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> 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

> 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.
- BoiledCabbage 9y ago
  > We can, and we do. Unless you can provide a link, I'm pretty sure whatever you're measuring is very different than what OP was talking about. And stories abound of the very successful engineer, entrepreneur or scientist whose entire life was changed by one teacher.
- imron 9y ago
  That's right, we need more administrative staff, and laptops and iPads for all children. That should fix the problems in education.
  - thanksgiving 9y ago
    > Public education by state rankings show that New York spent the most per pupil at $20,610. The next top five are District of Columbia ($18,485), Alaska ($18,416), New Jersey ($17,907), Connecticut ($17,745) and Vermont ($16,988). http://education.cu-portland.edu/blog/classroom-resources/public-education-costs-per-pupil-by-state-rankings/ http://education.cu-portland.edu/blog/classroom-resources/pu... https://archive.fo/DeBGH https://archive.fo/DeBGH A teacher's salary in New York isn't good enough but you can at least afford rent if you're smart. The reason why I tolerate laptop and iPad spending is because I don't know if/how we can cut costs and still get better results. Thus, when I see something that lets students learn without a one on one with a teacher, I imagine it saves money. From the same page, we see that total expense is 617B or about (617 billion/18 trillion) three percent of GDP. I'll be honest. I have no earthly idea whether this number is too big or too small or if that's even the right question.
    - imron 9y ago
      > Thus, when I see something that lets students learn without a one on one with a teacher, I imagine it saves money. There is growing evidence to suggest that having laptops and ipads in class decrease learning outcomes. So you could be paying more for worse results.
    - jimbokun 9y ago
      A documentary I watched claimed giving laptops or iPads to students is correlated with worse academic performance for those students. Sorry, don't remember enough for a citation, but the suggested causal effect was students just spending even more time on social media, games, and web surfing instead of school work.
walshemj 9y ago
But as in the UK teachers would game the system eg by having "difficult" kids in this case those of only average intelligence excluded from the school to make their position in the league tables look good.

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.

BoiledCabbage 9y ago
> We can, and we do. Unless you can provide a link, I'm pretty sure whatever you're measuring is very different than what OP was talking about. And stories abound of the very successful engineer, entrepreneur or scientist whose entire life was changed by one teacher.
imron 9y ago
That's right, we need more administrative staff, and laptops and iPads for all children. That should fix the problems in education.
- thanksgiving 9y ago
  > Public education by state rankings show that New York spent the most per pupil at $20,610. The next top five are District of Columbia ($18,485), Alaska ($18,416), New Jersey ($17,907), Connecticut ($17,745) and Vermont ($16,988). http://education.cu-portland.edu/blog/classroom-resources/public-education-costs-per-pupil-by-state-rankings/ http://education.cu-portland.edu/blog/classroom-resources/pu... https://archive.fo/DeBGH https://archive.fo/DeBGH A teacher's salary in New York isn't good enough but you can at least afford rent if you're smart. The reason why I tolerate laptop and iPad spending is because I don't know if/how we can cut costs and still get better results. Thus, when I see something that lets students learn without a one on one with a teacher, I imagine it saves money. From the same page, we see that total expense is 617B or about (617 billion/18 trillion) three percent of GDP. I'll be honest. I have no earthly idea whether this number is too big or too small or if that's even the right question.
  - imron 9y ago
    > Thus, when I see something that lets students learn without a one on one with a teacher, I imagine it saves money. There is growing evidence to suggest that having laptops and ipads in class decrease learning outcomes. So you could be paying more for worse results.
  - jimbokun 9y ago
    A documentary I watched claimed giving laptops or iPads to students is correlated with worse academic performance for those students. Sorry, don't remember enough for a citation, but the suggested causal effect was students just spending even more time on social media, games, and web surfing instead of school work.

walshemj 9y ago

But as in the UK teachers would game the system eg by having "difficult" kids in this case those of only average intelligence excluded from the school to make their position in the league tables look good.