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> the sales person knows exactly how much money they bring in I agree this is the key factor. Any job where a person can argue a clear, direct, measurable link

> the sales person knows exactly how much money they bring in I agree this is the key factor. Any job where a person can argue a clear, direct, measurable link between their work and profit is a job that can be paid based on financial results. Other jobs where you see this: financial traders, consultants with direct client contact. To take the other extreme, look at teachers. They have the potential to generate huge value based on how effectively they develop society's human capital. Unfortunately the effects of a single teacher are so noisy and indirect that it's basically impossible to measure their performance. The lack of firm data is why the debate about teacher compensation is so fraught.

chimeracoder 9y ago
> Unfortunately the effects of a single teacher are so noisy and indirect that it's basically impossible to measure their performance. The lack of firm data is why the debate about teacher compensation is so fraught. The problem is not that it's hard to measure. The people is that teachers actually have very little ability to make a marginal impact on their students though their performance, except at the very tail ends of the distribution. In other words, structural factors that teachers can't directly control, like family support or district curriculum standards, have a much larger impact on student performance than teaching quality does. (Except, of course, for the exceptionally bad teachers, but that's better addressed by firing them than by adjusting the compensation strategy).
- camelite 9y ago
  That's a myth. The real problem is that the average teacher (relative performance) is so far away from being close to maximally performant (as proved in studies which rigourously control teacher behaviour) that the impact of variation about that mean is swamped by environmental factors. People conclude that since swapping teachers doesn't make an appreciable difference, teacher performance can't make a difference. When in reality the problem is that teaching is uniformly bad (compared to maximal possible performance, which is very difficult. this is why the answer is not to look for better teachers but to look for better, uniformly implementable, curriculums)
  - asdfgadsfgasfdg 9y ago
    If teaching is indeed universally bad (which I doubt but lets go with the idea as a thought experiment) - then surely the issue must lie with training/the accepted teaching methods?
    - lr4444lr 9y ago
      I disagree with the parent post and do not dismiss your suggestion, but no, that needn't be the only cause. The profession itself may be disincentivized in a number of ways against bringing in capable people.
    - marcosdumay 9y ago
      It's not necessarily training and methods. Any environmental issue would create the same situation (curriculum selection, normative bias into testable results, etc), as would a self reinforcing cycle of undervaluing the professionals and competent people running away from the undervalued profession.
    - camelite 9y ago
      Yes, I agree completely. Though I would emphasise that teaching universally bad only when compared to what is achieveable from tightly scripted presentations. I think the actual task of teaching flawlessly while "winging it" is extremely extremely difficult, and beyond at least 98% of the general population, even positing a good working environment.
  - Ciao_a_tutti 9y ago
    I might become a teacher and I don't want to be a bad one. I want to be exceptionally good. Do you have any suggestions?
    - lr4444lr 9y ago
      Pick an area with a strong union that will cover your ass when you have to use your experience, skill, and knowledge to do what has to be done when the admin bureaucrats not only don't help, but even become your chronic obstacle. Make sure you don't try to be too heroic before you get tenure, though. Also, try to get a subbing or student teaching position that will put you with the same group of kids regularly for at least a month to be more sure you can handle the stress of the job.
- smallnamespace 9y ago
  > The problem is not that it's hard to measure. The people is that teachers actually have very little ability to make a marginal impact on their students though their performance, except at the very tail ends of the distribution. That's essentially true for most sales people and traders as well. There are VERY heavy tails -- that one guy at the car dealership who sells 3x as much as his peers, or the trader at Citadel whose trades made over $1bn in a year. But imagine how the teaching profession would change if 1) the gains could be accurately measured and 2) we assigned payment or prestige to teachers based on (1).
  - stevenwoo 9y ago
    Based on national test scores, what we know works in a small homogeneous country at least is professionalizing teaching - raising the standards to become a teacher. They didn't raise salaries to the same level as other professionals like lawyers and doctors, it's about the same pay as the USA, but Finland managed to go from worst to the top in Europe in one generation. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/01/the-case-for-a-teacher-bar-exam/267030/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/01/the-cas...
    - mickronome 9y ago
      It's also interesting to note that children in Finland got a shorter school day, and mostly no homework at all. The shortening of the school day was especially prominent in for the youngest children.
  - chimeracoder 9y ago
    > That's essentially true for most sales people and traders as well. It's definitely not true in most sales positions, particularly the ones that are highly commissions-based. > But imagine how the teaching profession would change if 1) the gains could be accurately measured and 2) we assigned payment or prestige to teachers based on (1). We can, and we do. The fact is: the gains just aren't that large. If you want to improve student performance, the best place to spend the money isn't by raising teacher salaries.
- lr4444lr 9y ago
