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>Taking this into account, it's silly to argue that since they have tenure, too, tenure isn't the problem here. They already have the right people teaching. We

>Taking this into account, it's silly to argue that since they have tenure, too, tenure isn't the problem here. They already have the right people teaching. We need to fire many of the people who are currently teaching. If you want to fire a big chunk of your teachers, that's fine. You just need to ensure the people you are replacing them with are better, and you do that by having higher requirements, paying them more, and giving them a better environment to work in. That means smaller classes, more autonomy, not relying on standardized tests for compensation, and a whole host of other things the US fails at. Let's say you had a big tech company with thousands of mediocre programmers. You want to fire them and hire better ones, but before you do that you have to ask why you had so many lousy programmers in the first place. Why did good programmers decide not to work for your company, and how will you both attract them and convince them to stay? The US seems to think it can get highly qualified teachers by providing working environments akin to code monkey cubicle farms, and they're simply wrong.

jseliger 15y ago
you do that by having higher requirements Actually, the problem is that we can't predict what makes good teachers. Studies have consistently shown—see my post below for more—that Master's degrees, for instance, don't predict success. Malcolm Gladwell writes about this issue here: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/12/15/081215fa_fact_gladwell http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/12/15/081215fa_fact_... . That means smaller classes, more autonomy, not relying on standardized tests for compensation, and a whole host of other things the US fails at. The first doesn't measurably improve outcome either. The second sounds good. The third is a bit of red herring: I don't know any serious reformer who says that performance should be measured entirely based on testing or that testing is perfect. It isn't. But if you don't have some standardized measure, you can't even make comparisons.

jseliger 15y ago

you do that by having higher requirements Actually, the problem is that we can't predict what makes good teachers. Studies have consistently shown—see my post below for more—that Master's degrees, for instance, don't predict success. Malcolm Gladwell writes about this issue here: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/12/15/081215fa_fact_gladwell http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/12/15/081215fa_fact_... . That means smaller classes, more autonomy, not relying on standardized tests for compensation, and a whole host of other things the US fails at. The first doesn't measurably improve outcome either. The second sounds good. The third is a bit of red herring: I don't know any serious reformer who says that performance should be measured entirely based on testing or that testing is perfect. It isn't. But if you don't have some standardized measure, you can't even make comparisons.