Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators • Hacker News Board

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#91

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 5:11 PM UTC

lolinder wrote: post #82

fredgrott wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

contrary O....during WI defense hired people that came up with the first IQ test for soldiers...that data shows home schooled people at less IQ than those who went through public schools at the time...actual real data...

And for every study that shows that there's another on the other side. Homeschool outcomes are incredibly diverse by nature and the numbers involved are so small that it's hard to have a study with any reasonable amount of power.

Public education outcomes are pretty diverse as well, although there are good and bad schools (and home life status plays a lot in the results, which I assume is also true with homeschooling).

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#92

Post by dilippkumar » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 5:11 PM UTC

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #39

I am very close to obtaining an elementary school teaching degree (46 of 49 credits completed), and as of this year I am a full time teacher at a private school (which doesn't have to care whether I officially have a license). My masters program is considered among the best in the state. Unfortunately, I don't have many good things to say about my masters program. The majority of my classes have been interesting but…

This is extremely meme worthy material. Would you mind sharing the source?

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#93

Post by GlibMonkeyDeath » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 5:11 PM UTC

Here is the study for Massachusetts (saving you several layers of summary articles):

https://wheelockpolicycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/...

In every category, emergency/provisional licensed median values were lower than licensed teachers, including performance evaluations, although these results didn't reach 95% statistical significance of rejecting the null hypothesis. Even if they didn't reach P < 0.05, when all of the results point in one direction, I am not so sure I would completely agree with the top-level headline as it is stated.

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#94

Post by jandrewrogers » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 5:12 PM UTC

dboreham wrote: post #10

Underlying problem: people don't want to pay teachers enough.

Teachers are paid around the median wage for someone with a college degree. The job neither has a high skill requirement nor difficult work conditions. What is the rationale for paying them more than the typical person with a college degree?

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#95

Post by lolinder » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 5:13 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #91

lolinder wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And for every study that shows that there's another on the other side. Homeschool outcomes are incredibly diverse by nature and the numbers involved are so small that it's hard to have a study with any reasonable amount of power.

Public education outcomes are pretty diverse as well, although there are good and bad schools (and home life status plays a lot in the results, which I assume is also true with homeschooling).

True, but each individual school is big enough to have actual data associated with it. Conclusions about the system as a whole might not work, but you can make a reasonable guess about whether you want to send your kids to a specific school.

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#96

Post by dan-robertson » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 5:13 PM UTC

growingkittens wrote: post #87

The long-term impact is much more ambiguous to measure. I paid particular attention in school when a teacher would explain why they were trying to teach us something. I noticed the same patterns of teaching among different teachers in the same school system, and how it all worked together to reinforce the skills we needed. (Note: many of my peers experienced the "extra" work as pointless, because they didn't understa…

What’s a concrete example of one of the explanations for a reason you were given for your being taught something?

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#97

Post by germinalphrase » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 5:14 PM UTC

readthenotes1 wrote: post #66

"Because most did not teach tested grades and subjects, the researchers also looked at evaluation ratings. Both groups of teachers received similar marks from their supervisors." That is, they cannot speak to how effective the teachers were as educators, only how disruptive they were as employees.

Assessing educator effectiveness is not a solved problem. For instance, the Gates Foundation made a full throated effort to research and develop a quantifiable measure and failed. In the end, they released a set of holistic, observable behaviors/practices that they believe are associated with teacher effectiveness. It’s a hard problem.

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#98

Post by wharvle » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 5:14 PM UTC

mberning wrote: post #17

A lot of my teacher acquaintances have this mistaken idea that they should be paid a lot more because they are “teaching the next generation” or any other variation of that delusion. They don’t seem to understand that the reason they don’t make a lot is because a lot of people can do the job. As we can see from this story.

TFA:

> Because most did not teach tested grades and subjects, the researchers also looked at evaluation ratings. Both groups of teachers received similar marks from their supervisors.

(Borrowing reasthenotes1’s quote elsewhere in the thread)

What you wrote may or may not be true, but this study doesn’t do much to support it.

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#99

Post by khzw8yyy » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 5:15 PM UTC

lolinder wrote: post #81

sabellito wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with your comment. When I read the GP I thought "oh that's cool", without thinking. Then parent's reply brought the reality of the situation back to me (that it's more complicated).

I didn't intend to get the parent's comment downvoted to hell—two anecdotes is fine for illustrating the complexity, but these threads usually devolve from there into enormous flame wars nested tens of comments deep. I was just trying to preempt that after one round of anecdotes.

It's OK :) This place became a cesspool quite a while ago. I switched to using throwaways so I'm unphased by karma.

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#100

Post by KRAKRISMOTT » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 5:15 PM UTC

fredgrott wrote: post #75

lolinder wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we please not get into the homeschool flame war here again? Every time it comes up it turns into a pointless war of anecdotes, because the data on outcomes simply isn't strong enough for it to be anything else (trust me, I've tried).

contrary O....during WI defense hired people that came up with the first IQ test for soldiers...that data shows home schooled people at less IQ than those who went through public schools at the time...actual real data...

The same IQ test that we now call the SATs?