  Disagree. The tails of the distribution are where the teacher effect is probably the least, because there are significant obstacles on the low end that make focusing on learning impossible and immense innate talent at the high end where the kid would learn if you put him in a closet with the textbook and a flashlight. The real problem with teacher success metrics is that they are outcome-based. It is no more useful to measure the success of a world class surgeon by including the outcomes of people who completely ignore the post-op care directions and instructions for lifestyle changes.
richdougherty 9y ago
I'll just put one citation into this discussion. Raj Chetty and his collaborators produce amazing research. I attended a talk when he visited New Zealand a few years ago. In this paper he's attempting to address the dream of measuring teacher value, by measuring changes in test scores against changes in lifetime income. Yes there are other ways of measuring teacher "value" too, but income changes are relevant to this discussion, since they tell us how much a teacher could theoretically ask for in "commission". The paper suggests that an average teacher vs a bottom 5% teacher makes a $250,000 lifetime difference in income (present value). "The Long-Term Impacts of Teachers: Teacher Value-Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthood" http://www.nber.org/papers/w17699 http://www.nber.org/papers/w17699 Take a look. He does a neat job controlling for different factors, trying to tease causality out of correlation.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- amelius 9y ago
  > address the dream of measuring teacher value, by measuring changes in test scores against changes in lifetime income. Of course, combined with the premise of this article, such measurement will incentivize teachers to turn students into sales-people :)
- aj7 9y ago
  250k lifetime? So he should get another $6k. Teachers and engineers don't work for money. And there are often bad consequences for people who "don't work for money." I worked in sales so I could afford to be an engineer later. There were plenty of ex-teachers in sales. They did well.
  - phkahler 9y ago
    >> Teachers and engineers don't work for money. You're right. I hit the comment button and was going to say you're damn wrong - I have done a lot to increase my pay with each new job. I wouldn't be at work if not for the money. But then I realized you're right too. I don't think about money much at all when I'm a work. I do try to make a good product, and I do worry about bill of materials and production cost, but I don't focus on money coming to me because that's already been agreed upon. Is that what you meant by that statement?
hyperpallium 9y ago
Though there are private schools that pay more; private tutors can make a lot more, esp to the super-rich. [For a broader definition of "teacher", there's professional development seminars, and people who tour the lecture circuit. Though you're talking specifically about teaching children.] Then, consider doctors (esp specialists and surgeons): there is an immediate, direct, measurable link to profound benefits, and though they are well paid, they aren't paid by commission... is it just because it isn't money? Lawyers, esp barristers, are closer to the money, and do get a kind of "commission" (though some jurisdictions prohibit it).
p3d4nt 9y ago
Quite often what/how the engineers do is irrelevant really but without the sale nothing happens. Look at MSFT - crappy software but would love the commission. I'm sure some junior sales people would love a fat base but if you are any good the results-based reward incentive thing benefits both parties. If it made sense to charge by the line of code then engineers would too (line necessarily being a good surrogate for value added). Personally I think salary is slavery.
tosser350 9y ago
I think MOOCs are the future based on my own experience. They allow the best teachers to scale their reach. Instead of aristotle giving a lecture to a room it allows an unlimited audience who can also rewind and pause if they don't understand something. I've been able to learn machine learning and deep learning from Andrew Ng, one of the best AI researchers in the world, among other world class researchers, for free. It's incredible when you think about it, probably one of the most significant things in human history. I've been able to learn how to code by picking and choosing the best classes from MIT, Stanford, Harvard, etc without spending a penny. Why settle for mediocre teachers at state universities when these options are available? The major thing we need to do is find some other way to grade people other than using a college degree as a benchmark.
rbcgerard 9y ago
Not sure where the idea comes from that teachers are poorly compensated. Relative to some other professions yes, but hardly a low Paying job. Annual teacher salary in California is $73k/year [1] divided by .75 is $97k/year with generous pension an medical benefits that probably push that number up $25k-$75k/year... [1]http://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/fr/sa/cefavgsalaries.asp http://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/fr/sa/cefavgsalaries.asp
- daladd 9y ago
  I'm curious why you would divide by .75 there (?)
  - selectodude 9y ago
    Public sector salary pre-tax income is usually only 66-75 percent of total comp after adjusting for health insurance and pensions.
  - pinot 9y ago
    9 months a year of employment, which is a gross oversimplification of how many weeks/yr a teacher is working.
  - _uy6i 9y ago
    It was a proxy for the fact most teachers have summers off, so are only working 3/4ths the year...
- taysic 9y ago
  Interesting, CA ranked 41st out of all states for its school system this year. http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/05/california-schools-earn-c-in-national-ranking/ http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/05/california-schools-ear...
rpwilcox 9y ago
> Any job where a person can argue a clear, direct, measurable link between their work and profit is a job that can be paid based on financial results And anyone who can't will be, and should be, outsourced. Know. Your. Value. To. The. Business.

