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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

#91

Post by dpatru »

Our "education" model is fundamentally broken. It's based on the idea that we need to warehouse kids in institutions modeled on 18th century factories so that they can do well on "standardized" tests. Certainly Bill Gates did not obtain his education this way. He basically educated himself by following his passion from an early age. He working in his field of choice at the age of 15. By 20 he had founded Microsoft.

"School" for Bill Gates was his educated home environment, the block of computer time he could use in 8th grade, the Computer Center Corporation where he worked while in high school, and his projects with Paul Allen as a teenager. It was the unstructured resources that were around him.

Not every kid is a Bill Gates. Most probably need less formal instruction because they do not need as much abstract knowledge.

Schools as they exist today should be abolished and the teachers and other staff that work in them should be taken off the public payrolls and allowed to take useful jobs in the private sector.

Schools, to the extent that they exist at all, should be more like graduate study where an advisor suggests resources for further study. These advisors could be unpaid volunteers. People with successful careers in areas of that the student is interested in who interact with the student intermittently perhaps over the internet.

The bulk of kids' time should be spent in projects or actual work, apprentice-style, in an area of their interest. Instead of being grouped together in dysfunctional groups of their own kind, young people should be distributed in the economy, working with and under the supervision of competent adults in the various fields.

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

#92

Post by natnat »

forkandwait wrote: post #77
pmb wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unions? That's your bad guy here? Teachers are poorly-paid and looked-down-upon in our society and you are blaming the only organization which sticks up for them? The unions suck, certainly, but firing teachers only works if there is a ready supply of quality replacements. Plus, if you remove the perk of job security, you are going to have to significantly increase teacher pay to compensate. Even worse than this,…

Teachers aren't particularly poorly paid -- they make about 45k a year with summers off (that is the country wide salary, the median elementary school teacher salary in San Jose is 65k) and potentially have a great job (when a class is good, teaching is a joy as long as enough easy kids balance the hard ones). The joyfulness is really important -- private school teachers make shit, but teaching there is great fun and…

You can get a R.N. degree at a community college in three or four years. Getting a job at as a teacher requires just as much education plus certification, which usually requires a bachelor's degree plus additional classes plus a bunch of student teaching.

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

#93

Post by hdctambien »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #89
tzs wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

37 Hour weeks plus time spend prepping for classes, and time spend correcting homework, and time spend helping students after school, plus time spent giving makeup exams ... I was a teacher. I worked way more than the 7-4 that class was in session. That's like saying professional football players only work for 3 hours a week.

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

#94

Post by forkandwait »

brg wrote: post #90
forkandwait wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 14…

I just meant for teachers unions, not all unions.

I am a government employee, btw, and I would happily vote against teachers unions (if I could vote issue-by-issue, not representative-by-representative)

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

#95

Post by yummyfajitas »

hdctambien wrote: post #93
yummyfajitas wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

37 Hour weeks plus time spend prepping for classes, and time spend correcting homework, and time spend helping students after school, plus time spent giving makeup exams ... I was a teacher. I worked way more than the 7-4 that class was in session. That's like saying professional football players only work for 3 hours a week.

37 hours total, averaged over all full time teachers. Sorry, should have been more clear. This includes work done at home (e.g., grading).

http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf

You might have done more work, but you were above average.

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

#96

Post by forkandwait »

Natsu wrote: post #61
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.)

> 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. That only works if you're good at recognizing the bottom 10% and have tight anti-cheating controls. Otherwise, things will go straight to hell. Also, you're neglecting the fact that it'll destroy cooperation among the teachers, because it turns things into a "it's either h…

Hehe... I just thought of this: I bet there is easily a consensus between parents and peers on the suckiest 5% for most schools in the US today. When it actually becomes hard to all agree on the suckiest 1 out of 20, we probably would be a long way toward better schools.

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

#97

Post by forkandwait »

natnat wrote: post #92
forkandwait wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teachers aren't particularly poorly paid -- they make about 45k a year with summers off (that is the country wide salary, the median elementary school teacher salary in San Jose is 65k) and potentially have a great job (when a class is good, teaching is a joy as long as enough easy kids balance the hard ones). The joyfulness is really important -- private school teachers make shit, but teaching there is great fun and…

You can get a R.N. degree at a community college in three or four years. Getting a job at as a teacher requires just as much education plus certification, which usually requires a bachelor's degree plus additional classes plus a bunch of student teaching.

Yeah, but for R.N. classes you probably actually have to study. ;)

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

#98

Post by robryan »

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.

Surely there are other benefits of the masters degree over the small amount of additional annual wage?

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

#99

Post by duffbeer703 »

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…

Yeah, sure. New York spends a ridiculous amount on education and is bottom of the pack in performance. My sister makes $85k as a teacher, and will retire making $105k on the current scale, with a pension of $65k after that.

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

#100

Post by jseliger »

dpatru wrote: post #91

Our "education" model is fundamentally broken. It's based on the idea that we need to warehouse kids in institutions modeled on 18th century factories so that they can do well on "standardized" tests. Certainly Bill Gates did not obtain his education this way. He basically educated himself by following his passion from an early age. He working in his field of choice at the age of 15. By 20 he had founded Microsoft. "…

Schools as they exist today should be abolished and the teachers and other staff that work in them should be taken off the public payrolls and allowed to take useful jobs in the private sector.

Have you worked as a teacher or in front of a classroom? I ask because I might've been sympathetic to these kinds of views before I started grad school at the University of Arizona. Most students in grades K - 16 are not going to do intensive projects or actual work; many of them simply aren't ready to do so. Most students in most subjects are there because they need the spur and structure school provides.

This is true even at very high levels; how many people would actually write a dissertation if not for the fact that they'd already spent several years in grad school, that their professional lives depend on it, and they'll look like a fool if they don't? Hell, even with those constraints, there are a shockingly high number of ABDs floating around out there.

Schools, to the extent that they exist at all, should be more like graduate study where an advisor suggests resources for further study. These advisors could be unpaid volunteers.

This is insane. It does not scale. If volunteers did a better job of educating than the system we have now, no one would send their kids to mediocre public schools.

All of your ideas are wildly utopian, and I don't mean that in a good way. There is no practical way to implement them.

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