North Carolina teacher's resignation letter • Hacker News Board

Re: North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

#121

Post by betterunix » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 8:33 PM UTC

NoPiece wrote: post #38

debacle wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While math benefits from standardized tests, what is being tested is not math. It's memorization. It's recital. If I want to hire someone that's good at reciting memorized fact to me, I'll hire a postgres instance.

Take a look at the recently released questions from the 2012 california math standardized tests. Looks like math, not memorization to me. Here is grade 7: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/sr/documents/cstrtqmath7.pdf Here is algebra: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/sr/documents/cstrtqalgebra.pdf

Looks like memorization to me. Looks like the questions are formulaic, and that students are expected to memorize both the formulas needed to answer the questions and the formula that the question itself follows. Sure, a student who actually understands the material will pass the test; but a student who does not actually understand the material can pass too, and will have an easier time doing so.

If you accept the notion that computer programming is math, then these tests are about math: you could write a computer program that uses some basic pattern matching and symbolic manipulation to pass those tests.

Re: North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

#122

Post by wpietri » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 8:35 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #59

kstenerud wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Just not having any metric at all is far worse than the imperfect tests we have." Are you sure about that? How do you know that a bad metric is better than no metric? It sounds a lot more like "We should be doing something. This is something. Therefore we should do it."

This is a question about the philosophy of science. How do you know clinical trials are better than observational methods? How do you know controlled experiments are better than post-hoc reasoning and logical deduction? Standardized testing is just the application of the scientific method to education. If you don't believe in the scientific method then you shouldn't apply it here. But if you are asking for an empiric…

Standardized testing is just the application of the scientific method to education.

That's not true in any way.

The purpose of the education system is to create a well-informed citizenry prepared for a productive life and for the duty of running a country.

The goal of standardized testing is to get some very rough metrics about superficial, easy-to-observe aspects of some basic parts of the apparatus.

The two are very tenuously related.

If we were applying the scientific method, we wouldn't be doing things like national, uncontrolled experiments that assume that basing major decisions on those rough metrics will result in improvements along the axes we actually care about. And then acting as if those metrics tell us everything about one aspect of the system, teachers, because that's where the political focus is.

Applying the scientific method would involve formulating hypotheses and then testing them through lab work and field trials. That's what we do with medicine, at least some of the time.

Heck, we could start by testing the hypothesis that getting everybody to focus lots of classroom time on standardized tests improves actual education.

Re: North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

#123

Post by waterlesscloud » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 8:36 PM UTC

halffullheart wrote: post #116

justin_vanw wrote: post #25

It's fine to grumble about testing, but the debate is not about the tests. Teachers performance in the US has been terrible for many years. Partly this is because of bad management, partly because of low pay, and partly because of teacher unions preventing any action against the worst teachers and insistance on tenure tracks. The reason testing is good isn't because it is somehow super accurate. It is good because it…

Obviously this is a complex issue, and I don't mean to single you out here, but I'm surprised how often I hear the argument that teachers aren't good enough from people who are concerned about the quality of education in the US. It seems to me that in most other industries, the workers in the field are given the benefit of the doubt. In other words, do people really believe that Americans are great at being programme…

Most of us have been to public schools. We have direct, first-hand observations about the quality of teachers.

I had a few stars, most were just getting by, some actively sucked. From everything I've ever heard, most people had the same experience.

It's not like we're talking about something none of us know anything about. We've been there, seen it.

Re: North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

#124

Post by intended » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 8:37 PM UTC

wisty wrote: post #107

danielweber wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot manage professionals by a set of numbers. (Sales might be the single exception.) Dilbert is full of tales of developers being graded on lines of code or number of bugs. You need to have human judgment involved. The problem is that the teachers' union does not trust the administrators (probably with good historical reason, but that's neither here nor there) to make those decisions using human judgment. They…

That's why I think it might work for finding the bottom 10%. Those are the ones you want to fire. If a teacher is in the bottom 30% (and in danger of getting in to the bottom 10%), you probably want them behaving like robots (teaching the test, following set procedures). If they are competent (most teachers are) you want them to manage themselves, as heavy incentives will just screw up their behavior.

Your search for the bottom ten percent will put in place mechanisms that will affect the behavior of the remaining 90.

You underestimate the ability of people to use such systems to end up enforcing a stifling uniform and grey mediocrity.

Turn it on its head - if you switched the voting on HN to find the worst commentors, instead of bringing the best up top - what would happen.

Re: North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

#125

Post by curt » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 8:37 PM UTC

sirmarksalot wrote: post #87

curt wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"partly because of low pay" Teachers are actually some of the highest paid people in society. When you don't include benefits teachers make about $40/hr while engineers make $42/hr. If you do include benefits, a teachers compensation far exceeds that of an engineer due to their pensions. Source, BLS via Forbes.

I looked that up on the BLS website, and while you're not using the same units as them, your numbers don't seem to match up. According to BLS, the median pay is $53,230 per year, which would be closer to $26.50 an hour, assuming a 40-hour work week. http://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/high-s... Maybe the Forbes article you're referring to about is only counting classroom hours, which is a pretty abs…

Teachers work 9-months out of the year. Here's the site: http://www.forbes.com/sites/warrenmeyer/2011/12/22/the-teach...

