dagblog - Comments for "Teaching by the Numbers"

Doctor, My wife just switched

Peter Schwartz — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 03:06:36 +0000

Doctor,

My wife just switched careers to become a teacher, so I've gotten to see the public system from a different perspective than I had before. We're in VA, a "right to work" state. Here are a few observations:

• The people who have the biggest impact on the quality of education and the whole school experience are the administrators. And yet, in the national "debate," such as it is, the quality of administrators almost never comes up.

In my very limited experience, administrators frequently haven't done any teaching in a long time and/or were bad teachers when they did teach. I've heard that in some cases, bad teachers are "promoted" to administrator instead of being let go.

My wife has had HORRENDOUS experiences with administrators who, almost to a person, have a dramatically negative impact on the learning environment.

• Much is made of teacher evaluations as a way of weeding out the bad and promoting the good. The underlying assumption is that this sort of weeding out goes on in other "industries" and professions--but teachers are shielded from it. But is this really the case? Are bad doctors, lawyers, machinists, salespeople, etc., culled by "the market," or do we have plenty of bad doctors without their bringing down the general state of doctor-dom the way bad, but protected teachers are said to bring down the general state of education in this country?

• Put another way, why isn't there a general call to improve the state of doctoring, lawyering through improved evaluations? Or is the assumption that these other professions are in good shape while education is uniquely in bad shape?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/0

Peter Schwartz — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 22:26:31 +0000

In reply to Teaching by the Numbers

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/opinion/sunday/confessions-of-a-bad-teacher.html?pagewanted=2&hp

In Florida, they have a new

Rootman — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 22:24:56 +0000

In reply to Teaching by the Numbers

In Florida, they have a new program to dissuade sixth-graders from developing an interest in ultimately pursuing a college liberal arts education.

http://capitolcomments.blogs.theledger.com/10109/bill-promoting-tech-degrees-over-the-liberal-arts-advances/

In my school, we had

Verified Atheist — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 00:23:23 +0000

In reply to A few thoughts and questions

In my school, we had administrative review, where by "administrative", I mean a combination of the assistant principal in charge of education and the head of the department in which a teacher taught. All teachers were reviewed at least 3 times a year, by one or the other of the people I mentioned, and everyone knew ahead of time the list of criteria by which we were being judged. You were required to pass 3 reviews (out of 5, if necessary) and if you didn't, you were on notice. After 3 years of being on notice, you stopped receiving raises. Personally, I would've favored getting rid of teachers at that point, if not sooner, but as you say, teacher unions seem to fight that.

That said, although this system worked fine at my school (as far as I knew), there are schools where the powers-that-be are part of the problem.

One point is that there's not a one-size-fits-all solution. Another is that the method being used here is a one-size-fits-none. I.e., I wouldn't expect it to be valid in any school system.

(For what it's worth, I passed everyone of my reviews for the two years I taught in the public school system. However, I was talked to by the assistant principal in charge of education for being too harsh with my students. I was lucky enough—unlike most new teachers—to get several advanced classes of physics students and was told that, "these are A and B students and they should be making As and Bs." I responded that, "yes, they should, and they can if they want to." Most of them were making As and Bs, and I had a couple who later thanked me for giving them the tools to thrive at Georgia Tech.)

In no order: 2) Every harmful

Doctor Cleveland — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 00:12:00 +0000

In reply to A few thoughts and questions

In no order:

2) Every harmful pseudo-science makes the "better than nothing/better than what you're doing" argument. And it's always wrong.

Astrology isn't perfect, but it's better than not knowing anything about the future. Subjecting job applicants to handwriting analysis isn't perfect, but it's better than not knowing anything about their psychology. Bleeding a patient doesn't always work, but it's better than not doing anything and hoping they get better on their own. Every one of those claims is wrong.

When you don't know something, it is always better to accept your lack of knowledge rather than to embrace some pseudo-knowledge that helps you conceal your ignorance from yourself. Pseudo-knowledge makes you more confident in your ignorance and misunderstanding and thus makes your actions more damaging.

In any case, you have no way of knowing whether the new numbers are more or less imperfect than the existing way, because you can't even assess the assessments.

1) By this logic, obviously, releasing such badly flawed data causes foreseeable harm without any certainty of doing good. If we have astrological and phrenological charts on the teachers, should we release those to the parents and taxpayers, so they can make up their own minds? No. And your emphasis on the parents and taxpayers as "bosses" makes it clear that you think that the parents and teachers should use this goobledygook "data" to demand high-stakes personnel actions. That's an excellent reason not to give them bad data, frankly.

3) I can't help noticing that your first impulse is that the "underperforming" teachers need to be punished more. The idea of helping struggling teachers get better at teaching is not on the table. And that makes "reform" counterproductive. People won't become better teachers because they're afraid of punishment. Most underperforming teachers would prefer to be better teachers, but don't know how. And since many "reformers" and their sympathizers, such as yourself, have no idea how to make teaching better, you simply look for people to scapegoat as bad teachers. That isn't helping anybody.

A few thoughts and questions

Anonymous — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 22:10:42 +0000

In reply to Well somebody got the joke.

A few thoughts and questions raised by the original post:

1) If you have the data, should you withhold it from parents who use the schools and may want to make their own choices? From taxpapers who are paying the teachers and are, essentially, their bosses one step removed?

