Jerry Weinberg use of the j-word, "just". It would be a lot of trouble to do.)

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

#84

Post by Natsu »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #69
Natsu wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You build a statistical predictor of student performance (based on standardized test scores) then measure Performance = Avg(Actual - predicted). And then you watch student performance get gamed by the teachers. There are all kinds of ways: turn a blind eye to cheating, move poor performers to others schools (including by getting them to graduate when they shouldn't), alter their tests (this is already being done un…

Easy solutions to your problems: "turn a blind eye to cheating" "alter their tests" Tests are given by independent proctors and designed by an independent agency. In much the same way, the DOD rates Halliburton's performance - it's not great, but it's better than Halliburton doing their own performance ratings. move poor performers to others schools (including by getting them to graduate when they shouldn't) Won't he…

Your solution to fix education is to do things the way Haliburton & the DOD do?

Yes, independent ratings can help, but at some point, if you can't trust anyone inside the system, you're screwed. And your results are exactly as good (or bad) as your ability to do ratings. Fancy math won't fixed a flawed premise, for example.

We've been going for complex systems and simple people. Having good people and relatively simple systems, however, is the optimum from what I can see.

I'm not opposed to the idea that accountability is needed, but the idea that you can go up to a troubled institution, make everyone's job harder, and then expect improvement is unrealistic in any industry. I'm not a teacher, but I've seen the effects of management like that first hand.

Always taking the easy solution when managing something is not effective.

>> People aren't as easily gamed as systems of rules are. > I don't even know how to respond to this.

Obviously, I thought it implicit that I was talking about competent and experienced folks. Yes, if you get people who know nothing and put them in charge, you will have terrible results. They won't improve even if you give them a long list of rules to follow, which is how bureaucracy usually ends up.

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

#85

Post by forkandwait »

gruseom wrote: post #82
forkandwait wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is "earn" any harder to write than "deserve"? "Fire" is really easy...

If you think "fire" is easy, watch the lemon dance scene in Waiting for Superman. You're missing my point about "earn", which is you don't have to write individual-testing logic if the general requirement is onerous enough. Those who really want to work with children will then have a natural advantage over those who are in it for other reasons. The latter will by definition find something easier to do, and it is grea…

> If you think "fire" is easy, watch the lemon dance scene in Waiting for Superman.

That is my point. If fire never becomes easy we are just plain screwed.

Thanks for the comment about my posts. I would have liked to be a high school math teacher -- probably not forever, but for 5-10 years -- but the credentialing system and the crappiness of the schools in California dissuaded me. (If you have a BA in math, you can get a decent job besides teaching, unlike English.) I have tutored off and on since then, and if someone called me and offered a job at a charter school for my current 72K a year I would probably weep with joy and take it.

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

#86

Post by wisty »

busyant wrote: post #76
forkandwait wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't revolutionize teaching because TENURE AND SENIORITY RULES ARE LOCKED DOWN BY THE UNIONS. Want to revolutionize teaching (and save some money)? Break the unions and fire the worst 10% of the teaching staff. Then do it again next year. (Edit: we really DO care about teaching, and spend enormous amounts of tax payers dollars and collective worry on it.)

The Unions are only part of the problem. You want to fire the shitty teachers, right? I'm all for that. Unfortunately, this is only a PARTIAL solution. You also need to be able to fire the shitty administrators (see below). AND you need to be able to "fire" the shitty students (troublemakers). The school administrations are often composed of transient "revolving door" bureaucrats whose only goal is to pad their resum…

Unions are a problem, but not the only one. The biggest problem (in my opinion) is how kooky the teaching education establishment is. This messes up teacher training, and worse, messes up the curriculum and gives the education bureaucrats terrible advice. The text book factories love it (for the churn it creates), but nobody else benefits.

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

#87

Post by tzs »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #66
jdietrich wrote: post #55

If we really cared, we could increase the quality of teaching beyond all recognition. It wouldn't be remotely difficult. Massively increase pay for teachers, tripling or quadrupling pay at every level. Mandate a specific postgraduate qualification and a statutory minimum of continuing professional development. Recruit only the best and the brightest, specifically seeking out graduates from the best universities. Adve…

Relative to the Military or Social Security budgets, the cost would barely even register on the balance sheet. WTF? We already spent more on education than the military ($859B > $731B, circa 2008, 2009 numbers not available yet). If we tripled spending, education would be bigger than SS, military, medicare and medicaid combined . Unless you are Paul Krugman, I think that level of spending would register on the balanc…

I once made $7000 for 30 minutes work. By your argument, I'm paid roughly as well as a top athlete (per minute worked, not per calendar year).

The problem, of course, is that was a one-time opportunity. I can't get 30-minute intervals at will that pay anything remotely like that.

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

#88

Post by yummyfajitas »

Natsu wrote: post #84
yummyfajitas wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy solutions to your problems: "turn a blind eye to cheating" "alter their tests" Tests are given by independent proctors and designed by an independent agency. In much the same way, the DOD rates Halliburton's performance - it's not great, but it's better than Halliburton doing their own performance ratings. move poor performers to others schools (including by getting them to graduate when they shouldn't) Won't he…

Your solution to fix education is to do things the way Haliburton & the DOD do? Yes, independent ratings can help, but at some point, if you can't trust anyone inside the system, you're screwed. And your results are exactly as good (or bad) as your ability to do ratings. Fancy math won't fixed a flawed premise, for example. We've been going for complex systems and simple people. Having good people and relatively simp…

Your solution to fix education is to do things the way Haliburton & the DOD do?

Would you prefer to do things the way the educational system does? Throw money at Halliburton and hope for the best? No outside auditors or performance measurements?

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

#89

Post by yummyfajitas »

tzs wrote: post #87
yummyfajitas wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relative to the Military or Social Security budgets, the cost would barely even register on the balance sheet. WTF? We already spent more on education than the military ($859B > $731B, circa 2008, 2009 numbers not available yet). If we tripled spending, education would be bigger than SS, military, medicare and medicaid combined . Unless you are Paul Krugman, I think that level of spending would register on the balanc…

I once made $7000 for 30 minutes work. By your argument, I'm paid roughly as well as a top athlete (per minute worked, not per calendar year). The problem, of course, is that was a one-time opportunity. I can't get 30-minute intervals at will that pay anything remotely like that.

The problem, of course, is that was a one-time opportunity. I can't get 30-minute intervals at will that pay anything remotely like that.

Teachers can regularly get 9 months of 37 hour weeks that pay quite well. It's not a one-time opportunity.

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

#90

Post by brg »

forkandwait wrote: post #79
brg wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who has an incentive to work against public unions? Public unions operate in a monopoly for which one business can not be undercut. And after all, public unions vote.

The 85% of us who don't belong to the teachers unions should vote against them. Unfortunately, the teachers unions have the democratic party in their pocket, and I am sure as hell never going to vote for today's republican party (yuck!).

Your estimate got me wondering what the true number is. I would guess it is a little low for non-teacher's union employees. But considering that government unions generally cooperate to form an oligarchy; from a few searches I find there are 25 million Americans directly employed by federal, state, and local governments. There are 15 million Americans who's is directly paid by government contracts. There are about 140 million Americans in the labor force, so we have 2/7 ~ 28% of the labor force directly dependent upon government.
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