School Choice

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Originally Posted by Loki

A) Judging results instead of methods is itself objective.
B) Choosing the results to focus on is subjective.
C) Any method used to obtain the results is subjective.
D) Deciding which factors to control for when looking at results (i.e. not every teacher gets "the same" class) is subjective.

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You're forgetting one important aspect: Results and the rules by which results are gained are universal, i.e. fair, all have to achieve the same results within a defined error margin.

That does not go for judging methods of teaching - since the methods vary wildly, there'll be no universal standard and it will be highly subjective.

I'm all for supervision, training and feedback to teachers in regards to their way of teaching. Making their pay dependant on the way they teach - not so much.

If he gets good results and the pupils are content, why exactly should a teacher be paid less just because he doesn't use an "approved" way of teaching?

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

I think the problem of sclerotic teacher unions is intertwined with the problem of sclerotic bureaucracies. Like any large corporation, massive urban school systems become bloated, crusty and slow. They institutionalize their existence more than their actual job.

Education needs flexibility, new ideas and constant experimentation. These attributes need to be part of the workforce of teachers, as well as the actual practice of teaching.

There's nothing more detrimental to kids than educating them in a massive corporatist network with an entrenched bureaucracy.

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Then attack this bureaucracy instead of choosing an ineffective proxy. As I said: You're trying to bleed out this bureaucracy in the hopes it will go away eventually. That's like going into another room, closing the door and hoping that the big bad wolf will have starved by next week.
Not a good idea.

And experimentation? Good idea, that. Won't work with Loki's idea of making a teacher's pay dependant on the way of teaching, though :)

The teacher labor unions created the bureaucracy and survive on it, I think they are one and the same. But if I were to accept your analogy, candidly I have no problem letting the wolf bleed. That way I can actually get some reading and math done while it's bleeding. Instead of getting myself messy from all the stabbing.

Out of curiosity, Germany has one of the most unique educational systems in the West (as far as I've heard). But also one of the most structured. Do you think it needs more flexibility?

Hmmm. In a voucher system, which kids would stay in the bad/mediocre schools? Assuming kids and parents aren't all the same, I mean.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

Hmmm. In a voucher system, which kids would stay in the bad/mediocre schools? Assuming kids and parents aren't all the same, I mean.

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The most disadvantaged.

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Originally Posted by Lewkowski

You are making my point for me. Public schools are free. Therefore it will cost money for the parents to send it to a private school. If public school quality was equal or better then private schools no one would send their kids to the private school. Therefore private schools, by their very existence logically have to have superior quality.

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By this reasoning we can expect everyone to be atheists :downcast: or have windows PCs, or be doctors, or NOT BUY RIDICULOUS FUR COATS AND CHIHUAHUAS :mad:

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Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer

The most disadvantaged.

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How would that affect those bad/mediocre schools and the students who remain?

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

The teacher labor unions created the bureaucracy and survive on it, I think they are one and the same. But if I were to accept your analogy, candidly I have no problem letting the wolf bleed. That way I can actually get some reading and math done while it's bleeding. Instead of getting myself messy from all the stabbing.

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But, y'see, the wolf does not bleed. It may starve. It also may not starve.

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Out of curiosity, Germany has one of the most unique educational systems in the West (as far as I've heard). But also one of the most structured. Do you think it needs more flexibility?

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Definitely needs more flexibility. Then again, steps to increase flexibility are already being taken. For example, schools are now allowed to abandon the 45-minutes lessons. They now have a say as to which teachers they hire. They may specialize in sciences, music, languages, ...

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Originally Posted by Aimless

How would that affect those bad/mediocre schools and the students who remain?

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Its a downward spiral. The smaller the student base, the less funding the school has to move towards problem students. The higher the ratio of students who need more specialized teaching, the less material that is taught.

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Originally Posted by Lewkowski

If the child is going to go to a school it costs money for that school to educate them, right? So if the child doesn't go to that school that is a net benefit for that school district.

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Now that the initial shock of stupidity has passed...

A full voucher system would allow parents that already send their students to private school to now do so on the government's dime. So you can't even hide behind the breaking even argument. You're literally taking money out of the system. Property taxes funding education is about more than just educating your own children, pretty sure Illusions already touched on that. Sure, you're going to cry about it not being fair, but thats the costs the parents carry to not use and support the education system they already pay for.