2) A few reformers pose the bigger question another way. Though value-added and test scores are imperfect ways of judging a teacher, is it more, or less, imperfect than the existing way? There is significant error already in a system that treats every teacher as equally effective and compensates them equally, other than automatically giving raises simply because they stuck it out another year, whether they tried to get better over that year or not. I'm not sure yet which way is more imperfect, but the difference in error between the two approaches may be the key, not whether either way has problems.

3) Though you are right in noting that raises for high-performing teachers are small, that may because unions won't agree to take from the bottom to give to the top. The discussion is always about raises for the top, which means greater costs, which means higher taxes. If you suggest going to a dollar-neutral system in which the same money is distributed differently, unions balk. They just want more money, which is just as natural as taxpayers wanting to pay less. You can take Republican cost-cutting and union money-grabbing accusations out of the picture by just shifting the same dollars. If the goal is to reward good teaching and give less reward to poor teaching, then maybe the distribution pattern should be changed. Yes? No?

Well somebody got the joke.

Richard Day — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 21:19:40 +0000

In reply to I would suggest a three

Well somebody got the joke. hahahahah

And the firemen would get the worst jobs and the police would get the worst jobs!

Sounds like human nature (a phrase I have despised for 5 decades) but there will always be a hazing process.

I don't have any answers. You as a teacher would know that there can never be a three or four or sixteen pronged attack on a system that seems to be failing in 50%? of our school districts.

I recall blogging on this issue several times before.

I recall History 101 and while into the first lecture the prof (Altof) asked for a raise of hands as to how many students had a history teacher who was also a coach.

Almost everyone raised their hands.

The professor continued:

Well let us begin at the beginning. The 1700's involved the 18th century...hahahah

Again...

All the repubs will ever ever ever do is to look at the numbers and see what class will involve the most money.

Good point.

And i would like to add at this point that those who dedicated years in service to being teachers should be admired and bonused and congratulated for their service.

And I congratulate you!

I would suggest a three

Verified Atheist — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 20:40:30 +0000

In reply to Excellent indeed! These are

I would suggest a three pronged test for teachers (punny huh?)
Use the test scores.

Use peer review--how do other teachers perceive you?

Use parent review--are the parents happy about the progress of their children?

Use administrative review.

Ironic on a piece titled "Teaching by the Numbers".

In all seriousness, while this is a step up from the current system, it still suffers from the popularity contest feature that Doc Cleveland refers to. It's possibly the best we can do, and arguably even better than nothing (unlike the current system), but it definitely should never be expected to be completely accurate.

One thing I noted during my time teaching in public schools is that new teachers tend to get the worst classes. These students also tend to have the worst test scores, and although a good teacher might make them better than they would otherwise be, comparing two teachers based on how well they teach two different classes is not going to give you an accurate comparative measure.

Excellent indeed! These are

Richard Day — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 19:21:45 +0000

In reply to Teaching by the Numbers

Excellent indeed!

These are tough issues.

What we are supposed to be doing is measuring the future abilities of the children and there lies chaos.

In white suburbia five decades ago (and some more) we took tests.

We took state wide tests, we took pretend state wide tests in preparation for state wide tests, we took our MMPI's (do you look in the toilet every time you do your business or just some of the time?), we took weekly tests and monthly tests and quarterly tests, we took open book tests and closed book tests we took multiple choice tests and true false tests and essay tests....

After awhile, us white test taking suburbanites got pretty good at taking tests!

And since, in my humble opinion, we had just about the best ed possible as far as middle class education, I am kind of on the side of testing. I mean you spend six hours a day constantly be lectured to and reading many pages of material the teacher has to figure out if the teaching method is working.

What we are dealing with is chaos actually. Sometimes I feel that all I ever learned with 20 years of schooling was how to take tests.

I would suggest a three pronged test for teachers (punny huh?)

Use the test scores.

Use peer review--how do other teachers perceive you?

Use parent review--are the parents happy about the progress of their children?

Use administrative review.

We are stuck with analysts who offer bumper sticker phrases that amount to dog whistles to certain 'control' groups.

The real message is that teachers receive too goddamn much money for only 9 months work!

Well; do we pay our teachers 7 bucks an hour and hope for the best?

The problem is that we have 6.2 million teachers so the repubs use an on line calculator and figure out that a billion more dollars could be going into their pockets!

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_teachers_are_in_the_United_States

I had to laugh when I first saw how much money Santorum was making whilst he home schooled his kids.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/02/rick-santorum-home-schooling-ed...

Same result for Bachmann and many others of course.

Did you notice lately that the repubs in states like Wisconsin and Ohio and Indiana and Maine went after the high volume governmental employees like teachers and firefighters and police?

Hey, you want an extra billion bucks to give away to corporations so that they will hire folks at 8 bucks an hour? Just f*&k the teachers and the firefighters and...

All I know is that if you went to school in white suburbia in the 50's & 60's you were much better at taking tests than if you were schooled in Watts.

the end

Except I am sorry to take your time by going on a nonsensical rant. ha

What can I say? It is what I do!

Excellent piece all around. I

Verified Atheist — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 20:43:33 +0000

In reply to Teaching by the Numbers

Excellent piece all around. I think we'll be able to get a good measure of teacher performance when we make teaching reproducible. All we need to do that is to create an AI capable of teaching Early 20th Century British Literature, General Relativity, and all of the other courses being taught in colleges today. (That might sound daunting, and it is, but if you can cover those two, you're probably already a good ways towards covering the rest.)