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Are you going to analyze teachers performance based on their students results? If so you will be penalizing those in worse areas. And you will make teachers te

Are you going to analyze teachers performance based on their students results? If so you will be penalizing those in worse areas. And you will make teachers teach to your performance criteria. Besides how many programmers would like their value to be assessed by a piece of software?

derefr 16y ago
> Are you going to analyze teachers performance based on their students results? If so you will be penalizing those in worse areas. I would assume you'd analyze based on the first and second derivatives of the students' results—good teachers leave kids better off than when they started, and great teachers teach kids how to learn faster and better. The important prerequisite to this, though, would be to test kids both before and after each lesson, with tests of equivalent questions and equal difficulty—otherwise, you have no idea how much of their learning was because of the class, and how much they already knew.
- ryanhuff 16y ago
  In practice, year to year, the ability of kids varies. While you might have a strong group one year, the next year things can be much different. Imagine the jockeying by teachers to get the best students if it meant their job or a raise. Do the less able kids get kicked the the curb because teachers are worried about getting fired?
  - derefr 16y ago
    Define "the best students." With my assumption of measurement by derivatives above, those would be the students whose knowledge changed the most during the lesson—those who knew the least before and the most after. Thus, teachers would be jockeying for the students most in need of education, not the students who already know the most (because the pretest scores would reveal that the teacher hadn't changed their knowledge very much over the year.) Rather than the current No Child Left Behind policy of regression to the mean, this would assign the most "learning-intensive" teachers to the students most in need of learning, and assign the students who self-study or are otherwise pre-informed to teachers who are more "lenient", likely diving further into interesting sidebars and tangents. Both groups would be better off for it.
    - ryanhuff 16y ago
      "best students" meaning those who are eager to learn and have supportive family situations. Teachers can't do it on their own.
      - yummyfajitas 16y ago
        Students who knew a lot going into 3'rd grade and still knew a lot coming out of 3'rd grade will not have a high derivative. Thus, merit based pay would reward their teacher the same as if students knew very little going into 3'rd grade and knew very little coming out. The only way I can see to game derefr's system is to pack your class with students who used to have bad family situations, but who's family situations have recently improved. I rather doubt there are enough students in that situation to pack many classes.
sgk284 16y ago
The software was actually an early warning system for students (software that detects anomalies in a student's progress). For instance, if a student suddenly started doing bad in three courses it signals different things than if a student starts doing bad in only one course. You could normalize data to get relative values across teachers and classes. The intent was to find individual students or classes that needed more resources or attention. It was never to get people fired, but the unions fear that's how it will be used.
- deadmansshoes 16y ago
  If you start measuring there will be high and low values. As soon as this happens people will look to blame someone. Parents never blame their own "angels" (or themselves), so it will be the teachers who lose out. If parents care about their children's education they can tell if a teacher is useless.
cabalamat 16y ago
> Besides how many programmers would like their value to be assessed by a piece of software? If I knew the criteria, I wouldn't mind, because then I could game the system.
- deadmansshoes 16y ago
  Exactly my point..it's not going to lead to better software though is it? And teachers gaming the system won't lead to better education.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    This is simply false, at least according to one controlled experiment. https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://econ.ucsd.edu/~kamurali/teacher%2520performance%2520pay.pdf&pli=1 https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://econ.ucsd.edu/~kam...
    - deadmansshoes 16y ago
      The same paper (a study on rural schools in India) refers to another study whose interpretation of similar results as "being consistent with teachers expending effort towards short-term increases in test scores but not towards long-term learning."
yummyfajitas 16y ago
I'm a programmer, and just started work at a hedge fund. My value and a big chunk of my pay is assessed by a piece of software (the PnL calculator). It's pretty awesome. Most entrepreneurs are assessed in a similar manner. I think most programmers would be very happy if their performance was assessed by software, e.g. get paid for making unit tests pass. That's the holy grail of consulting: you get a spec, you build it, you get paid, no last minute changes or "this isn't what I meant".

derefr 16y ago

> Are you going to analyze teachers performance based on their students results? If so you will be penalizing those in worse areas. I would assume you'd analyze based on the first and second derivatives of the students' results—good teachers leave kids better off than when they started, and great teachers teach kids how to learn faster and better. The important prerequisite to this, though, would be to test kids both before and after each lesson, with tests of equivalent questions and equal difficulty—otherwise, you have no idea how much of their learning was because of the class, and how much they already knew.

ryanhuff 16y ago
In practice, year to year, the ability of kids varies. While you might have a strong group one year, the next year things can be much different. Imagine the jockeying by teachers to get the best students if it meant their job or a raise. Do the less able kids get kicked the the curb because teachers are worried about getting fired?
- derefr 16y ago
  Define "the best students." With my assumption of measurement by derivatives above, those would be the students whose knowledge changed the most during the lesson—those who knew the least before and the most after. Thus, teachers would be jockeying for the students most in need of education, not the students who already know the most (because the pretest scores would reveal that the teacher hadn't changed their knowledge very much over the year.) Rather than the current No Child Left Behind policy of regression to the mean, this would assign the most "learning-intensive" teachers to the students most in need of learning, and assign the students who self-study or are otherwise pre-informed to teachers who are more "lenient", likely diving further into interesting sidebars and tangents. Both groups would be better off for it.
  - ryanhuff 16y ago
    "best students" meaning those who are eager to learn and have supportive family situations. Teachers can't do it on their own.
    - yummyfajitas 16y ago
      Students who knew a lot going into 3'rd grade and still knew a lot coming out of 3'rd grade will not have a high derivative. Thus, merit based pay would reward their teacher the same as if students knew very little going into 3'rd grade and knew very little coming out. The only way I can see to game derefr's system is to pack your class with students who used to have bad family situations, but who's family situations have recently improved. I rather doubt there are enough students in that situation to pack many classes.

sgk284 16y ago

The software was actually an early warning system for students (software that detects anomalies in a student's progress). For instance, if a student suddenly started doing bad in three courses it signals different things than if a student starts doing bad in only one course. You could normalize data to get relative values across teachers and classes. The intent was to find individual students or classes that needed more resources or attention. It was never to get people fired, but the unions fear that's how it will be used.

deadmansshoes 16y ago
If you start measuring there will be high and low values. As soon as this happens people will look to blame someone. Parents never blame their own "angels" (or themselves), so it will be the teachers who lose out. If parents care about their children's education they can tell if a teacher is useless.

cabalamat 16y ago

> Besides how many programmers would like their value to be assessed by a piece of software? If I knew the criteria, I wouldn't mind, because then I could game the system.

deadmansshoes 16y ago
Exactly my point..it's not going to lead to better software though is it? And teachers gaming the system won't lead to better education.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  This is simply false, at least according to one controlled experiment. https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://econ.ucsd.edu/~kamurali/teacher%2520performance%2520pay.pdf&pli=1 https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://econ.ucsd.edu/~kam...
  - deadmansshoes 16y ago
    The same paper (a study on rural schools in India) refers to another study whose interpretation of similar results as "being consistent with teachers expending effort towards short-term increases in test scores but not towards long-term learning."

yummyfajitas 16y ago

I'm a programmer, and just started work at a hedge fund. My value and a big chunk of my pay is assessed by a piece of software (the PnL calculator). It's pretty awesome. Most entrepreneurs are assessed in a similar manner. I think most programmers would be very happy if their performance was assessed by software, e.g. get paid for making unit tests pass. That's the holy grail of consulting: you get a spec, you build it, you get paid, no last minute changes or "this isn't what I meant".