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The problem is that there is absolutely no policy that could be implemented that would bring black students to the performance levels of Asian students. So they

The problem is that there is absolutely no policy that could be implemented that would bring black students to the performance levels of Asian students. So they have to stop letting the Asian students perform.

WalterBright 4y ago
Oh, there definitely is. Pay the teachers bonuses based on how many of their students achieve at grade level. I propose this often, and it inspires massive pushback every time. Just give the teachers a $1,000 bonus for every such kid. Give the teachers a free hand in how to go about it. It'll be the cheapest and most effective boost to education you've ever seen.
- cwalv 4y ago
  You'd have to give a very free hand, and it'd likely end up with many students being kicked out of class. So they'd have fewer students, and close to all of the ones that stayed would be achieving at grade level. Not sure if that's better or worse in the end ...
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    If they get more achieving grade level, isn't that what we want?
    - edmundsauto 4y ago
      Not necessarily if it means there will be a barbell curve, and we get equal or more students doing even worse. Teachers will quickly bucket kids into 3-4 groups: 1. Doing fine, no need to even pay attention to these kids. Now your top performers don't grow as much. 2. On the edge - where most attention will go 3. Meh - maybe a small percentage jump into category 2, where they will be cared about 4. Let them rot - most of the kids at the bottom will just be let to rot
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        Do you really think that they aren't already letting the bottom quartile rot? It's hard to see how things could be worse. In my career in public schools, I never noticed any efforts by the teachers to grow the top quartile. Or anyone else, for that matter. I attended 4 public schools in different locales. I was pretty much ignored by all the teachers. I remember first grade. The teacher would set us up in a circle, each student reading one sentence. I found this very dull, and so read the rest of the book while the other students would grind out the sentences. The teacher then asked what the students guessed the next chapter was about. I of course piped up and dumped a summary of the rest of the book. The teacher was not amused, and curtly told me I was not allowed to read ahead of the class. Nurtured, my adze. Things have probably gotten worse since. For example, Seattle got rid of all their gifted tracks.
        spoonjim 4y ago
        I went to a public school where the entire motive energy of the staff was applied to the top quartile. Being in that quartile, it was really great. Every class was leveled and the best teachers taught Honors classes. I cannot describe how refreshing it was to be in a class where those 2 or 3 disruptive kids had just... disappeared. This is also fundamentally a better way to run a country. It really doesn't matter whether the bottom student in the school does or doesn't learn how to add two three-digit numbers by the time he graduates high school. But the top student learning more advanced topics could actually matter.
- ramblenode 4y ago
  This is just a carrot version of the NCLB policy. Public school administrators already push teachers to focus on low performers. Teachers hate it because the rest of the class stagnates from not getting attention and the low performers often don't improve much because of serious home-life problems that teachers can't fix.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    Carrots make all the difference. Private industry uses monetary incentives all the time. They do it because it works.
    - samtho 4y ago
      A carrot in the right place makes all the difference, the issue here is this is not the place that the carrot needs to be. Most thought-work, learning in this case, is intrinsically motivated. We can classify this motivation as being one or more of the following needs: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. In order for that kind of motivation to function, basic needs must be met. A teacher can have as many carrots dangled in front of them, but you’ve given them an impossible task in a large number of cases.
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        > this is not the place that the carrot needs to be The carrot is placed exactly where we want it - results. > you’ve given them an impossible task I don't buy that for a minute. It's amazing how people find ways to accomplish impossible tasks when the right motivation is given.
