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The goal is not the problem. The method is not the problem. The problem is the problem. You will have to increase the educational system's budget. You will hav

The goal is not the problem. The method is not the problem. The problem is the problem. You will have to increase the educational system's budget. You will have to raise taxes. You will have to build more classrooms. You will have to hire more teachers. You will even have to feed the damned kids, and improve their home life. There is no "method" that avoids having to do these things. These are the problems you have to solve to reach the intended goal. How you go about solving these problems does not matter. Use whatever method you want. Sweet talk them. Bribe them. Hire a guy named Vito with a baseball bat. The method doesn't matter. Just solve the problems.

apenwarr 9y ago
I think we agree here, except on definitions. To me, potential "methods" are the list of things you describe: taxes, classrooms, teachers, home life, baseball bats. And also the ones I described: teach to the test, fraudulent scoring. A manager that just says "teachers will be evaluated based on their students' standardized test scores" will get nothing useful, because they did not provide a method, and the teachers aren't empowered to solve their problems in a productive way.
- peterwwillis 9y ago
  > A manager that just says "teachers will be evaluated based on their students' standardized test scores" will get nothing useful, because they did not provide a method There is no method for a teacher to solve those problems. It's a systemic issue.
  - amw 9y ago
    He didn't say anything that was contrary to that. Note that it's the "manager" that didn't "provide a method" in his framing, and note that "manager" is a shorthand for "the teacher's boss, the school board that created the policies the teacher's boss follows, the federal/state governing bodies that created the legislation that governs the school board's decisions, etc etc"

apenwarr 9y ago

I think we agree here, except on definitions. To me, potential "methods" are the list of things you describe: taxes, classrooms, teachers, home life, baseball bats. And also the ones I described: teach to the test, fraudulent scoring. A manager that just says "teachers will be evaluated based on their students' standardized test scores" will get nothing useful, because they did not provide a method, and the teachers aren't empowered to solve their problems in a productive way.

peterwwillis 9y ago
> A manager that just says "teachers will be evaluated based on their students' standardized test scores" will get nothing useful, because they did not provide a method There is no method for a teacher to solve those problems. It's a systemic issue.
- amw 9y ago
  He didn't say anything that was contrary to that. Note that it's the "manager" that didn't "provide a method" in his framing, and note that "manager" is a shorthand for "the teacher's boss, the school board that created the policies the teacher's boss follows, the federal/state governing bodies that created the legislation that governs the school board's decisions, etc etc"