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The thing about measurable goals in teaching is that all of them are awful. Economic psychology teaches us that bad incentives are worse than no incentives. The

The thing about measurable goals in teaching is that all of them are awful. Economic psychology teaches us that bad incentives are worse than no incentives. The incentives being promulgated are things like "higher test scores" or "more kids graduating" so the system aligns itself towards teaching the test while simultaneously lowering the bar for everything else. So let's talk about the software analogy. In software, the bar for formal acceptance usually really low. Do test cases pass? Maybe there's an auto-integration test that also must pass, and some requirements checkout QA has to do. You can write terrible code and have it pass the formal process, which is why you see a lot of terrible programmers coasting along at some of the worse companies. Some teams might have more formal requirements but that goes team by team. If you're working anywhere worth working, there'll be a much higher non-formal bar set by your manager, your team, your customers if you're in contact with them. So the incentives are there but they're personal and informal. The 'waterfall' pattern is one example of a misguided attempt to formalize the software dev process and align it with goals. How would software devs feel if some perverse, untouchable bureaucracy measured their code according to ridiculous formal measures from the Central Bureaucracy and arbitrary rules that changed according political whims? That's what teachers are facing. I know some software devs face the same thing, but we always give them the same advice: find a better job. Teachers don't have that option because the bureaucracy is everywhere; but they can go to better (generally richer) schools, where it's a little mitigated, or they can drop out and leave that gaggle of little Kafkas behind forever.

