4 ms·

If we are serious about trying to "break the cycle", one obvious solution is to pay teachers more. Imagine if teaching paid as well as software development.

by blt 7y ago

zamfi 7y ago
> Imagine if teaching paid as well as software development. I’d love this personally. But the organizations that employ teachers do not make the same amount of money, per employee, as organizations that employ software engineers. Depending on your state, your property taxes would need to double or triple to make the math work out. To be clear: I’m not making a comparison of the value provided, just the accounted-for profit. Society as a whole would obviously benefit from exceptional math teachers at every school, but we would need to get creative to pay for it. Perhaps we should be spending less on wars.
- rocqua 7y ago
  Its weird that education is payed for completely by property taxes in the US. The benefits of education go to more than just the (parents of) the recipients of that education. You also get weird incentives for people to reduce these taxes if they send their children to private schools.
  - war1025 7y ago
    I believe the idea of schools being funded by property taxes is that you then spread the cost load out over people of all age groups, in a way to acknowledge that having educated children is a benefit to the community.
  - barry-cotter 7y ago
    > Its weird that education is payed for completely by property taxes in the US. This isn’t true. From the CPC Popular Front funded Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings.edu/research/how-progressive-is-school-funding-in-the-united-states/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/how-progressive-is-school... > School funding systems vary by state, but in the typical state, the financing of K-12 education is shared roughly equally by the state and local governments (with the federal government covering less than 10 percent of the cost). Most states have provisions designed to target additional funding to districts attended by low-income students, with the goal of making up for these districts’ limited capacity to raise revenue through property taxes and other local sources. > Nationwide, per-student K-12 education funding from all sources (local, state, and federal) is similar, on average, at the districts attended by poor students ($12,961) and non-poor students ($12,640), a difference of 2.5 percent in favor of poor students.
  - zamfi 7y ago
    > The benefits of education go to more than just the (parents of) the recipients of that education. I think this is exactly the intent — get the whole county / district to pay, not just the parents, right? And these payments are usually compulsory regardless of whether you have children or send them to private school...
    - rocqua 7y ago
      It should be spread to the state / country level rather than being based on districts is my point.
      - zamfi 7y ago
        At least in California, it is indeed apportioned at the state level.
barry-cotter 7y ago
This would be true if we had any idea what makes a good teacher, or could reliably determine who good teachers are. Neither of those are true. TEACHER QUALITY https://faculty.smu.edu/millimet/classes/eco7321/papers/hanushek%20rivkin%2001.pdf https://faculty.smu.edu/millimet/classes/eco7321/papers/hanu... > Perhaps most remarkable is the finding that a master’s degree has no systematic relationship to teacher quality as measured by student outcomes. This immediately raises a number of issues for policy, because advanced degrees invariably lead to higher teacher salaries and because advanced degrees are required for full certification in a number of states. Indeed, over half of current teachers in the US have a master’s degree or more. Teacher experience has a more positive relationship with student achievement, but still the overall picture is not that strong. While a majority of the studies finds a positive effect, only a minority of all estimates provides statistically significant results. Even the subset of studies that use a value added approach and information from a single state produce a highly variable set of results (see bottom panel in Table 1). If anything, the value-added estimates within individual states suggest more strongly that experience has an impact, although still only 41% of the estimates are statistically significant. It is quite likely that a number of these studies lack the statistical power necessary to identify precisely the experience effects.
- keenmaster 7y ago
  Shouldn’t that study focus on the distribution of types of master’s degrees, and a sub-population analysis showing which ones correlated most with teaching ability? I bet someone with a master’s in math would be better at teaching math than someone with a master’s in teaching theory. Ditto at the undergrad level.
  - barry-cotter 7y ago
    I used to think subject matter expertise helped too. If you find any evidence it does email me, I haven’t found any research to that effect.
    - keenmaster 7y ago
      Undergrad/grad major subject correlates with IQ. The population of teachers that majored in math should have a higher average IQ than the population of teachers who majored in other subjects, controlling for university. I would be shocked if teaching ability didn’t correlate with IQ. I’m sure it’s not a perfect correlation, but it should be there. And yet, I cannot find anything on the subject. That is very suspicious. It’s like no one wants to look into it. Can anyone tell me what’s going on here? Did I miss something, or is it just common sense that the intelligence of your teacher doesn’t matter?
war1025 7y ago
You would also then need a feedback mechanism to ensure you were hiring people worth that extra amount of money.
ken 7y ago
Teachers should be paid more, we all agree, but how will that solve this problem? Are they going to spend their extra cash on mathematics lessons? In their copious free time, I presume. Just like these rich software developers spend all their extra cash on more school. I see a lot of Porsches and BMWs in my neighborhood but curiously none parked at the community college. Are you going to hire different people, who chose to go into computers just because it paid better? I don't see many software developers who would make good elementary teachers. Or would want to try.