chimeracoder 9y ago

> Unfortunately the effects of a single teacher are so noisy and indirect that it's basically impossible to measure their performance. The lack of firm data is why the debate about teacher compensation is so fraught. The problem is not that it's hard to measure. The people is that teachers actually have very little ability to make a marginal impact on their students though their performance, except at the very tail ends of the distribution. In other words, structural factors that teachers can't directly control, like family support or district curriculum standards, have a much larger impact on student performance than teaching quality does. (Except, of course, for the exceptionally bad teachers, but that's better addressed by firing them than by adjusting the compensation strategy).

camelite 9y ago
That's a myth. The real problem is that the average teacher (relative performance) is so far away from being close to maximally performant (as proved in studies which rigourously control teacher behaviour) that the impact of variation about that mean is swamped by environmental factors. People conclude that since swapping teachers doesn't make an appreciable difference, teacher performance can't make a difference. When in reality the problem is that teaching is uniformly bad (compared to maximal possible performance, which is very difficult. this is why the answer is not to look for better teachers but to look for better, uniformly implementable, curriculums)
- asdfgadsfgasfdg 9y ago
  If teaching is indeed universally bad (which I doubt but lets go with the idea as a thought experiment) - then surely the issue must lie with training/the accepted teaching methods?
  - lr4444lr 9y ago
    I disagree with the parent post and do not dismiss your suggestion, but no, that needn't be the only cause. The profession itself may be disincentivized in a number of ways against bringing in capable people.
  - marcosdumay 9y ago
    It's not necessarily training and methods. Any environmental issue would create the same situation (curriculum selection, normative bias into testable results, etc), as would a self reinforcing cycle of undervaluing the professionals and competent people running away from the undervalued profession.
  - camelite 9y ago
    Yes, I agree completely. Though I would emphasise that teaching universally bad only when compared to what is achieveable from tightly scripted presentations. I think the actual task of teaching flawlessly while "winging it" is extremely extremely difficult, and beyond at least 98% of the general population, even positing a good working environment.
- Ciao_a_tutti 9y ago
  I might become a teacher and I don't want to be a bad one. I want to be exceptionally good. Do you have any suggestions?
  - lr4444lr 9y ago
    Pick an area with a strong union that will cover your ass when you have to use your experience, skill, and knowledge to do what has to be done when the admin bureaucrats not only don't help, but even become your chronic obstacle. Make sure you don't try to be too heroic before you get tenure, though. Also, try to get a subbing or student teaching position that will put you with the same group of kids regularly for at least a month to be more sure you can handle the stress of the job.
smallnamespace 9y ago
> The problem is not that it's hard to measure. The people is that teachers actually have very little ability to make a marginal impact on their students though their performance, except at the very tail ends of the distribution. That's essentially true for most sales people and traders as well. There are VERY heavy tails -- that one guy at the car dealership who sells 3x as much as his peers, or the trader at Citadel whose trades made over $1bn in a year. But imagine how the teaching profession would change if 1) the gains could be accurately measured and 2) we assigned payment or prestige to teachers based on (1).
- stevenwoo 9y ago
  Based on national test scores, what we know works in a small homogeneous country at least is professionalizing teaching - raising the standards to become a teacher. They didn't raise salaries to the same level as other professionals like lawyers and doctors, it's about the same pay as the USA, but Finland managed to go from worst to the top in Europe in one generation. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/01/the-case-for-a-teacher-bar-exam/267030/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/01/the-cas...
  - mickronome 9y ago
    It's also interesting to note that children in Finland got a shorter school day, and mostly no homework at all. The shortening of the school day was especially prominent in for the youngest children.
- chimeracoder 9y ago
  > That's essentially true for most sales people and traders as well. It's definitely not true in most sales positions, particularly the ones that are highly commissions-based. > But imagine how the teaching profession would change if 1) the gains could be accurately measured and 2) we assigned payment or prestige to teachers based on (1). We can, and we do. The fact is: the gains just aren't that large. If you want to improve student performance, the best place to spend the money isn't by raising teacher salaries.
lr4444lr 9y ago
Disagree. The tails of the distribution are where the teacher effect is probably the least, because there are significant obstacles on the low end that make focusing on learning impossible and immense innate talent at the high end where the kid would learn if you put him in a closet with the textbook and a flashlight. The real problem with teacher success metrics is that they are outcome-based. It is no more useful to measure the success of a world class surgeon by including the outcomes of people who completely ignore the post-op care directions and instructions for lifestyle changes.