    - cmh89 4y ago
      >They do it because it works. You're making an assumption that the issue is that the teachers aren't putting in the effort. Children are not simple input/output machines you program. A food insecure child with illiterate parents is going to require individualized and intensive resources, where a child who has Doctors for parents will generally show up to school with the knowledge they need. Gamification of schools is a really great way to get teachers to completely ignore the development of most of the class to focus on one or two kids. It's amazing that after the widely documented failure of NCLB, people are still promoting these 'work harder' systems.
- WillPostForFood 4y ago
  In corrupt incompetent institutions that's going to create all sorts of perverse incentives. How about $1,000 bonus for every arrest a cop makes? It is also insulting to teachers, as if they could have been doing a great job getting the kids to grade level, but chose not to because they weren't financially incentivized enough to do their job.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    > that's going to create all sorts of perverse incentives That's why you assign the kids to teachers at random, and an independent 3rd party does the assessment. > It is also insulting to teachers Only the incompetent ones. The competent ones will be happy to collect those thousand dollar checks. P.S. Write me a check for $1,000, and I'll cheerfully endure your insults.
  - jjav 4y ago
    > It is also insulting to teachers, as if they could have been doing a great job getting the kids to grade level, but chose not to because they weren't financially incentivized enough to do their job. It may not be the same people though. If teaching in the US was a well-paid and highly respected profession it would presumably retain the most qualified teachers instead of driving them away due to having to find a living wage elsewhere.
    - WillPostForFood 4y ago
      Again, that's an insult by implication. That the current failing are due to incompetent teachers and we can fix the problem by paying higher quality teachers to replace them.
- CJefferson 4y ago
  Is that average over the country? Because there are regions where almost every student is already above average, and regions where they are below. This sounds like a way of funneling the best teachers into the already best schools in the richest areas, and making it impossible to employ good teachers in poorer regions -- unless you have a plan to fix this (I realise you've only given a tiny explanation).
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    You could modify the plan so the bonus only happens for the kids who didn't meet grade level the previous year. That way, the best teachers would want to teach the low performers, because that's where the max bonuses would be.
    - CJefferson 4y ago
      This would seem to involve independant, standardised testing to be held on all students, every year. Letting teachers, or even the school, evaluate students would obviously make it too easy for biases. I will admit I'm in the UK, not the US, but we only do huge standardised tests every 3 years or so, as they are very disruptive.
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        You're right that an independent 3rd party would be needed to administer the tests.
    - aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 4y ago
      My mind swims with the perverse incentives this would engender.
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        Terrifying, isn't it? Trying something new!
- Meekro 4y ago
  Why not cut out the middleman and pay the kid? Go to the poorest high school in town, tell the kids they each get $1,000 at the end of the school year if their performance is at grade level (and $5,000 if they're in the top 10%), and watch the place transform overnight.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    I like the way you think!
hintymad 4y ago
Of course there is, just as there was a way for poor rural kids in China to go to the top universities: have public schools offer excellent educations. Pay teachers to offer after-school programs. Pay teachers to give challenging course work. Pay teacher to give timely and frequent feedbacks. It's not about leaving no kids behind, as some kids are simply not good at academics. It's about giving the brights kids, no matter where they come from, a chance to succeed. BTW, there's nothing secret about Asian students' performance. It's just that even the poor families would know to pool the limited resources to educate their kids.

