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I love when PC goes too far. Teachers who have students with low iqs will have low-testing students, by the very definition of iq and the fact that most standar

I love when PC goes too far. Teachers who have students with low iqs will have low-testing students, by the very definition of iq and the fact that most standardized tests are at least weakly correlated with iq tests. Vice versa. Intelligence, especially as operationalized by standardized testing, is as biological as height and athleticism. If I were a teacher in DC and the majority of my students were not from middle+ class families, I would quit ahead of time and save the district some trouble. Honestly, what do people think "education" is? By lecturing at children cooped up in classrooms for 6 hours a day and then shoving scantrons down their throats everybody will magically become doctors and lawyers? All socioeconomic class distinctions will be eliminated? There is no reason to make working teachers suffer because of this unscientific bullshit.

derefr 16y ago
Could just take the first derivative. A teacher's job isn't to make kids smart, it's to make them smarter.
- hugh3 16y ago
  Not smarter, just better-informed.
  - derefr 16y ago
    I use "smart" to mean "rationally applying knowledge and avoiding bias." It requires you to have knowledge, as source material—so teachers are responsible for that—but it also requires that you transform and synthesize that knowledge in useful ways, which requires more than information, and is something schools are supposed to teach ("learning how to learn.")
- w1ntermute 16y ago
  And those kids with greater IQs will become smarter with less effort on the part of the teacher. I would think that if you took into account whether a class was regular or accelerated and weighted the required improvement based on that, you would be able to accurately assess teachers. But maybe the sample size is too small to eliminate random biases. Perhaps by taking a teacher's performance over multiple years into account that issue could be eliminated as well.
kiba 16y ago
Frankly, being allowed to fire people is the right direction. If you can't fire anybody, even for gross incompetence, then it's going to make it far more difficult to move your organization in the right direction. It's also going to make it easier for organizations to move in the wrong direction. However, that's a risk you're going to have to take if you want to move out of your mediocrity.
jsz0 16y ago
The article states that student testing accounts for 50% of the teacher rank. If a teacher wants to avoid being ranked near the bottom they can offset bad test scores by doing well on the other criteria. I agree the teachers don't deserve all the blame but I also believe too much job security makes people lazy and apathetic. If it doesn't work we can try something else.
najirama 16y ago
Not so fast. It seems you haven't even taken the time to follow your own proposition (Intelligence, especially as operationalized by standardized testing, is as biological as height and athleticism.) to its logical conclusion; for if you had, you wouldn't have followed it with the statement, If I were a teacher in DC and the majority of my students were not from middle+ class families, I would quit ahead of time... Last I checked, "middle+ class" wasn't a genetic trait. So either you misunderstand what 'biological' means (dubious), or you yourself cannot separate intellect/scholastic achievement from environment/socio-economic class. If it is the latter, then you directly contradict your proposition about the biological immutability of intelligence. If it is the former, perhaps you can clarify what you really meant when you wrote biological.

derefr 16y ago

Could just take the first derivative. A teacher's job isn't to make kids smart, it's to make them smarter.

hugh3 16y ago
Not smarter, just better-informed.
- derefr 16y ago
  I use "smart" to mean "rationally applying knowledge and avoiding bias." It requires you to have knowledge, as source material—so teachers are responsible for that—but it also requires that you transform and synthesize that knowledge in useful ways, which requires more than information, and is something schools are supposed to teach ("learning how to learn.")
w1ntermute 16y ago
And those kids with greater IQs will become smarter with less effort on the part of the teacher. I would think that if you took into account whether a class was regular or accelerated and weighted the required improvement based on that, you would be able to accurately assess teachers. But maybe the sample size is too small to eliminate random biases. Perhaps by taking a teacher's performance over multiple years into account that issue could be eliminated as well.

kiba 16y ago

Frankly, being allowed to fire people is the right direction. If you can't fire anybody, even for gross incompetence, then it's going to make it far more difficult to move your organization in the right direction. It's also going to make it easier for organizations to move in the wrong direction. However, that's a risk you're going to have to take if you want to move out of your mediocrity.

jsz0 16y ago

The article states that student testing accounts for 50% of the teacher rank. If a teacher wants to avoid being ranked near the bottom they can offset bad test scores by doing well on the other criteria. I agree the teachers don't deserve all the blame but I also believe too much job security makes people lazy and apathetic. If it doesn't work we can try something else.

najirama 16y ago

Not so fast. It seems you haven't even taken the time to follow your own proposition (Intelligence, especially as operationalized by standardized testing, is as biological as height and athleticism.) to its logical conclusion; for if you had, you wouldn't have followed it with the statement, If I were a teacher in DC and the majority of my students were not from middle+ class families, I would quit ahead of time... Last I checked, "middle+ class" wasn't a genetic trait. So either you misunderstand what 'biological' means (dubious), or you yourself cannot separate intellect/scholastic achievement from environment/socio-economic class. If it is the latter, then you directly contradict your proposition about the biological immutability of intelligence. If it is the former, perhaps you can clarify what you really meant when you wrote biological.