Re: North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

#126

Post by greedo » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 8:39 PM UTC

debacle wrote: post #44

NoPiece wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a look at the recently released questions from the 2012 california math standardized tests. Looks like math, not memorization to me. Here is grade 7: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/sr/documents/cstrtqmath7.pdf Here is algebra: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/sr/documents/cstrtqalgebra.pdf

Now show me the same test from Alabama, or North Carolina. Chances are it's not of the same quality. California actually has a relatively good educational system, compared to the rest of the country.

The "relatively" qualifier leaves a lot of wiggle room, but how are you comparing the educational system?

Re: North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

#127

Post by pstuart » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 8:41 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #86

tokenadult wrote: post #31

"I lost my job only due to my lack of seniority. I was devastated." He ("he" is correct; I was confused by the given name at first until looking the person up with a Google search) should blame the typical master contract with the teachers in the school district for that. That is a standard contract provision recommended by schoolteacher unions whether a state has a "union shop" or "right-to-work" rules. Usually, sch…

Reading this comment from this teacher's blog article "And if the choices have run out for my toddler when he’s ready for school, I will do it myself. Maybe I’ll do it for others, as well. Who knows." questions about a potential education system hack popped into my head. Maybe many others have already had this idea... What about uniting the home-schooling and frustrated-teachers movements? I'm sure there are onerous…

We do a hybrid model where we augment the public fare with a parent organized "auxiliary academic association" (once a week classes).

Also, any parent that wants to be involved with their kids education should check out Odyssey of the Mind (getting kids on teams to do creative problem solving. Fun!) -- http://www.odysseyofthemind.com/

Re: North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

#128

Post by wpietri » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 8:42 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #53

jbooth wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software developer performance in the US has been terrible for many years as well. Maybe we should institute some standardized tests? And if you're gonna complain about how measuring KLOC doesn't make any sense, well, it's not enough to just point out problems. You've gotta point out solutions. Be a team player.

Software developer performance in the US has been terrible for many years as well. The cost of software has been going up while the output has not been improving? Um, what? Maybe we should institute some standardized tests? Big companies already do this. They typically have very rigid processes for evaluating consultants/outsourcers and pretty much just follow the numbers. For higher end work it's trickier, but for s…

That's far from the only real difficulty in measuring developer output.

Large companies generally have very low standards for software quality and employee productivity, so they are hardly proof that the problem is easy.

Some obvious factors that make it hard to evaluate both developers and teachers:

- An important part of the output is in effects on the team - The true test of the output often comes years down the line - The work is done out of sight of the evaluators - There are many confounding historical factors - The profession is subtle and hard for outsiders to evaluate - Poor management often limits worker effectiveness

And in many ways, teachers have it worse. Teaching is much less like writing software than it is like management.

Re: North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

#129

Post by acdha » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 8:46 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #93

sirmarksalot wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked that up on the BLS website, and while you're not using the same units as them, your numbers don't seem to match up. According to BLS, the median pay is $53,230 per year, which would be closer to $26.50 an hour, assuming a 40-hour work week. http://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/high-s... Maybe the Forbes article you're referring to about is only counting classroom hours, which is a pretty abs…

The correct figure is 38.5 hours/week for 9 months/year. http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf That's about $33.5/hour for wages alone. It also ignores the value of gold plated health care + pensions, etc.

38.5 hours is … unrealistic. It also ignores the fact that health care and benefits have been slashed heavily in recent decades so while there may be some older teachers enjoying the fruits of stronger unions, a prospective new teacher is looking at something roughly equivalent to what any software engineer would receive as far as benefits go. Salary is probably lower unless you're comparing a teacher in a very rich / urban area with a software engineer well outside of SF/NY/LA/etc.

Re: North Carolina teacher's resignation letter

#130

Post by intended » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 8:48 PM UTC

jeremymcanally wrote: post #119

guelo wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article wasn't about him getting fired in Oregon, it was a lengthy rant about him quitting in North Carolina. The reason you chose instead to focus your lengthy comment on that one throwaway line is because it reinforces your preexisting view that unions are the main problem with education, even though this article is mainly about some of the other problems.

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 system of children.

From experience - this is generally a BAD IDEA, but its one whose pernicious subtle problems show up after years and possibly generations of being married to it.At which time it becomes too hard to get rid of it.

Firstly - everyone will stop teaching, and focus on acing the tests. Learning is irrelevant, and students know it. This will bring in rote learning, and soon - tuition classes. I don't know what you guys will call it but expect kids to start studying year round.

Then comes the self fulfilling prophecy - you did well in your tests, so you must be good. You must do well in your tests if you are to be good.

And at this point you aren't even creating or nurturing students, but manufacturing mental athletes with specialization in testing well.

IF you throw in STEM fixation - (Well he should have known better to take a degree in humanities) and you damn students with no interest in science or commerce to do exactly that.