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Unlike website visitors, the teachers in a school are not acting completely independent of each other, but part of a social group. Even if you could adequately
by raphman 14y ago
Unlike website visitors, the teachers in a school are not acting completely independent of each other, but part of a social group. Even if you could adequately measure their 'teaching quality', you might miss factors that contribute to the success of the school as a whole.
And measuring 'teaching quality' is not a simple as counting ad click-throughs. Education is at least as much about helping people learn about their role in the world, as it is about learning facts, concepts, and tools. Just measuring the increase of students' scores on standardized tests misses a lot of the impact teachers have on their students' minds.
Nobody in his right mind would judge a developer solely on the amount of features he has implemented during the previous year, but also on how robust and maintainable the code is.
I you want to take these factors into account, you have to actually read the code, understand it, and ideally talk to the developer about it.
Unless you do this, you can not judge the quality of the code.
The same holds true for evaluating teachers, imho. Administrators need to talk to students, parents and teachers and form a comprehensive image of a teacher's ability. I really think it is that simple. Certainly not perfect. But not less perfect than standardized testing.
As a German, maybe I am misunderstanding some properties of the US educational system.
- jkn 14y agoThis is spot on. Does anyone know of a single instance of standardized teacher testing that recognizes important teacher qualities beyond their skill in imparting knowledge to students?
- ig1 14y agoDoesn't that just imply that tests are failing to measure what we want teachers to teach and we should fix the tests ? The whole reason that test results are being used as opposed to manual assesment, is that test results have proven to be a better predictor of long term outcomes. Test results aren't perfect but they're better than what was previously used.
- bgruber 14y ago"test results have proven to be a better predictor of long term outcomes" i'm not sure what long term outcomes you're referring to and how they were measured, but if they're education related the measurement was probably more test results. Yes, test results are a good predictor of future test results.
- yummyfajitas 14y agoEducation is at least as much about helping people learn about their role in the world, as it is about learning facts, concepts, and tools. Could you explain what this means more precisely? Specifically, how can I differentiate a student who knows "about their role in the world" from one who doesn't?
- yequalsx 14y agoMaybe it isn't possible to adequately measure this. I'm reminded of the, "I know it when I see it" reasoning famously employed by the Supreme Court. (IN reference to pornography.). I doubt that it is possible to develop adequate metrics to measure teacher ability.
- yummyfajitas 14y agoIf you can't measure it, how do you know it exists? https://iandravid.wordpress.com/2008/01/19/carl-sagan-dragon-in-my-garage/ https://iandravid.wordpress.com/2008/01/19/carl-sagan-dragon...
- DrJokepu 14y agoAfter we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the nonexistence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it -- "I refute it thus." The Life of Samuel Johnson (James Boswell)
- yequalsx 14y agoI gave an example of something that almost everyone agrees exists but is very hard to define or quantify. Anyone can play the game you are playing here. How do you know your measuring device really exists? Your point is without merit.
- ralfd 14y agoRemember the kerfuffle about the bad performance of Germany in the Pisa study? We also sometimes standardized testing, but not to compare individual teachers, but to argue endlessly the slightly different curricula/school policies of the different German states. Addendum: My understanding is, that in the United States anyone can relatively easy train to be a school teacher. In Germany they are tenured civil servants with at least 3-4 years of study.