4 ms·

The fundamental problem with public school teachers are that the “customer” in the relationship isn’t the parent or the child, but the gov bureaucrat. So while

by whb07 8y ago

The fundamental problem with public school teachers are that the “customer” in the relationship isn’t the parent or the child, but the gov bureaucrat. So while the results of a teacher might hurt the child or the parent, who cares as it’s not them to who they cater to. The incentives aren’t aligned properly and there is no negative incentive when a school fails a generation of children. The teacher and admins will just carry on business as usual(rather monopoly) charge a higher fee and deliver a worse product.

josho 8y ago
> The incentives aren’t aligned properly Then explain the success of schools outside of the US that have similar government based funding?
- whb07 8y ago
  Can you define "success"? Furthermore, can you provide examples where schooling isn't better served by a private entity (in scale and time)?
wnevets 8y ago
>The fundamental problem with public school teachers are that the “customer” in the relationship isn’t the parent or the child, but the gov bureaucrat. So while the results of a teacher might hurt the child or the parent, who cares as it’s not them to who they cater to. Thanks no child left behind! Tying school funding and teacher pay to child test schools is one of the largest blunders this country has made.
- nichos 8y ago
  Thanks to government in general. America's students are much worse since the inception of the DOE.
  - wnevets 8y ago
    Citation needed
- tropo 8y ago
  The implementation was botched, but the idea was fine. You need good quality tests that aren't supplied by book publishers. Ideally you'd test anything, but if tests are unavailable for a particular subject then you have to mandate hours for that subject to keep it from disappearing. You need test security so that the teachers don't cheat. Instead of just cutting pay, which isn't helpful, you should pay per-student and adjust the number of students per teacher. It is easy to teach a very small group, but very hard to teach a large group. Shift students from bad teachers to good teachers until the quality is equalized. Unfortunately this hits a problem with standardized classroom size. Aside from that though, it would be fine to have one teacher with 9 students and another teacher with 72 students. The teacher with 75 is getting paid 8x as much as the teacher with 9, and the students all get equal quality.
apocalypstyx 8y ago
The more fundamental problem may be that the contemporary horizon of meaning has so contracted that we cannot conceptualize of anything not defined in terms of "customers" or "product" (or "war").
- whb07 8y ago
  I’m not sure I follow. Care to expand how one can serve someone they aren’t beholden to in some way?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - username223 8y ago
    Fiduciary duty? Hippocratic oath? Pride in a job well done? Friendship? Altruism? Empathy? There are plenty of ways.
    - gridlockd 8y ago
      ...none of which work "at scale". If they did, we would be living in completely different societies. People unduly ascribe all sorts of virtues to teachers. Case in point, look at everyone's favorite "socialist" country: Sweden. Schooling has improved significantly after privatization with a voucher system.
      - username223 8y ago
        Any links about Sweden? Most voucher efforts in the US seem to work by taking the best students and/or most engaged parents out of the public schools. And Swedish PISA test scores seem to have floated around 500 for the last 15 years, with a slight downward trend, if any.
        njepa 8y ago
        As far as I know schooling hasn't improved in Sweden because of the voucher system, instead schools have fallen behind the neighboring countries which have more traditional systems.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Nasrudith 8y ago
Education is a messy topic to optimize as well for "customers" as they may not know best either. That isn't exclusive to education of course. It is why tenure is a thing - what is true and right may not be popular. They do get a reward for doing well but it is very long term - if they are successful and society could get better funding and well liked for being a success story.

by whb07 8y ago

josho 8y ago

> The incentives aren’t aligned properly Then explain the success of schools outside of the US that have similar government based funding?

whb07 8y ago
Can you define "success"? Furthermore, can you provide examples where schooling isn't better served by a private entity (in scale and time)?

wnevets 8y ago

>The fundamental problem with public school teachers are that the “customer” in the relationship isn’t the parent or the child, but the gov bureaucrat. So while the results of a teacher might hurt the child or the parent, who cares as it’s not them to who they cater to. Thanks no child left behind! Tying school funding and teacher pay to child test schools is one of the largest blunders this country has made.

nichos 8y ago
Thanks to government in general. America's students are much worse since the inception of the DOE.
- wnevets 8y ago
  Citation needed
tropo 8y ago
The implementation was botched, but the idea was fine. You need good quality tests that aren't supplied by book publishers. Ideally you'd test anything, but if tests are unavailable for a particular subject then you have to mandate hours for that subject to keep it from disappearing. You need test security so that the teachers don't cheat. Instead of just cutting pay, which isn't helpful, you should pay per-student and adjust the number of students per teacher. It is easy to teach a very small group, but very hard to teach a large group. Shift students from bad teachers to good teachers until the quality is equalized. Unfortunately this hits a problem with standardized classroom size. Aside from that though, it would be fine to have one teacher with 9 students and another teacher with 72 students. The teacher with 75 is getting paid 8x as much as the teacher with 9, and the students all get equal quality.

apocalypstyx 8y ago

The more fundamental problem may be that the contemporary horizon of meaning has so contracted that we cannot conceptualize of anything not defined in terms of "customers" or "product" (or "war").

whb07 8y ago
I’m not sure I follow. Care to expand how one can serve someone they aren’t beholden to in some way?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- username223 8y ago
  Fiduciary duty? Hippocratic oath? Pride in a job well done? Friendship? Altruism? Empathy? There are plenty of ways.
  - gridlockd 8y ago
    ...none of which work "at scale". If they did, we would be living in completely different societies. People unduly ascribe all sorts of virtues to teachers. Case in point, look at everyone's favorite "socialist" country: Sweden. Schooling has improved significantly after privatization with a voucher system.
    - username223 8y ago
      Any links about Sweden? Most voucher efforts in the US seem to work by taking the best students and/or most engaged parents out of the public schools. And Swedish PISA test scores seem to have floated around 500 for the last 15 years, with a slight downward trend, if any.
      - njepa 8y ago
        As far as I know schooling hasn't improved in Sweden because of the voucher system, instead schools have fallen behind the neighboring countries which have more traditional systems.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

Nasrudith 8y ago

Education is a messy topic to optimize as well for "customers" as they may not know best either. That isn't exclusive to education of course. It is why tenure is a thing - what is true and right may not be popular. They do get a reward for doing well but it is very long term - if they are successful and society could get better funding and well liked for being a success story.