WalterBright 4y ago

Oh, there definitely is. Pay the teachers bonuses based on how many of their students achieve at grade level. I propose this often, and it inspires massive pushback every time. Just give the teachers a $1,000 bonus for every such kid. Give the teachers a free hand in how to go about it. It'll be the cheapest and most effective boost to education you've ever seen.

cwalv 4y ago
You'd have to give a very free hand, and it'd likely end up with many students being kicked out of class. So they'd have fewer students, and close to all of the ones that stayed would be achieving at grade level. Not sure if that's better or worse in the end ...
- WalterBright 4y ago
  If they get more achieving grade level, isn't that what we want?
  - edmundsauto 4y ago
    Not necessarily if it means there will be a barbell curve, and we get equal or more students doing even worse. Teachers will quickly bucket kids into 3-4 groups: 1. Doing fine, no need to even pay attention to these kids. Now your top performers don't grow as much. 2. On the edge - where most attention will go 3. Meh - maybe a small percentage jump into category 2, where they will be cared about 4. Let them rot - most of the kids at the bottom will just be let to rot
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      Do you really think that they aren't already letting the bottom quartile rot? It's hard to see how things could be worse. In my career in public schools, I never noticed any efforts by the teachers to grow the top quartile. Or anyone else, for that matter. I attended 4 public schools in different locales. I was pretty much ignored by all the teachers. I remember first grade. The teacher would set us up in a circle, each student reading one sentence. I found this very dull, and so read the rest of the book while the other students would grind out the sentences. The teacher then asked what the students guessed the next chapter was about. I of course piped up and dumped a summary of the rest of the book. The teacher was not amused, and curtly told me I was not allowed to read ahead of the class. Nurtured, my adze. Things have probably gotten worse since. For example, Seattle got rid of all their gifted tracks.
      - spoonjim 4y ago
        I went to a public school where the entire motive energy of the staff was applied to the top quartile. Being in that quartile, it was really great. Every class was leveled and the best teachers taught Honors classes. I cannot describe how refreshing it was to be in a class where those 2 or 3 disruptive kids had just... disappeared. This is also fundamentally a better way to run a country. It really doesn't matter whether the bottom student in the school does or doesn't learn how to add two three-digit numbers by the time he graduates high school. But the top student learning more advanced topics could actually matter.
ramblenode 4y ago
This is just a carrot version of the NCLB policy. Public school administrators already push teachers to focus on low performers. Teachers hate it because the rest of the class stagnates from not getting attention and the low performers often don't improve much because of serious home-life problems that teachers can't fix.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  Carrots make all the difference. Private industry uses monetary incentives all the time. They do it because it works.
  - samtho 4y ago
    A carrot in the right place makes all the difference, the issue here is this is not the place that the carrot needs to be. Most thought-work, learning in this case, is intrinsically motivated. We can classify this motivation as being one or more of the following needs: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. In order for that kind of motivation to function, basic needs must be met. A teacher can have as many carrots dangled in front of them, but you’ve given them an impossible task in a large number of cases.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      > this is not the place that the carrot needs to be The carrot is placed exactly where we want it - results. > you’ve given them an impossible task I don't buy that for a minute. It's amazing how people find ways to accomplish impossible tasks when the right motivation is given.
  - cmh89 4y ago
    >They do it because it works. You're making an assumption that the issue is that the teachers aren't putting in the effort. Children are not simple input/output machines you program. A food insecure child with illiterate parents is going to require individualized and intensive resources, where a child who has Doctors for parents will generally show up to school with the knowledge they need. Gamification of schools is a really great way to get teachers to completely ignore the development of most of the class to focus on one or two kids. It's amazing that after the widely documented failure of NCLB, people are still promoting these 'work harder' systems.
WillPostForFood 4y ago
In corrupt incompetent institutions that's going to create all sorts of perverse incentives. How about $1,000 bonus for every arrest a cop makes? It is also insulting to teachers, as if they could have been doing a great job getting the kids to grade level, but chose not to because they weren't financially incentivized enough to do their job.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  > that's going to create all sorts of perverse incentives That's why you assign the kids to teachers at random, and an independent 3rd party does the assessment. > It is also insulting to teachers Only the incompetent ones. The competent ones will be happy to collect those thousand dollar checks. P.S. Write me a check for $1,000, and I'll cheerfully endure your insults.
- jjav 4y ago
  > It is also insulting to teachers, as if they could have been doing a great job getting the kids to grade level, but chose not to because they weren't financially incentivized enough to do their job. It may not be the same people though. If teaching in the US was a well-paid and highly respected profession it would presumably retain the most qualified teachers instead of driving them away due to having to find a living wage elsewhere.
  - WillPostForFood 4y ago
    Again, that's an insult by implication. That the current failing are due to incompetent teachers and we can fix the problem by paying higher quality teachers to replace them.
CJefferson 4y ago
Is that average over the country? Because there are regions where almost every student is already above average, and regions where they are below. This sounds like a way of funneling the best teachers into the already best schools in the richest areas, and making it impossible to employ good teachers in poorer regions -- unless you have a plan to fix this (I realise you've only given a tiny explanation).
- WalterBright 4y ago
  You could modify the plan so the bonus only happens for the kids who didn't meet grade level the previous year. That way, the best teachers would want to teach the low performers, because that's where the max bonuses would be.
  - CJefferson 4y ago
    This would seem to involve independant, standardised testing to be held on all students, every year. Letting teachers, or even the school, evaluate students would obviously make it too easy for biases. I will admit I'm in the UK, not the US, but we only do huge standardised tests every 3 years or so, as they are very disruptive.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      You're right that an independent 3rd party would be needed to administer the tests.
  - aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 4y ago
    My mind swims with the perverse incentives this would engender.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      Terrifying, isn't it? Trying something new!
Meekro 4y ago
Why not cut out the middleman and pay the kid? Go to the poorest high school in town, tell the kids they each get $1,000 at the end of the school year if their performance is at grade level (and $5,000 if they're in the top 10%), and watch the place transform overnight.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  I like the way you think!

hintymad 4y ago

Of course there is, just as there was a way for poor rural kids in China to go to the top universities: have public schools offer excellent educations. Pay teachers to offer after-school programs. Pay teachers to give challenging course work. Pay teacher to give timely and frequent feedbacks. It's not about leaving no kids behind, as some kids are simply not good at academics. It's about giving the brights kids, no matter where they come from, a chance to succeed. BTW, there's nothing secret about Asian students' performance. It's just that even the poor families would know to pool the limited resources to educate their kids.