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Can it be the case that the constant fear of being fired is not an ideal environment for a teacher? Teaching needs a long-term commitment which needs a differen

Can it be the case that the constant fear of being fired is not an ideal environment for a teacher? Teaching needs a long-term commitment which needs a different kind of incentive than a bonus. I have similarly observed that researcher who wants to do fundamental research are not very comfortable in startup environment which lacks security.

MBCook 8y ago
It could also be that the quality of teacher just can’t overcome other systematic problems like discipline, required curriculum, lack of flexibility, home environment, materials used, or something else.
briandear 8y ago
We could argue that the fear of being fired ought to motivate as well. Professional athletes operate under this model. Perhaps we could implement a teacher’s “draft.” Lower performing but still competent enough teachers could be “traded” and stars could result in bidding wars. At the end of each “season” the lowest school gets first pick in that summer’s draft. Substitutes could be like free agents. And winning “seasons” could be financially rewarded with bonuses. There could be a system of measurement based on improvement of students rather than just raw scores, so even lower performing students could help the team “win” by improving even if they are still not meeting the overall standards. You might find teachers wanting to go to tougher schools because bringing a kid from a 20 to a 50 earns more “points” than bringing a kid from an 80 to an 85. I haven’t fully thought this out yet, but we do know one thing: if you are in a hole, stop digging. If something isn’t working, brute force rarely helps. We need innovation in education but not just pedagogical— but with the entire incentive structure for both teachers and students. Crazy idea, I know. But sometimes crazy works.
- sverige 8y ago
  What if most teachers aspire to teach in places that appeal to them and have no interest in being traded like cattle?
- neel8986 8y ago
  In my opinion carrot and stick model works in areas where 1) participants are extremely competitive 2) End reward is huge (fame, money). That's why such model excels in areas like competitive sports, investment banking, startups etc. Teaching has neither component. If you give great teachers rockstar like salary may be it will work. Similarly most of the researchers I meet are fed up with publish or perish model of research
- sewercake 8y ago
  what metrics would you use to assign points? What would a point mean? While I understand and sympathize with the desire to quantify 'good teaching', it's a 'domain' that has a whole lot of noise. Abstractly, agents will optimize for the metrics, and not what the metrics approximate. Now if an agent in the system optimizes for the metrics (and not what they're measuring), but the metrics themselves are solid, then you'll come out with a largely okay system. I think the point of this article is that maybe we don't have good metrics to measure solid pedagogical performance, and so, in that case, when agents optimize for the metrics, and not what the metrics measure, then the system provides no value. So maybe the crazier idea is back-off, and try a different approach that doesn't involve rewarding or punishing the teachers themselves.
jVinc 8y ago
> Can it be the case that the constant fear of being fired is not an ideal environment for a teacher? The study shows that the envirnment where they were under constant fear of being fired was no worse measured in student performance thatn the prior one. So no that's not the case. Unless you want to go for the wild theory that the study actually did show an improved student score related to firering bad teachers which was counter acted by an opposite effect from fear of being fired.. which had the exact same but opposite magnitude.... that would however be taking Occams razor and throwing it in the ocean.
maxander 8y ago
I mean, are you "under constant fear of being fired" wherever you work? No one's advocating being seriously harsh to teachers; the issue is that currently, due to union agreements and so forth, it's nearly impossible to fire them. We would fire a janitor who stops doing his job effectively; it's reasonable to apply the same standards to those we trust with our children.
- jellicle 8y ago
  >nearly impossible Your statement in very true in some locales, and not true at all in very many others. Teachers' unions are virtually nonexistent in the US South and Midwest, and only strong in the coastal blue states. If "strong unions" made teachers lazy/bad, then we'd see poor performance in the strong union states like New Jersey, New York and California, and great teaching performance in the weak union states like Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi. That... is not what we see.
  - AmericanChopper 8y ago
    That observation is only valid if you ignore all other factors that could differentiate those areas, which is obviously ridiculous. It also presumes that unionization is the only way to rid yourself of the fear of getting fired. Unionization will alleviate the fear of getting fired based upon factors relating to competence, but another way to do it is simply to increase your competence. I don’t fear getting fired at all, partly because I know I’m competent enough that it’s incredibly unlikely, and partly because I’m competent enough that I know I could simply get another job if I wanted to.
    - cannonedhamster 8y ago
      So is your competence judged by your customers, your peers, or random outcomes outside of your control? To put this in software terms. This is like a person in a support organization being provided buggy software and being fired on the number of bugs that get through. They have no control over the developers (parents) and students don't go through QA. Even if the developers were trying their best, if they are constantly distracted and pulled in multiple directions, what do you expect that the result of the software would be?

