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North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

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Re: North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

#261

Post by smsm42 »

intended wrote: post #130
jeremymcanally wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not "anti-union," but frankly almost all of the issues he complains about are supposed to be things that the union helps with, especially professional development. It sounds like the whole system is falling over in that area, not just the district and not just the union.

Err, I read the article and I have no idea how you found this to be the most important part. I studied in India, and had a chance to study abroad as well. Currently, for reasons that escape me, you lot (Americans) seem to have decided to import those banes of thinking and real learning - standardized tests. Perhaps in order to have some sort of proxy or measurement for what is inherently a chaotic and un-measurable s…

Test are a consequence of a very real problem of evaluating teachers. Since neither parents nor children have in most public schools any choice over the school and teachers in it, regular consumer-driven quality controls that work on most markets are absent. However, quality problem is still real and existing - there are, obviously, good schools and bad schools, good teachers and bad teachers. Assume you are a well-intentioned educational administrator, and you want to improve the quality of education. How you do that? How you know which school is doing good and which is doing bad? How you know which teacher is beneficial and which is not? How you know which policy is beneficial and which is harmful? And most of all - how you do it in a way that is scalable to state and national levels and can be centralized and processed at huge scales (without which Department of Education has no data on which it can base its policies)? Obviously, standardized tests look like a perfect fit for this problem. So there's no mystery in this, it is a natural result.

Of course, there are a lot of deficiencies in this approach, which you can see and teachers can see it too. But given centralized, state-driven education system, what else you can do? You can not have absence of quality controls - this would have immense corrupting potential and the system would have incentive to deteriorate very quickly. You can not have individual approach - DoE can't account for each school in each small town, they just don't have resources for that. So with current approach, testing is inevitable.

Re: North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

#262

Post by smsm42 »

milesskorpen wrote: post #258
jessaustin wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't there be more than one school serving a particular area? Does the mere existence of charter/private/parochial in a community undermine that community's public school? Why would that be so? Education is far from the only service industry for which there is no silver bullet. Other such industries function by fostering expertise at management levels in addition to the "work" level, but always leaving the final…

A few reasons: * Charter schools would pull out the best students (or at least the ones with the most motivated parents). Research generally suggests weak students get lots of benefit from being in class with strong students. * Public schools benefit greatly from economies of scale. If 10% of students (and thus money) is taken away, the public school still needs to pay for existing fixed infrastructure * Charter scho…

Weak students may benefit, but strong students don't. Some of them are strong enough to work through a class of couple dozens of peers not interested in learning and disrupting the class out of boredom, but some of them just give up.

I'd like to see some data about this "net negative" claim. I think forcing bright kids that want to learn and advance to suffer through substandard school and disruptive environment that suppresses their will to learn and prevents them from achieving better results because the school needs their parents' money and they will be "good influence" on those bullies and delinquents - is plain wrong. A person - even a kid - should not be means to an end. It's just immoral - and judging from the results public school achieve statistically, being more expensive and less successful that private ones - also impractical.

Re: North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

#263

Post by smsm42 »

saraid216 wrote: post #214
ntumlin wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

College leads to job leads to money. Money is generally a pretty handy thing to have.

And some people disagree with the notion of money. Why is your value system better to indoctrinate the young with over theirs? I don't disagree with you, mind. It's just that accusations of indoctrination are responded to in kind.

I think living a good life and doing something that benefits other people (aka earning money) is a good idea. If somebody disagrees, he can of course take his kids and go live under the bridge and open his school there. Let's see where we'd have more applicants - in a school that teaches kids how to be successful or in a school under a bridge that teaches them money is nothing, you can subsist on garbage and live in cardboard boxes forever. I think you can predict the result - and explaining this result would also explain which system is better, in opinion of your peers.

Re: North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

#264

Post by intended »

smsm42 wrote: post #261
intended wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Err, I read the article and I have no idea how you found this to be the most important part. I studied in India, and had a chance to study abroad as well. Currently, for reasons that escape me, you lot (Americans) seem to have decided to import those banes of thinking and real learning - standardized tests. Perhaps in order to have some sort of proxy or measurement for what is inherently a chaotic and un-measurable s…

Test are a consequence of a very real problem of evaluating teachers. Since neither parents nor children have in most public schools any choice over the school and teachers in it, regular consumer-driven quality controls that work on most markets are absent. However, quality problem is still real and existing - there are, obviously, good schools and bad schools, good teachers and bad teachers. Assume you are a well-i…

While I appreciate that you have decided to test the teachers, and that you have unions which come in the way of it, I am greatly amused by the ill conceived plan to achieve your goal.

Its remarkable really. Years, decades of seeing kids die to suicide and cram pressure and this is what you choose.

So that you can test your teachers?

Anyway, your test doesn't test teachers, it tests students.

And then you assume it is a good proxy for teachers.

So just to be clear.

1) Tests are a perfect proxy for taking that test -> 2) Then they are a proxy for test taking ability in the student 3) Then a proxy for student understanding of the subject 4) And thence a proxy for teacher ability.

I'd understand if we were doing chemical analysis with 4 steps involved in the process.

But with human beings? Kids? The fundamental chaotic units of society?

I really have to point out that this is logic that gets most startups killed, or logic on which they pivot to something smarter.

I know you aren't the one responsible, but I really can't help but be perplexed. Once upon a time you guys were known as the place where "stuff just works."

Your older education system did a great job. Sure it may not have made everyone a rock star but frankly - not everyone is cut out to do so at that juncture in their life.