DanielBMarkham 15y ago
"...The thing about measurable goals in teaching is that all of them are awful..." I learned to fly people around in airplanes using various instructional techniques, including at times studying for the test. So do most airline pilots. Seems to work for them. The military has been training people for over 200 years with measurable teaching goals. In fact, some of the best teachers are ex-military. I could continue if you'd like. "...if you're working anywhere worth working--there'll be a much higher non-formal bar set by your manager, your team, your customers if you're in contact with them..." You are throwing out all requirements from any outside bureaucratic structure and then assuming that some informal standard of quality is going to fill the void. I don't know what your experiences are, but this kind of "let's see what happens" mentality doesn't trend toward good things. It's a tragedy of the commons problem. Why do a little bit extra here if somebody else in the organization is going to look at it anyway? Instead, we find that really smart people are great at arguing on and on about technical stuff that has nothing to do with delivery. The only thing that naturally limits this is having testable work due on a fixed date. Otherwise, people would much rather create little complex systems that mirror their favorite technical book or management philosophy. There are no fights that are as vicious as academic fights over the smallest things. The answer here is simple: if it's not measurable, we do not pay for it. I am sure there are lots of teams of really great people leading fulfilling lives creating quality in an ad-hoc manner that will continue doing so. We call these folks artists. There are also people who live the same kind of lives but have measurable results at the end of their creative process. These folks are usually called artistic professionals. Teachers cannot be artists. The public cannot afford them to be so. They can certainly be artistic professionals, but like other artistic professionals there will be some kind of loose structure around their work product and it will be judged at regular intervals. This measure will be centered solely around students, which is natural because the only reason any teacher would be paid would be because of a student. There might be a great argument about how the current tests are bad. But I think that's another discussion. As a side note, and I want to make sure I hit this the right way, I do not care about teachers as such. Yes, I care about the dignity and humanity and kindness we show to all people, but teachers do not get some special place above, say, policemen. Or doctors. They're just like the rest of us. If you try to split up each profession and say we should treat them all in special ways due to the nature of their jobs, it gets much too complex for me to manage. Instead, when I meet somebody we pay our taxes to help us out, I usually try to say "thank you" It doesn't matter to me whether we employ one teacher or ten million. If we could teach all of the students of the country with one teacher, that would be fine with me. The same goes for those other professions.
- cynicalkane 15y ago
  You're not arguing against the point you think you are. You're talking about the setting of micro-incentives to meet a goal by someone interested in a domain. I'm talking about generalized goal-setting by bureaucrats. I'm talking about why the bureaucracy isn't necessary and why we need that individual touch to decide what our goals are or if any are needed. I even admitted that certain subdomains are conducive to goal-setting. I generally include these in 'non-formal' goals because you don't take them from the Central Bureaucracy, you make them up as you go. For instance, say you proposed creating music according to micro-goals. Say we live in the late 1800s. You look at the classical music and you come up with goals regarding tempo, intonation, meter, and some higher goals regarding fit and feel of the music. Then your Central Bureaucracy says, ok, this is the goal for creating music. Congratulations, you just killed jazz, and rock and roll to follow. All musical producers will have their acceptance criteria for recording a track, but it will be different from producer to producer, from musical style to musical style, more formal or less formal, and in general musical innovation comes from moving the goalposts or tearing them down. And yet these are the "creative professionals" you talk about.
  - yummyfajitas 15y ago
    By his definition, musicians are artists. Their goal is to create unique products which satisfy unknown consumer desires. In contrast, teachers are "artistic professionals" (except maybe at level of PhD advisers). Their goal is to use artistic techniques to create products which have achieved a fixed set of goals. Bureaucratic goal setting is not desirable in all circumstances, but it is useful in some.
    - cynicalkane 15y ago
      Actually, I was talking about the producer-musician relationship. The producer's goal is more clearly defined than that of the teacher--"help us make money"--and yet you don't see the RIAA sending down standardized tests for musicians.
- droithomme 15y ago
praxeologist 15y ago
Wow, could these people miss the point more? It isn't about "removing measurable goals", rather letting each school set goals and not the DOE.
- jeffdavis 15y ago
  I see people arguing until they are blue that national standardized testing is bad. But it doesn't get them anywhere because they miss a crucial point: If someone gives money, they want measurable, or at least visible, results. If you want autonomy at the level L (federal/state/county/local), you can't take any money from any level greater than L. You may not want complete autonomy, just a better national system. If that's the case, then you need to come up with a better way to measure results -- not inputs -- and suggest that. If it's really better, then people will listen, and maybe the existing standardized tests will be replaced with this better system. There is less of a demand for testing at the local level, of course, because people generally know pretty well how their local schools are doing. But nobody in Kansas is going to take a tour of schools in Alabama to see if the federal money is being spent wisely. They need a number. It doesn't matter how counterproductive you say it is to collect this number, they will only stop asking for a number when we stop asking for their money.
  - ScottBurson 15y ago
    people generally know pretty well how their local schools are doing Yes, they do, don't they? I think this is the essential fact that keeps getting forgotten. I've long supported voucher systems for just this reason: they return control to the parents. Maybe vouchers aren't the best way to do that; I'm open to alternatives. But I think that's what we have to do. (Edit: formatting)
  - praxeologist 15y ago
    Nobody is giving money to public schools. It is taken under the threat of punishment. If you homeschool or put your kids in private schools, you still pay taxes for public schools. By all measures test scores are not improving in spite of quadrupling the DOE budget over the past 40 years. How about them metrics? This suggests we should abolish the pervasive bureaucracy.

DanielBMarkham 15y ago

"...The thing about measurable goals in teaching is that all of them are awful..." I learned to fly people around in airplanes using various instructional techniques, including at times studying for the test. So do most airline pilots. Seems to work for them. The military has been training people for over 200 years with measurable teaching goals. In fact, some of the best teachers are ex-military. I could continue if you'd like. "...if you're working anywhere worth working--there'll be a much higher non-formal bar set by your manager, your team, your customers if you're in contact with them..." You are throwing out all requirements from any outside bureaucratic structure and then assuming that some informal standard of quality is going to fill the void. I don't know what your experiences are, but this kind of "let's see what happens" mentality doesn't trend toward good things. It's a tragedy of the commons problem. Why do a little bit extra here if somebody else in the organization is going to look at it anyway? Instead, we find that really smart people are great at arguing on and on about technical stuff that has nothing to do with delivery. The only thing that naturally limits this is having testable work due on a fixed date. Otherwise, people would much rather create little complex systems that mirror their favorite technical book or management philosophy. There are no fights that are as vicious as academic fights over the smallest things. The answer here is simple: if it's not measurable, we do not pay for it. I am sure there are lots of teams of really great people leading fulfilling lives creating quality in an ad-hoc manner that will continue doing so. We call these folks artists. There are also people who live the same kind of lives but have measurable results at the end of their creative process. These folks are usually called artistic professionals. Teachers cannot be artists. The public cannot afford them to be so. They can certainly be artistic professionals, but like other artistic professionals there will be some kind of loose structure around their work product and it will be judged at regular intervals. This measure will be centered solely around students, which is natural because the only reason any teacher would be paid would be because of a student. There might be a great argument about how the current tests are bad. But I think that's another discussion. As a side note, and I want to make sure I hit this the right way, I do not care about teachers as such. Yes, I care about the dignity and humanity and kindness we show to all people, but teachers do not get some special place above, say, policemen. Or doctors. They're just like the rest of us. If you try to split up each profession and say we should treat them all in special ways due to the nature of their jobs, it gets much too complex for me to manage. Instead, when I meet somebody we pay our taxes to help us out, I usually try to say "thank you" It doesn't matter to me whether we employ one teacher or ten million. If we could teach all of the students of the country with one teacher, that would be fine with me. The same goes for those other professions.