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Florida already has a voucher system for low income students, and everything I've said about white flight and schools stressing enrollment figures...thats already happening. You don't need a mass exodus of students to make parents uncomfortable, you only need a select group in end up in certain classes or after school activities. Once the schools discover that they can pick between a getting a guaranteed check from the state or fuss with billing individual parents...guess what they focus on?

There is even a push right now coming out of PTA meetings about not allowing voucher students into after school programs that have limited or performance based admissions (ie sports).

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Originally Posted by Khendraja'aro

You're forgetting one important aspect: Results and the rules by which results are gained are universal, i.e. fair, all have to achieve the same results within a defined error margin.

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Universal and objective are two different concepts.

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Originally Posted by Loki

Universal and objective are two different concepts.

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Yes, but both are fair. Your idea is highly subjective and will yield different results for every teacher depending on who is visiting the lessons - that's what you get if there are no standards. Thus your idea is not a good one. Again, you would force teachers to adhere to "tried and true" teaching methods which will stifle those teachers which don't fit into the narrow scheme of said methods. Bad idea, that.

Question: WHY on earth is that so important for you? Ask the pupils whether they are content with the lessons and determine the teacher's success by his half-/end-year results. Done. Don't quite see why you need this bureaucratic nightmare on top of it.

I know what you're aiming at: We have this exact same method for teachers-in-training in Germany. Do you know what happens on a regular basis? The teacher will apologize to his class in advance because his lessons will be "boring" instead of the usual stuff, the class will be attentive (unless they really don't like their teacher) and the teacher will choose teaching methods he knows his examiner wants to see instead of things he himself would choose.

THAT is the reality you want to see. Bad idea, really.

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Originally Posted by Khendraja'aro

Question: WHY on earth is that so important for you? Ask the pupils whether they are content with the lessons and determine the teacher's success by his half-/end-year results. Done. Don't quite see why you need this bureaucratic nightmare on top of it.

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The students make their judgments on many factors, and teaching ability is but one. They also take gender, race, age, amount of homework, and difficulty of exams into account. Are you going to punish a teacher for being a young black woman?

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Originally Posted by Loki

The students make their judgments on many factors, and teaching ability is but one. They also take gender, race, age, amount of homework, and difficulty of exams into account. Are you going to punish a teacher for being a young black woman?

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Wait, each and everyone pupil the teacher has is a racist? In all the eight or more classes? With more than twenty pupils in each class? You're telling me that when 160 pupils consistently grade their teacher badly, it's due to her skin colour?

But, of course, the two or three persons who appear twice or thrice during a semester are surely less racist than the 160+ pupils who had this teacher all semester long. Riiiiight.

Something doesn't quite fit here. On the one hand, you're demanding feedback even though it's subjective, on the other hand, you wave away feedback because it's subjective.

Cognitive dissonance much?

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That is a VERY bad idea. For example, a Physics teacher has spent a lot of energy building up the Physics department, fought for funding for new experiments, knows his way around the storage, has made friends with his fellow teachers, organized extra-curricular activities.

And then you rip him out of there, just for shits and giggles. And now he may begin again to build up the Physics department, may make new friends, has to find his way around storage again.

Change for the sake of change is a moronic idea.

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I understand what your saying and such concerns were not lost me. The problem I have isn't change for the sake of change. I don't want to create a snow ball effect. Where a school does well so the teachers get paid more, that attacts other good teachers and we just complie all the good teachers in one place, and leave other places to have a large grouping of bad teachers. That's what's going to happen.

I want the teacher to be pain on their performance, as to your objection you'd have to stagger the transitioning of teachers so taht you don't lose all your teachers at once. You only lose 1/4 at a given time leaving 3/4 of experienced teachers.. maybe we'll need, out of neccessity, to have teachers who only teach at a school. Those department heads.

I just watn to make sure the students are doing well becuase of the teacher, and that there skills are lifting up other schools and not just one. If they're a teacher that is well organized, inspirational, competent that they're bringing this flair to other schools, and hopefully beneift other teachers as they learn from eachother, learn how to operate in different school environments. It's not change for teh sake of change. I just don't want to create a pooling of talent, and a pooling of suckiness. There are problems as you said with it, perhaps their may be a simpler and better solution to that end. Basically the problem in short is one school will get a ton of funding, which will snowball, and other schools will suck, continue to suck.. and will fall further behind. Maybe here's a solution

You keep your same staff rouhgly, but instead of rotating out teachers, you just shift an entire school to a different school . So one year Parliona highs chool is the bomb, and all the rich families live in that district but next year it'll switch, so all the poor kids now get 4 years of awesome education.