richdougherty 9y ago

I'll just put one citation into this discussion. Raj Chetty and his collaborators produce amazing research. I attended a talk when he visited New Zealand a few years ago. In this paper he's attempting to address the dream of measuring teacher value, by measuring changes in test scores against changes in lifetime income. Yes there are other ways of measuring teacher "value" too, but income changes are relevant to this discussion, since they tell us how much a teacher could theoretically ask for in "commission". The paper suggests that an average teacher vs a bottom 5% teacher makes a $250,000 lifetime difference in income (present value). "The Long-Term Impacts of Teachers: Teacher Value-Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthood" http://www.nber.org/papers/w17699 http://www.nber.org/papers/w17699 Take a look. He does a neat job controlling for different factors, trying to tease causality out of correlation.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
amelius 9y ago
> address the dream of measuring teacher value, by measuring changes in test scores against changes in lifetime income. Of course, combined with the premise of this article, such measurement will incentivize teachers to turn students into sales-people :)
aj7 9y ago
250k lifetime? So he should get another $6k. Teachers and engineers don't work for money. And there are often bad consequences for people who "don't work for money." I worked in sales so I could afford to be an engineer later. There were plenty of ex-teachers in sales. They did well.
- phkahler 9y ago
  >> Teachers and engineers don't work for money. You're right. I hit the comment button and was going to say you're damn wrong - I have done a lot to increase my pay with each new job. I wouldn't be at work if not for the money. But then I realized you're right too. I don't think about money much at all when I'm a work. I do try to make a good product, and I do worry about bill of materials and production cost, but I don't focus on money coming to me because that's already been agreed upon. Is that what you meant by that statement?

hyperpallium 9y ago

Though there are private schools that pay more; private tutors can make a lot more, esp to the super-rich. [For a broader definition of "teacher", there's professional development seminars, and people who tour the lecture circuit. Though you're talking specifically about teaching children.] Then, consider doctors (esp specialists and surgeons): there is an immediate, direct, measurable link to profound benefits, and though they are well paid, they aren't paid by commission... is it just because it isn't money? Lawyers, esp barristers, are closer to the money, and do get a kind of "commission" (though some jurisdictions prohibit it).

p3d4nt 9y ago

Quite often what/how the engineers do is irrelevant really but without the sale nothing happens. Look at MSFT - crappy software but would love the commission. I'm sure some junior sales people would love a fat base but if you are any good the results-based reward incentive thing benefits both parties. If it made sense to charge by the line of code then engineers would too (line necessarily being a good surrogate for value added). Personally I think salary is slavery.

tosser350 9y ago

I think MOOCs are the future based on my own experience. They allow the best teachers to scale their reach. Instead of aristotle giving a lecture to a room it allows an unlimited audience who can also rewind and pause if they don't understand something. I've been able to learn machine learning and deep learning from Andrew Ng, one of the best AI researchers in the world, among other world class researchers, for free. It's incredible when you think about it, probably one of the most significant things in human history. I've been able to learn how to code by picking and choosing the best classes from MIT, Stanford, Harvard, etc without spending a penny. Why settle for mediocre teachers at state universities when these options are available? The major thing we need to do is find some other way to grade people other than using a college degree as a benchmark.

rbcgerard 9y ago

Not sure where the idea comes from that teachers are poorly compensated. Relative to some other professions yes, but hardly a low Paying job. Annual teacher salary in California is $73k/year [1] divided by .75 is $97k/year with generous pension an medical benefits that probably push that number up $25k-$75k/year... [1]http://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/fr/sa/cefavgsalaries.asp http://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/fr/sa/cefavgsalaries.asp

daladd 9y ago
I'm curious why you would divide by .75 there (?)
- selectodude 9y ago
  Public sector salary pre-tax income is usually only 66-75 percent of total comp after adjusting for health insurance and pensions.
- pinot 9y ago
  9 months a year of employment, which is a gross oversimplification of how many weeks/yr a teacher is working.
- _uy6i 9y ago
  It was a proxy for the fact most teachers have summers off, so are only working 3/4ths the year...
taysic 9y ago
Interesting, CA ranked 41st out of all states for its school system this year. http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/05/california-schools-earn-c-in-national-ranking/ http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/05/california-schools-ear...

rpwilcox 9y ago

> Any job where a person can argue a clear, direct, measurable link between their work and profit is a job that can be paid based on financial results And anyone who can't will be, and should be, outsourced. Know. Your. Value. To. The. Business.