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How to Overhaul US education system

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Re: How to Overhaul US education system

#11

Post by bryanwb »

tl;dr

American education system won't improve until American kids get off their asses and study hard.

All these movies and articles about fighting w/ teachers unions aren't the real issue. Many of those "bad" teachers would be more motivated if they didn't have to babysit lazy brats all day and if they earned a decent wage.

Charter schools mostly work because they siphon off the most motivated kids and teachers. I am skeptical that they help the system as a whole. Maybe they raise test scores but mostly by helping the most enthusiastic kids get higher scores, not helping the average non-charter kid get higher scores.

btw, i am an american who has spent 6 years living in both(South Asia and East Asia), where kids do get off their asses and they don't have complex charter/teacher motivation/reorganization schemes. Why do kids study so hard there? Because there parents beat it into their skulls that they will be dirt-poor farmers unless they get an education.

Re: How to Overhaul US education system

#12

Post by tome »

gruseom wrote: post #7

This isn't just another education policy article. This is a manifesto by Rhee and Fenty, the (only?) people who managed to do something about this disease. Here's something I didn't know. If you've seen Waiting for Superman you'll recall that when Rhee proposed contract changes to pay teachers more as long as they would allow bad teachers to be fired, the teachers' union blocked the proposal from even coming to a vot…

So if the union members wanted it passed, how come the union members stalled it in coming to a vote?

Re: How to Overhaul US education system

#13

Post by bwh2 »

tome wrote: post #12
gruseom wrote: post #7

This isn't just another education policy article. This is a manifesto by Rhee and Fenty, the (only?) people who managed to do something about this disease. Here's something I didn't know. If you've seen Waiting for Superman you'll recall that when Rhee proposed contract changes to pay teachers more as long as they would allow bad teachers to be fired, the teachers' union blocked the proposal from even coming to a vot…

So if the union members wanted it passed, how come the union members stalled it in coming to a vote?

Union members didn't stall it, their officials did.

Re: How to Overhaul US education system

#14

Post by starkness »

gruseom wrote: post #8
andrewce wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to fire "ineffective" teachers (quotations used to show the mutability and variability of the term, rather than sarcasm). Even with the supposed difficulties presented by tenure, so many school districts are struggling for money that it's a simple matter of invoking the RIF-hammer. It's harder to identify what makes an teacher ineffective, and harder still to identify what makes an effective teacher. Even h…

I agree that standardized tests suck. I distinctly remember how much they suck. A system based on standardized tests is going to suck. But you know what sucks worse? Utterly incompetent teachers. If we can't even identify and get rid of the most egregious offenders - the kind who tell children "I get paid whether you learn or not" and then proceed to read the newspaper in front of the class -- what hope do we have? E…

A good example of perfect being the enemy of the good (or at least less bad).

Re: How to Overhaul US education system

#15

Post by MichaelSalib »

bryanwb wrote: post #11

tl;dr American education system won't improve until American kids get off their asses and study hard. All these movies and articles about fighting w/ teachers unions aren't the real issue. Many of those "bad" teachers would be more motivated if they didn't have to babysit lazy brats all day and if they earned a decent wage. Charter schools mostly work because they siphon off the most motivated kids and teachers. I am…

Wait, that last sentence also applies to a lot of universities.

Not really. At least in the university programs I know about, the biggest problem is that teaching sucks because the administration doesn't care about instructional quality at all. That's why you end up with professors who literally can't teach: their value to the organization comes from the grant money they pull in, not their ability or interest in teaching.

Given how wrong you are about the problems of university level instruction, I'm not sure whether to trust your claims about primary and secondary education.