If you say that there is nothing else that can be done, then I accept and understand. But it is a terrible terrible outcome.

Re: North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

#265

Post by wpietri »

chii wrote: post #242
wpietri wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False dichotomy. Your responsibility as a parent is to your children. Your responsibility as a citizen is to run your government effectively. Captain TLDR above is basically saying "fuck other people's kids", which is abdicating his civic responsibility.

Nobody has any inherent civic responsibility. They may choose to, at their discretion, participate. Your only responsibility is to follow the letter of the law, in such a way that benefits you the most. If one believes that the private education sector serves their kids better, so let it be for them. The welbeing of other people's kids is at most a passing concern, and it would be in fact unfair to your own kid if yo…

Nope. Democracy is strictly a participatory sport.

One's only obligation under the law is to follow the law, but that's a tautology. One's moral obligation is deeper. Of, by, and for the people: that's how we roll.

Citizens who don't do more than the bare legal minimum are parasitic shirkers. Which they are legally allowed to be. But I am legally allowed to point out that they are selfish assholes. And I will.

Re: North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

#266

Post by wpietri »

icelancer wrote: post #206
wpietri wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's government of, by, and for the people. He is responsible for the health of the country, just as every other citizen is.

And he pays his taxes, outlined by said government. If there is a failure to deliver on the goods/services promised by the government, it's not his responsibility to make up for the shortfalls. It'd be nice if he did, but that's getting ahead of ourselves.

Government does not promise to magically take care of everything. And even if they did, the citizens run the government. Any shortfalls in government are ultimately the responsibility of the citizens.

Re: North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

#267

Post by wpietri »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #143
wpietri wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the NEA, that's only scheduled hours, not actual work hours. http://www.nea.org/home/12661.htm That certainly matches the teachers I've known; they put in a ton of non-classroom hours, and often put in a fair bit of their own money. A Gates Foundation survey puts it at 53 hours per week: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/survey... And for teachers involved in extracurricular activitie…

The numbers I cited are actual hours worked "last week" according to the BLS's American Time User Survey. It includes work performed "at a work location", "at home" and "at another location" (I assume this last one means starbucks). You'd have known all this if you bothered to read even the introduction.

Did read it. I didn't see them resolve the scheduled hours versus hours worked question.

And since the Gates Foundation numbers better match what every teacher I've ever talked to says, I'm going to run with them.

Re: North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

#268

Post by wpietri »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #248
wpietri wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it suddenly my job to make up tests? If you'd like some, give it a go. My point is that NCLB is scientific in the same way Taylorism was: it's a cargo cult activity that takes on the trappings of science and looks for something easy to measure. And then uses those measures in ways that aren't scientifically validated at all.

I'm asking you what evidence (if any) would change your belief. Perhaps no evidence is capable of changing your mind. That's fine - you've just adopted a different philosophy, one of the "other ways of knowing" rather than science. My point is that NCLB... I'm not arguing for NCLB, I'm arguing that objective, comparable and reproducible measurements are the only viable way to optimize a system. If you want to argue s…

Science is awesome. It is also incredibly difficult and expensive.

I would love it if we did proper science with education. I would love it if we did it with software development. In neither case has anybody put forward sufficient resources to do real science in these realms. Not science sufficient to replace human judgment.

Until we can, I don't think cargo cult science is the way to go. Half-assed studies on software development methods, counting simple metrics for developers, measuring teachers through simple standardized tests: all cargo cult science.

For now, I'd much rather rely explicitly on human judgment. It's not as good as actual science, but it's much better than pseudoscience.

Re: North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

#269

Post by yummyfajitas »

wpietri wrote: post #267
yummyfajitas wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The numbers I cited are actual hours worked "last week" according to the BLS's American Time User Survey. It includes work performed "at a work location", "at home" and "at another location" (I assume this last one means starbucks). You'd have known all this if you bothered to read even the introduction.

Did read it. I didn't see them resolve the scheduled hours versus hours worked question. And since the Gates Foundation numbers better match what every teacher I've ever talked to says, I'm going to run with them.

Paragraph 2 explains that it tracks "activities that they engaged in".

Re: North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

#270

Post by wpietri »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #252
saraid216 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Polling is another form of standardized testing (unless you propose asking different questions of each participant). No, it's not. Polling is an analysis of a large population through sampling. Standardized testing, in the context we're talking about, is an evaluation of performance based on the performance of a different group. > It seems you don't object to standardized testing at all, but merely to the goals of…

...evaluation of performance based on the performance of a different group. I'm confused - what group of people should we be measuring, if not the students exiting the education system? ...there were a number of interesting topics that we had no time to cover because it was more important to teach to the test. Again, I stand by my claim that your problem is not with standardized tests, but with the goals of the schoo…

> The only role the tests played in this story is that they are an effective mechanism for making sure teachers actually do their job.

I am having trouble finding a word in that sentence that isn't wrong.

That's not the only role the play. E.g., they also cause people to spend more time on test prep and less on education.

There isn't just one story here, despite your attempts to pretend that teachers are the only problem and tests are the only solution. Which is the political angle you aim to work.

They are not a particularly effective mechanism. Which is why nobody sane uses standardized tests forevaluating, say, which developers to hire.

They are not an effective mechanism for making sure that teachers actually do their jobs. They could only theoretically cover a small part of the teacher's job, and it's not clear how well they cover that. And they lump together all of the other factors that go into even that small slice of a student's performance.

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