cynicalkane 15y ago
You're not arguing against the point you think you are. You're talking about the setting of micro-incentives to meet a goal by someone interested in a domain. I'm talking about generalized goal-setting by bureaucrats. I'm talking about why the bureaucracy isn't necessary and why we need that individual touch to decide what our goals are or if any are needed. I even admitted that certain subdomains are conducive to goal-setting. I generally include these in 'non-formal' goals because you don't take them from the Central Bureaucracy, you make them up as you go. For instance, say you proposed creating music according to micro-goals. Say we live in the late 1800s. You look at the classical music and you come up with goals regarding tempo, intonation, meter, and some higher goals regarding fit and feel of the music. Then your Central Bureaucracy says, ok, this is the goal for creating music. Congratulations, you just killed jazz, and rock and roll to follow. All musical producers will have their acceptance criteria for recording a track, but it will be different from producer to producer, from musical style to musical style, more formal or less formal, and in general musical innovation comes from moving the goalposts or tearing them down. And yet these are the "creative professionals" you talk about.
- yummyfajitas 15y ago
  By his definition, musicians are artists. Their goal is to create unique products which satisfy unknown consumer desires. In contrast, teachers are "artistic professionals" (except maybe at level of PhD advisers). Their goal is to use artistic techniques to create products which have achieved a fixed set of goals. Bureaucratic goal setting is not desirable in all circumstances, but it is useful in some.
  - cynicalkane 15y ago
    Actually, I was talking about the producer-musician relationship. The producer's goal is more clearly defined than that of the teacher--"help us make money"--and yet you don't see the RIAA sending down standardized tests for musicians.
droithomme 15y ago

praxeologist 15y ago

Wow, could these people miss the point more? It isn't about "removing measurable goals", rather letting each school set goals and not the DOE.

jeffdavis 15y ago
I see people arguing until they are blue that national standardized testing is bad. But it doesn't get them anywhere because they miss a crucial point: If someone gives money, they want measurable, or at least visible, results. If you want autonomy at the level L (federal/state/county/local), you can't take any money from any level greater than L. You may not want complete autonomy, just a better national system. If that's the case, then you need to come up with a better way to measure results -- not inputs -- and suggest that. If it's really better, then people will listen, and maybe the existing standardized tests will be replaced with this better system. There is less of a demand for testing at the local level, of course, because people generally know pretty well how their local schools are doing. But nobody in Kansas is going to take a tour of schools in Alabama to see if the federal money is being spent wisely. They need a number. It doesn't matter how counterproductive you say it is to collect this number, they will only stop asking for a number when we stop asking for their money.
- ScottBurson 15y ago
  people generally know pretty well how their local schools are doing Yes, they do, don't they? I think this is the essential fact that keeps getting forgotten. I've long supported voucher systems for just this reason: they return control to the parents. Maybe vouchers aren't the best way to do that; I'm open to alternatives. But I think that's what we have to do. (Edit: formatting)
- praxeologist 15y ago
  Nobody is giving money to public schools. It is taken under the threat of punishment. If you homeschool or put your kids in private schools, you still pay taxes for public schools. By all measures test scores are not improving in spite of quadrupling the DOE budget over the past 40 years. How about them metrics? This suggests we should abolish the pervasive bureaucracy.