Re: How to Overhaul US education system

#16

Post by MichaelSalib »

niels_olson wrote: post #4
BCM43 wrote: post #2

The thing that bugs me about articles arguing for performance based pay is that it fails to address two critical points. The first is why the teachers that are bad are actually bad. I would be interested in what would happen if the lowest paying teachers were forced to addend additional training. Perhaps all they need is a refresher. It is also possible that they have become disillusioned with what they once thought…

Your physician was identified for medical school, residency, and fellowship based in large part on standardized test scores. And the schools and residency programs are tyrannized by their students and residents scores. I gotta say, it doesn't take long to identify the docs who did well on those tests: they're generally the best docs. They're the most articulate, ask the most insightful questions during their patient…

I gotta say, it doesn't take long to identify the docs who did well on those tests: they're generally the best docs.

Do you have any evidence to support this notion at all? Or is thus just some religious notion that we're supposed to take on faith?

Re: How to Overhaul US education system

#17

Post by bryanwb »

MichaelSalib wrote: post #15
bryanwb wrote: post #11

tl;dr American education system won't improve until American kids get off their asses and study hard. All these movies and articles about fighting w/ teachers unions aren't the real issue. Many of those "bad" teachers would be more motivated if they didn't have to babysit lazy brats all day and if they earned a decent wage. Charter schools mostly work because they siphon off the most motivated kids and teachers. I am…

Wait, that last sentence also applies to a lot of universities. Not really. At least in the university programs I know about, the biggest problem is that teaching sucks because the administration doesn't care about instructional quality at all. That's why you end up with professors who literally can't teach: their value to the organization comes from the grant money they pull in, not their ability or interest in teac…

my comment only applies to universities, esp. those that function more like country clubs, and doesn't really apply to big reseach-centric schools like Berkeley or UCLA. You are correct that teaching quality there is a reflection of university administration priorities

Re: How to Overhaul US education system

#18

Post by nestlequ1k »

tome wrote: post #12
gruseom wrote: post #7

This isn't just another education policy article. This is a manifesto by Rhee and Fenty, the (only?) people who managed to do something about this disease. Here's something I didn't know. If you've seen Waiting for Superman you'll recall that when Rhee proposed contract changes to pay teachers more as long as they would allow bad teachers to be fired, the teachers' union blocked the proposal from even coming to a vot…

So if the union members wanted it passed, how come the union members stalled it in coming to a vote?

There's often differences between benefits for individuals vs benefits for the organization as a whole. If more people got fired so the remaining teachers could get paid more, the organization would be weaker while many of the individuals would benefit. Teachers (like everyone) tend to think of themselves as "above average" so no one thinks they'll be the one to be getting fired.

Union officials place priority on the organization, and not the individual.

Re: How to Overhaul US education system

#19

Post by djacobs »

andrewce wrote: post #6
niels_olson wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your physician was identified for medical school, residency, and fellowship based in large part on standardized test scores. And the schools and residency programs are tyrannized by their students and residents scores. I gotta say, it doesn't take long to identify the docs who did well on those tests: they're generally the best docs. They're the most articulate, ask the most insightful questions during their patient…

Except that the MCAT measures at least some of the core competencies necessary for being a doctor, and includes a lot of vital information which, if you don't have, make it pretty tough to be a physician. Even then, there are plenty of people whose MCAT scores were high enough to get them into medical school who ended up being terrible doctors, just as there are plenty of people who barely got into med school who end…

The MCAT actually doesn't measure much in the way of knowledge, just of speed. The actual questions are easy, and your score (after a certain knowledge/intelligence threshold) is solely determined by how many practice questions you've waded through.

Re: How to Overhaul US education system

#20

Post by anamax »

BCM43 wrote: post #2

The thing that bugs me about articles arguing for performance based pay is that it fails to address two critical points. The first is why the teachers that are bad are actually bad. I would be interested in what would happen if the lowest paying teachers were forced to addend additional training. Perhaps all they need is a refresher. It is also possible that they have become disillusioned with what they once thought…

> The first is why the teachers that are bad are actually bad.

Under what circumstance are you willing to buy a poorly made car? After all, maybe the workers could become better given additional retraining, etc.

> The other is how they are measuring teacher performance.

Feel free to provide a better measurement scheme. Until then, why should we prefer nothing?

In practice, we find that the "need better measurement" folk are actually unwilling to accept any measurement scheme. Yes, even one of their own devising.

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