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North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

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Re: North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

#281

Post by yummyfajitas »

wpietri wrote: post #270
yummyfajitas wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...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 pro…

I'll make one final attempt to bring this discussion to specifics. Here is a test from CA: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/sr/documents/cstrtqmath7.pdf

Can you be specific about what "test prep" means and how it differs from "education"?

Again, many larger companies (e.g., Google, Goldman, MS, DE Shaw) do attempt to standardize their hiring procedures and evaluation methods. But I suppose they are all "insane", right?

Re: North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

#282

Post by yummyfajitas »

dsanderson wrote: post #275
yummyfajitas wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Standardized tests typically measure how good a student is at adding, subtracting, and reading a paragraph and using the information it contains. Why do you feel we don't care about that? What information should we care about?

Standardized tests claim to measure those quantities. To be fair, my school system was quite good, so I don't think I suffered too greatly from teaching to the test, but I did read quite a few of the study/test guides put out by Kaplan and their ilk. Much of it was tricks based on the structure of the tests; the "types" of question that will be asked and type-specific solution strategies. These tests are not about ba…

Here is an actual CA standardized test:

http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/sr/documents/cstrtqmath7.pdf

Please explain why you feel it doesn't adequately measure the ability of students to "read, write, and compare rational numbers in scientific notation (positive and negative powers of 10) with approximate numbers using scientific notation" (as well as the other topics listed).

Or, similarly, can you explain specifically what "teaching to the test" means and why it is suboptimal for learning the aforementoined topics?

Re: North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

#284

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Locke1689 wrote: post #271
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In science, no metric is better than a bad misleading metric, definitely.

It's not science if there's no metric. If your hypothesis can't be falsified there's no scientific method. I'm not sure what you're advocating, but it seems to be wish-based education.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/why-fa...

Re: North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

#285

Post by saraid216 »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #251
Tsagadai wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the purpose of all education is indoctrination to a set of ideas. Home schooling is also an exercise in indoctrination to a set of ideas. Critical thinking is an idea, egalitarianism is an idea, individuality is an idea, problem solving is an idea. Education is a way of ensuring a more advanced and productive society through imparting certain knowledge and ideas to its children. The best metric for measuring the…

Education can be divorced from indoctrination. An educated person can display particular skills and knowledge, they don't need to believe that knowledge. (See, e.g., Einstein displaying knowledge of quantum mechanics without actually believing it, or assorted creationists who actually understand evolution.) I think your claim that criminality is the best measure of knowledge is interesting. Among other things, it sug…

> Among other things, it suggests that the best way to increase knowledge might be to shut down the education system and implement a police state.

Actually, an easier way to reduce the crime rate to zero is to repeal all categories of crime. Make it legal to steal and murder. Then all you have are existential crimes: "How could you let this happen!?" types: where crime is a metaphor rather than a fact.

> (For the cost of the current education system we could increase the number of cops/courts/prisons by a factor of 6.)

Citation needed.

Re: North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

#286

Post by yummyfajitas »

saraid216 wrote: post #285
yummyfajitas wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education can be divorced from indoctrination. An educated person can display particular skills and knowledge, they don't need to believe that knowledge. (See, e.g., Einstein displaying knowledge of quantum mechanics without actually believing it, or assorted creationists who actually understand evolution.) I think your claim that criminality is the best measure of knowledge is interesting. Among other things, it sug…

> Among other things, it suggests that the best way to increase knowledge might be to shut down the education system and implement a police state. Actually, an easier way to reduce the crime rate to zero is to repeal all categories of crime. Make it legal to steal and murder. Then all you have are existential crimes: "How could you let this happen!?" types: where crime is a metaphor rather than a fact. > (For the cos…

Citation needed.

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/piechart_2010_US_total

We spend a lot on education, not so much on cops.

Re: North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

#287

Post by jessaustin »

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…

Students certainly benefit from interaction with slightly stronger students, regardless of absolute academic strength. The most able student in any class is unlikely to actually learn much, but let's stipulate that we don't care about her needs. I still don't agree that any student benefits from sharing a class with others who are far more advanced. It's not like they're somehow going to catch up (rare exceptions exist, but clearly the system isn't about rare exceptions). Not everyone should be groomed to go $10k in debt for 1.5 years of college, or worse, $50k in debt for a degree that will never pay for itself. We need alternatives to this path for those who are never going to write a convincing essay or calculate a derivative (here we shouldn't just criticize the education establishment; the business community should be creating better opportunities as well).

Public schools benefit much less from economies of scale than their administrators, architects, and accountants (who do so benefit) would have us believe. This is why one of the most effective public-only reforms is to break up large schools into smaller ones. The principals don't have any army of vice-principals behind whom to hide, and there is some accountability for what happens in class. Very few charter, private, or parochial schools ever become the behemoths that public schools are, and few of the parents and students who choose them would want them to.

I agree that students with special challenges should have commensurately larger vouchers they can take with them to whatever school their parents judge to be the best for them. It's hard to imagine that alternative schools would do worse for those with IEPs than most public schools do.

Re: North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

#288

Post by wpietri »

icelancer wrote: post #276
wpietri wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're going to have to point out the contract with my signature on it where I agreed to that. My attorney is gonna hear about it...

It's not a legal requirement. It's a moral requirement. It's your country, your state, your city. It's your government. You are legally allowed to shirk some of your duties, although not all of them, but that doesn't make you less of a shirker..

Parenting is similar: there are a lot of ways to be a shitty parent that don't rise to the legal level of neglect.

Re: North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

#289

Post by wpietri »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #269
wpietri wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Yep. Not convinced that they are really tracking what I'd like them to track.

Re: North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

#290

Post by wpietri »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #281
wpietri wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 pro…

I'll make one final attempt to bring this discussion to specifics. Here is a test from CA: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/sr/documents/cstrtqmath7.pdf Can you be specific about what "test prep" means and how it differs from "education"? Again, many larger companies (e.g., Google, Goldman, MS, DE Shaw) do attempt to standardize their hiring procedures and evaluation methods. But I suppose they are all "insane", right?

Are you seriously saying that any of those outfits uses a fill-in-the-bubble standardized test to make decisions about hiring, firing, and promotion for their software developers?

If not, I don't see what your point is.

I also don't believe you really don't understand where education and test prep diverge. I think that's a rhetorical technique.

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