If we are serious about trying to "break the cycle", one obvious solution is to pay teachers more. Imagine if teaching paid as well as software development.

by blt 7y ago

If we are serious about trying to "break the cycle", one obvious solution is to pay teachers more. Imagine if teaching paid as well as software development.

zamfi 7y ago

> Imagine if teaching paid as well as software development. I’d love this personally. But the organizations that employ teachers do not make the same amount of money, per employee, as organizations that employ software engineers. Depending on your state, your property taxes would need to double or triple to make the math work out. To be clear: I’m not making a comparison of the value provided, just the accounted-for profit. Society as a whole would obviously benefit from exceptional math teachers at every school, but we would need to get creative to pay for it. Perhaps we should be spending less on wars.

rocqua 7y ago
Its weird that education is payed for completely by property taxes in the US. The benefits of education go to more than just the (parents of) the recipients of that education. You also get weird incentives for people to reduce these taxes if they send their children to private schools.
- war1025 7y ago
  I believe the idea of schools being funded by property taxes is that you then spread the cost load out over people of all age groups, in a way to acknowledge that having educated children is a benefit to the community.
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  > Its weird that education is payed for completely by property taxes in the US. This isn’t true. From the CPC Popular Front funded Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings.edu/research/how-progressive-is-school-funding-in-the-united-states/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/how-progressive-is-school... > School funding systems vary by state, but in the typical state, the financing of K-12 education is shared roughly equally by the state and local governments (with the federal government covering less than 10 percent of the cost). Most states have provisions designed to target additional funding to districts attended by low-income students, with the goal of making up for these districts’ limited capacity to raise revenue through property taxes and other local sources. > Nationwide, per-student K-12 education funding from all sources (local, state, and federal) is similar, on average, at the districts attended by poor students ($12,961) and non-poor students ($12,640), a difference of 2.5 percent in favor of poor students.
- zamfi 7y ago
  > The benefits of education go to more than just the (parents of) the recipients of that education. I think this is exactly the intent — get the whole county / district to pay, not just the parents, right? And these payments are usually compulsory regardless of whether you have children or send them to private school...
  - rocqua 7y ago
    It should be spread to the state / country level rather than being based on districts is my point.
    - zamfi 7y ago
      At least in California, it is indeed apportioned at the state level.

barry-cotter 7y ago

This would be true if we had any idea what makes a good teacher, or could reliably determine who good teachers are. Neither of those are true. TEACHER QUALITY https://faculty.smu.edu/millimet/classes/eco7321/papers/hanushek%20rivkin%2001.pdf https://faculty.smu.edu/millimet/classes/eco7321/papers/hanu... > Perhaps most remarkable is the finding that a master’s degree has no systematic relationship to teacher quality as measured by student outcomes. This immediately raises a number of issues for policy, because advanced degrees invariably lead to higher teacher salaries and because advanced degrees are required for full certification in a number of states. Indeed, over half of current teachers in the US have a master’s degree or more. Teacher experience has a more positive relationship with student achievement, but still the overall picture is not that strong. While a majority of the studies finds a positive effect, only a minority of all estimates provides statistically significant results. Even the subset of studies that use a value added approach and information from a single state produce a highly variable set of results (see bottom panel in Table 1). If anything, the value-added estimates within individual states suggest more strongly that experience has an impact, although still only 41% of the estimates are statistically significant. It is quite likely that a number of these studies lack the statistical power necessary to identify precisely the experience effects.

keenmaster 7y ago
Shouldn’t that study focus on the distribution of types of master’s degrees, and a sub-population analysis showing which ones correlated most with teaching ability? I bet someone with a master’s in math would be better at teaching math than someone with a master’s in teaching theory. Ditto at the undergrad level.
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  I used to think subject matter expertise helped too. If you find any evidence it does email me, I haven’t found any research to that effect.
  - keenmaster 7y ago
    Undergrad/grad major subject correlates with IQ. The population of teachers that majored in math should have a higher average IQ than the population of teachers who majored in other subjects, controlling for university. I would be shocked if teaching ability didn’t correlate with IQ. I’m sure it’s not a perfect correlation, but it should be there. And yet, I cannot find anything on the subject. That is very suspicious. It’s like no one wants to look into it. Can anyone tell me what’s going on here? Did I miss something, or is it just common sense that the intelligence of your teacher doesn’t matter?

war1025 7y ago

You would also then need a feedback mechanism to ensure you were hiring people worth that extra amount of money.

ken 7y ago

Teachers should be paid more, we all agree, but how will that solve this problem? Are they going to spend their extra cash on mathematics lessons? In their copious free time, I presume. Just like these rich software developers spend all their extra cash on more school. I see a lot of Porsches and BMWs in my neighborhood but curiously none parked at the community college. Are you going to hire different people, who chose to go into computers just because it paid better? I don't see many software developers who would make good elementary teachers. Or would want to try.