MBCook 8y ago

It could also be that the quality of teacher just can’t overcome other systematic problems like discipline, required curriculum, lack of flexibility, home environment, materials used, or something else.

briandear 8y ago

We could argue that the fear of being fired ought to motivate as well. Professional athletes operate under this model. Perhaps we could implement a teacher’s “draft.” Lower performing but still competent enough teachers could be “traded” and stars could result in bidding wars. At the end of each “season” the lowest school gets first pick in that summer’s draft. Substitutes could be like free agents. And winning “seasons” could be financially rewarded with bonuses. There could be a system of measurement based on improvement of students rather than just raw scores, so even lower performing students could help the team “win” by improving even if they are still not meeting the overall standards. You might find teachers wanting to go to tougher schools because bringing a kid from a 20 to a 50 earns more “points” than bringing a kid from an 80 to an 85. I haven’t fully thought this out yet, but we do know one thing: if you are in a hole, stop digging. If something isn’t working, brute force rarely helps. We need innovation in education but not just pedagogical— but with the entire incentive structure for both teachers and students. Crazy idea, I know. But sometimes crazy works.

sverige 8y ago
What if most teachers aspire to teach in places that appeal to them and have no interest in being traded like cattle?
neel8986 8y ago
In my opinion carrot and stick model works in areas where 1) participants are extremely competitive 2) End reward is huge (fame, money). That's why such model excels in areas like competitive sports, investment banking, startups etc. Teaching has neither component. If you give great teachers rockstar like salary may be it will work. Similarly most of the researchers I meet are fed up with publish or perish model of research
sewercake 8y ago
what metrics would you use to assign points? What would a point mean? While I understand and sympathize with the desire to quantify 'good teaching', it's a 'domain' that has a whole lot of noise. Abstractly, agents will optimize for the metrics, and not what the metrics approximate. Now if an agent in the system optimizes for the metrics (and not what they're measuring), but the metrics themselves are solid, then you'll come out with a largely okay system. I think the point of this article is that maybe we don't have good metrics to measure solid pedagogical performance, and so, in that case, when agents optimize for the metrics, and not what the metrics measure, then the system provides no value. So maybe the crazier idea is back-off, and try a different approach that doesn't involve rewarding or punishing the teachers themselves.

jVinc 8y ago

> Can it be the case that the constant fear of being fired is not an ideal environment for a teacher? The study shows that the envirnment where they were under constant fear of being fired was no worse measured in student performance thatn the prior one. So no that's not the case. Unless you want to go for the wild theory that the study actually did show an improved student score related to firering bad teachers which was counter acted by an opposite effect from fear of being fired.. which had the exact same but opposite magnitude.... that would however be taking Occams razor and throwing it in the ocean.

maxander 8y ago

I mean, are you "under constant fear of being fired" wherever you work? No one's advocating being seriously harsh to teachers; the issue is that currently, due to union agreements and so forth, it's nearly impossible to fire them. We would fire a janitor who stops doing his job effectively; it's reasonable to apply the same standards to those we trust with our children.

jellicle 8y ago
>nearly impossible Your statement in very true in some locales, and not true at all in very many others. Teachers' unions are virtually nonexistent in the US South and Midwest, and only strong in the coastal blue states. If "strong unions" made teachers lazy/bad, then we'd see poor performance in the strong union states like New Jersey, New York and California, and great teaching performance in the weak union states like Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi. That... is not what we see.
- AmericanChopper 8y ago
  That observation is only valid if you ignore all other factors that could differentiate those areas, which is obviously ridiculous. It also presumes that unionization is the only way to rid yourself of the fear of getting fired. Unionization will alleviate the fear of getting fired based upon factors relating to competence, but another way to do it is simply to increase your competence. I don’t fear getting fired at all, partly because I know I’m competent enough that it’s incredibly unlikely, and partly because I’m competent enough that I know I could simply get another job if I wanted to.
  - cannonedhamster 8y ago
    So is your competence judged by your customers, your peers, or random outcomes outside of your control? To put this in software terms. This is like a person in a support organization being provided buggy software and being fired on the number of bugs that get through. They have no control over the developers (parents) and students don't go through QA. Even if the developers were trying their best, if they are constantly distracted and pulled in multiple directions, what do you expect that the result of the software would be?