4 ms·

Firing teachers for poor performance: not allowed Firing teachers who offer the most to high potential students: politically correct I grew up in a town rig

by riffer 17y ago

Firing teachers for poor performance: not allowed Firing teachers who offer the most to high potential students: politically correct I grew up in a town right next to Berkeley, and I'm not surprised. Just disappointed.

spamizbad 17y ago
Actually firing the teachers of high-potential students isn't just politically correct, it's economically advisable. NCLB dictates that funding will be awarded based upon standardized testing performance. Because schools are rated not just on the score, but also on their ability to improve (regardless of their position), it's always advantageous for the administration to maximize test scores. In this scenario, you have a small group of top performance students who are going to breeze through the state's dumbed-down tests, regardless of whether or not they participate in more advanced classes. So any money spent developing these students will not net you any additional NCLB score. Whereas spending the money on struggling students provides the real possibility of raising your average score, thus guaranteeing more money- assuming you grow faster than other school's you're competing with. Isn't competition great?
- dasht 17y ago
  Public schools are, by design, redistributive. For that matter, the very bestest of the private schools are, by design (these days) redistributive. So, I don't think you can pin this one on misaligned government incentives to public schools - it's a deeply entrenched cultural value. Personally, I think it's the right thing: rich or poor, the high-achieving students who breeze through are cheap and easy to educate. If the classroom isn't keeping them busy, it tends to be easy to find them extra-curricular opportunity. Meanwhile, many initially struggling students can be turned around and turned into huge cultural assets, education-wise. It's a good investment to try (in smart ways). That said, the tenure system and lack of measurement of teacher performance is a huge problem. That's also true of both public and the best private schools.
  - yardie 17y ago
    "Personally, I think it's the right thing: rich or poor, the high-achieving students who breeze through are cheap and easy to educate. If the classroom isn't keeping them busy, it tends to be easy to find them extra-curricular opportunity. Meanwhile, many initially struggling students can be turned around and turned into huge cultural assets, education-wise. It's a good investment to try (in smart ways)." You can't use cheap and extra-curricular activities together to form any reasonable conclusion. When the budget hammer falls the first thing thrown out are extra-curricular activities and the district will then point out how expensive they are to maintain. You toss out extracurricular like it has no structure or purpose. As if throwing some dice in the room is good enough activity. All of the leaques I participated in were highly structured, well-organized, and well-funded. And the teachers running these things were deeply invested. The most brilliant and the most lacking are the most expensive students a school can have. I know this from a long time because my school was pushing for more gifted students, anyone that had a modicum of a functioning brain was tested. The state and fed kicked in extra money that was then diverted to other purposes: security, struggling students, ESOL. "the tenure system and lack of measurement of teacher performance is a huge problem" Tenure has been around for hundreds of years and no one has been able to explain why it's a bad idea. At the university level it makes sense. You devote yourself to years of work with no immediate payoff and you don't want that ruined by some bean counter. Unpopular ideas have to be protected the same as popular ones. Tenure in highschool doesn't exist unless you can point to one that explicitly has it. This is not to confuse it with unions. There has been quantitative data of teacher performance available for years. The teacher knows it, the school knows it, hell the principal and vps also have access to it. The problem is these teachers have to be replaced. It's much cheaper to put pressure on a problematic teacher who knows the game after 10 years then train a fresh college grad who might stick it out for 1 year. I've had 5 friends go into teaching after college. Only 1 is still doing it and she's only recently hit her stride (classroom control, curriculum, certification) after 4 years.
- yardie 17y ago
  I compare this to when I was a student. Because it was hard to go from top 10% to top 1% I didn't get any special award. But some students got awards for 'improvement'. A lot of my colleagues thought the same thing. "WTF, this dumbass goes from failure to average and gets a plaque, while I've been busting my ass all year for an attaboy?" I'm sure it seems stupid, but when you've been groomed for 12 years to attain achievements any achievement is seen as a positive. It's probably not correct, but it's how I see NCLB. Being rewarded for being a failure 9/10 of the time.

by riffer 17y ago

spamizbad 17y ago

Actually firing the teachers of high-potential students isn't just politically correct, it's economically advisable. NCLB dictates that funding will be awarded based upon standardized testing performance. Because schools are rated not just on the score, but also on their ability to improve (regardless of their position), it's always advantageous for the administration to maximize test scores. In this scenario, you have a small group of top performance students who are going to breeze through the state's dumbed-down tests, regardless of whether or not they participate in more advanced classes. So any money spent developing these students will not net you any additional NCLB score. Whereas spending the money on struggling students provides the real possibility of raising your average score, thus guaranteeing more money- assuming you grow faster than other school's you're competing with. Isn't competition great?

dasht 17y ago
Public schools are, by design, redistributive. For that matter, the very bestest of the private schools are, by design (these days) redistributive. So, I don't think you can pin this one on misaligned government incentives to public schools - it's a deeply entrenched cultural value. Personally, I think it's the right thing: rich or poor, the high-achieving students who breeze through are cheap and easy to educate. If the classroom isn't keeping them busy, it tends to be easy to find them extra-curricular opportunity. Meanwhile, many initially struggling students can be turned around and turned into huge cultural assets, education-wise. It's a good investment to try (in smart ways). That said, the tenure system and lack of measurement of teacher performance is a huge problem. That's also true of both public and the best private schools.
- yardie 17y ago
  "Personally, I think it's the right thing: rich or poor, the high-achieving students who breeze through are cheap and easy to educate. If the classroom isn't keeping them busy, it tends to be easy to find them extra-curricular opportunity. Meanwhile, many initially struggling students can be turned around and turned into huge cultural assets, education-wise. It's a good investment to try (in smart ways)." You can't use cheap and extra-curricular activities together to form any reasonable conclusion. When the budget hammer falls the first thing thrown out are extra-curricular activities and the district will then point out how expensive they are to maintain. You toss out extracurricular like it has no structure or purpose. As if throwing some dice in the room is good enough activity. All of the leaques I participated in were highly structured, well-organized, and well-funded. And the teachers running these things were deeply invested. The most brilliant and the most lacking are the most expensive students a school can have. I know this from a long time because my school was pushing for more gifted students, anyone that had a modicum of a functioning brain was tested. The state and fed kicked in extra money that was then diverted to other purposes: security, struggling students, ESOL. "the tenure system and lack of measurement of teacher performance is a huge problem" Tenure has been around for hundreds of years and no one has been able to explain why it's a bad idea. At the university level it makes sense. You devote yourself to years of work with no immediate payoff and you don't want that ruined by some bean counter. Unpopular ideas have to be protected the same as popular ones. Tenure in highschool doesn't exist unless you can point to one that explicitly has it. This is not to confuse it with unions. There has been quantitative data of teacher performance available for years. The teacher knows it, the school knows it, hell the principal and vps also have access to it. The problem is these teachers have to be replaced. It's much cheaper to put pressure on a problematic teacher who knows the game after 10 years then train a fresh college grad who might stick it out for 1 year. I've had 5 friends go into teaching after college. Only 1 is still doing it and she's only recently hit her stride (classroom control, curriculum, certification) after 4 years.
yardie 17y ago
I compare this to when I was a student. Because it was hard to go from top 10% to top 1% I didn't get any special award. But some students got awards for 'improvement'. A lot of my colleagues thought the same thing. "WTF, this dumbass goes from failure to average and gets a plaque, while I've been busting my ass all year for an attaboy?" I'm sure it seems stupid, but when you've been groomed for 12 years to attain achievements any achievement is seen as a positive. It's probably not correct, but it's how I see NCLB. Being rewarded for being a failure 9/10 of the time.