There are many holes, but need something to balance out the education level per district adn to average out schools, not have some schools be really good and other schools suck, and say so what. This is public system all our citizens our valuable, and it will help america to make them all very competent. We need a system that does that.

Also I disagree on pay for the method of teaching it needs to beon teh effectiveness we don't to damper the ingenuity of our mentors and teaching by trying to create a method all must confrom too. Also you need flexibility depending on ur students.

Leba, sorry, but your new idea would be an even bigger nightmare than the system you currently have. That would indeed be a bueraucratic nightmare.

Just think about schools of differing sizes. One has 100 teachers, another has 200, still another one 150, the next one only 75. You can't simply "rotate" such schools.

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Originally Posted by Khendraja'aro

Wait, each and everyone pupil the teacher has is a racist? In all the eight or more classes? With more than twenty pupils in each class? You're telling me that when 160 pupils consistently grade their teacher badly, it's due to her skin colour?

But, of course, the two or three persons who appear twice or thrice during a semester are surely less racist than the 160+ pupils who had this teacher all semester long. Riiiiight.

Something doesn't quite fit here. On the one hand, you're demanding feedback even though it's subjective, on the other hand, you wave away feedback because it's subjective.

Cognitive dissonance much?

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Um, there are studies showing that young women get worse teaching evaluations than other professors, especially if they don't meet the stereotype of being an easy grader. Men are generally expected to be strict, and therefore aren't punished as much for living up to that stereotype.

Khen that is the exact hole i was referring to Khen when i said "there are many holes" the schools with different sizes (obviously neccessary as there are communities with different sizes) and there will also be other difficulties for an entire staff to adjust to a new building, what all needs to be transferred it'd be messy.

My primary goal is a system that encourages excellence within classrooms within overall management and lifts up all schools. It is hurtful to our country and disrepspectful to our tax payers to have horrible schools for their kids better public schools for other people's kids, and inevitably the better schools will be in the nicer areas. The pay needs to follow the teacher around not a location, not the school itself. That will be crucial in achieving this.

There are alot of things that management can do as well and not just good teachers. You can get the principal who gets to know all of his or her teachers/staff. They know how they're working, they actively use pep assemblies as ways to show kids their options in high-school and after, they take a lot of school wide mock tests during their study hall sessions for the school's own information. They can gauge how'd they perform on their states standardized tests. Every kid is taught about GPA how to calculate it themselves, in high school, all the relevant scholarships associated with performing well are showed to them as encouragement to do well. There are just so many elements that can be leveraged to make a school successful. Some are psychological some are structural (how are you teaching the content, what content are you teaching) others are tangible, what kind of classrooms and tools do you have for teaching.

If this was all private sector schools honestly I wouldn't even care how they operate, they can do whatever they want, we may not recognized their diploma if they do whatever they want, but they can teach however they like. but if it's our money for a public service then it has to be done in a way that benefits us best.

There are just a lot of different elements that can make a school much better than others. Some is the teachers, the principal themselves in how they do their own internal incentivizing, how they organize themselves internally, what information, and mentalities they push for is also very instrumental in the success of the institution.

Also as i think about this, I need to look at how prinicipals get hired to that position, I think the best way to do it is that people from one district can become prinicipals of another distant district to discourage, and make it harder for favoritism. In the public circle we are meant to be maximizing the publics dollar, and aquiriing the best bang for the buck. The best person for the position. I don't even know how you get elected to school board, but they have a ridiculous amount of power and it's often populated by what seems to me to be unqualified individuals at least my local schoolboard is :D.

So Khen, I saw a lot of those holes, I wasn't even advocating that to be enacted like that, either of those ideas. I like the idea of the rotation, but I know we can't rotate too many out at once, and that such rotation can put stress on those people's families, people aren't just mobile wherever, they picked a certain school for a reason, and once they're established not neccessarily easy to move.

I don't even like the idea of districts to be honest... hmmmm... dilemmas

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Originally Posted by Loki

Um, there are studies showing that young women get worse teaching evaluations than other professors, especially if they don't meet the stereotype of being an easy grader. Men are generally expected to be strict, and therefore aren't punished as much for living up to that stereotype.

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And you think that these kinds of bias don't exist in teachers evaluating teachers. :up: