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As someone who doesn't have kids, I always feel ridiculously uninformed about the whole education debate. From a distance it seems to be: - administrators cor

As someone who doesn't have kids, I always feel ridiculously uninformed about the whole education debate. From a distance it seems to be: - administrators correctly determine we need to use metrics - administrators then choose crap metrics - teachers rightly point out that crap metrics create an incentive to tune performance towards those crap metrics - teachers then conclude that metrics in general are a bad approach So then presto, we have an argument where one side is defending crap metrics, and the other side is attacking the general idea of metrics.

teach 14y ago
I think the real problem is that nobody has any good metrics that will work 1) cheaply enough and 2) at scale. Give me 25 students and two hours, and I can write a paragraph for each kid very accurately detailing their strengths and weakness in writing computer code (my area of expertise). But even with 15 years of classroom experience, I still can't design a curriculum that works for someone that isn't me.
- crpatino 14y ago
  Actually, it is quite easy to devise a system that will scale within reasonable cost. // Initialization For each grade in 1 to N-1 let teacher[grade] = class[grade].teacher; end for let teacher[N] = peerFromNearbySchool(); // Main loop, do term after term. For each grade in 1 to N let teacher[grade+1] = (grade < N) ? class[grade+1].teacher : peerFromNearbySchool(); //Basic adversary strategy //1. Have someone with actual situational awareness // and stakes on the game choose the measures. let teacher[grade+1].design(exam[grade]); //2. Implement checks and balances to avoid abuses. teacher[grade+1].send(exam[grade], principal); try principal.disclose(exam[grade], teacher[grade]); catch UnfairnessError(err) let principal.dealWith(err.complexSolution()); //3. Measure, take decisions and deal with corner cases. for each student in class[grade] note = student.take(exam[grade]); if (note < std.threshold) student.flunk(); else student.pass(grade+1); if (student.isALuckyIdiot()) let teacher[grade+1].dealWith(student, next_term); end for //student end for //grade //
jlarocco 14y ago
The part that gets me is that teachers always complain the government is imposing testing requirements on them, but if anybody mentions taking the government out of education, or switching to a voucher system, then the teachers unions are the first ones rallying against it. They can't have it both ways. If they're going to be part of the government then they have to accept the fact that voters get to decide how their performance is measured.
- te_chris 14y ago
  That's a ridiculous argument. The binary decision is not crap govt. schools or a voucher system. You american's are crazy the way that that has become a culturally conditioned, rational response to such situations. The solution is to make govt. provided education better. Like it is in New Zealand where I was publicly educated. Reading stuff about the american school system is quite horrifying from over here: children never exposed to music and art? 160 Public schools with no libraries? What the hell kind of system is running over there when one can be part of the wealthiest nation in human history yet that nation is incapable of delivering quality public education to all its citizens?!
  - robotresearcher 14y ago
    "You american's are crazy", "american school system" Perhaps the NZ school system could have spent a bit more time on the capitalization of proper nouns and the where to put a possessive apostrophe with a plural. It's easy to criticize. Harder to find solutions. NZ's history, culture and scale are quite different. Got any ideas?
    - te_chris 14y ago
      Nitpicking grammar on a casual internet forum is a great way to win an argument. I post on here (like most I'd imagine) as a distraction from the more mundane parts of my job, forgive me for not applying enough rigor to my grammar in such a context... While you were busy being condescending and not making a point, you ignored my main point that, with the amount of money the Americans (happy?) have available to them, the answer should not just be blow up the entire system because GP has a hardon for libertarianism, but to use the vast resources available to make the system better, and allocate more if need be.
philwelch 14y ago
Even good metrics would be resisted by teachers. Unionized workers don't want their performance to be subject to metrics when it can instead be subject to more subjective measures they can more easily game.
- king_jester 14y ago
  This is a bit of a distortion. The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) doesn't oppose testing wholesale, but rather the use of standardized test results to generate new policy, something that test makers explicitly said their tests are not useful for: http://www.uft.org/teaching/hot-topics/testing http://www.uft.org/teaching/hot-topics/testing
  - greedo 14y ago
    And that's crazy. Why wouldn't you want test results to affect policy? I posit that the UFT is being a bit disingenuous.
rthomas6 14y ago
Part of the issue is how to measure future success? Research is starting to show that qualitative indicators in children are indicative of future successes as much as (or even more than) quantitative test scores. These "qualitative indicators" include things like self-control, delaying gratification, and social skills. What metrics would you consider good? That is, measurements that accurately predict future successes in life? Reading comprehension and math ability honestly sound like decent metrics to me, but they're clearly not working as intended. What sorts of things do you think we should measure instead? I don't really have any good ideas myself.
- tunesmith 14y ago
  Yeah, these are very good questions. It's easy to pick an arbitrary metric that seems like it would measure the right thing, but doesn't. I usually try to stick to the specific phrasing - what is the test that measures your definition of success, such that if the test passes, success is definitely going up, and if the test fails, success is definitely going down? Even before that step, part of the problem is that we have to have a definition of success before we can determine how to measure it. Ask people what the goal of the education system is, and you'll get many different responses.
jbattle 14y ago
Why do teachers need to be evaluated by metrics at all? Every professional (software dev) job I've had has managed to do a reasonably good job selecting and promoting the right people. Not perfect, but well enough. Why is teaching the only domain where adults are unable to make professional judgments about coworkers?
- tunesmith 14y ago
  Well, there are some built-in standards that go along with being a software developer. Like, does it compile?

teach 14y ago

I think the real problem is that nobody has any good metrics that will work 1) cheaply enough and 2) at scale. Give me 25 students and two hours, and I can write a paragraph for each kid very accurately detailing their strengths and weakness in writing computer code (my area of expertise). But even with 15 years of classroom experience, I still can't design a curriculum that works for someone that isn't me.

crpatino 14y ago
Actually, it is quite easy to devise a system that will scale within reasonable cost. // Initialization For each grade in 1 to N-1 let teacher[grade] = class[grade].teacher; end for let teacher[N] = peerFromNearbySchool(); // Main loop, do term after term. For each grade in 1 to N let teacher[grade+1] = (grade < N) ? class[grade+1].teacher : peerFromNearbySchool(); //Basic adversary strategy //1. Have someone with actual situational awareness // and stakes on the game choose the measures. let teacher[grade+1].design(exam[grade]); //2. Implement checks and balances to avoid abuses. teacher[grade+1].send(exam[grade], principal); try principal.disclose(exam[grade], teacher[grade]); catch UnfairnessError(err) let principal.dealWith(err.complexSolution()); //3. Measure, take decisions and deal with corner cases. for each student in class[grade] note = student.take(exam[grade]); if (note < std.threshold) student.flunk(); else student.pass(grade+1); if (student.isALuckyIdiot()) let teacher[grade+1].dealWith(student, next_term); end for //student end for //grade //

jlarocco 14y ago

The part that gets me is that teachers always complain the government is imposing testing requirements on them, but if anybody mentions taking the government out of education, or switching to a voucher system, then the teachers unions are the first ones rallying against it. They can't have it both ways. If they're going to be part of the government then they have to accept the fact that voters get to decide how their performance is measured.

te_chris 14y ago
That's a ridiculous argument. The binary decision is not crap govt. schools or a voucher system. You american's are crazy the way that that has become a culturally conditioned, rational response to such situations. The solution is to make govt. provided education better. Like it is in New Zealand where I was publicly educated. Reading stuff about the american school system is quite horrifying from over here: children never exposed to music and art? 160 Public schools with no libraries? What the hell kind of system is running over there when one can be part of the wealthiest nation in human history yet that nation is incapable of delivering quality public education to all its citizens?!
- robotresearcher 14y ago
  "You american's are crazy", "american school system" Perhaps the NZ school system could have spent a bit more time on the capitalization of proper nouns and the where to put a possessive apostrophe with a plural. It's easy to criticize. Harder to find solutions. NZ's history, culture and scale are quite different. Got any ideas?
  - te_chris 14y ago
    Nitpicking grammar on a casual internet forum is a great way to win an argument. I post on here (like most I'd imagine) as a distraction from the more mundane parts of my job, forgive me for not applying enough rigor to my grammar in such a context... While you were busy being condescending and not making a point, you ignored my main point that, with the amount of money the Americans (happy?) have available to them, the answer should not just be blow up the entire system because GP has a hardon for libertarianism, but to use the vast resources available to make the system better, and allocate more if need be.

philwelch 14y ago

Even good metrics would be resisted by teachers. Unionized workers don't want their performance to be subject to metrics when it can instead be subject to more subjective measures they can more easily game.

king_jester 14y ago
This is a bit of a distortion. The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) doesn't oppose testing wholesale, but rather the use of standardized test results to generate new policy, something that test makers explicitly said their tests are not useful for: http://www.uft.org/teaching/hot-topics/testing http://www.uft.org/teaching/hot-topics/testing
- greedo 14y ago
  And that's crazy. Why wouldn't you want test results to affect policy? I posit that the UFT is being a bit disingenuous.

rthomas6 14y ago

Part of the issue is how to measure future success? Research is starting to show that qualitative indicators in children are indicative of future successes as much as (or even more than) quantitative test scores. These "qualitative indicators" include things like self-control, delaying gratification, and social skills. What metrics would you consider good? That is, measurements that accurately predict future successes in life? Reading comprehension and math ability honestly sound like decent metrics to me, but they're clearly not working as intended. What sorts of things do you think we should measure instead? I don't really have any good ideas myself.

tunesmith 14y ago
Yeah, these are very good questions. It's easy to pick an arbitrary metric that seems like it would measure the right thing, but doesn't. I usually try to stick to the specific phrasing - what is the test that measures your definition of success, such that if the test passes, success is definitely going up, and if the test fails, success is definitely going down? Even before that step, part of the problem is that we have to have a definition of success before we can determine how to measure it. Ask people what the goal of the education system is, and you'll get many different responses.

jbattle 14y ago

Why do teachers need to be evaluated by metrics at all? Every professional (software dev) job I've had has managed to do a reasonably good job selecting and promoting the right people. Not perfect, but well enough. Why is teaching the only domain where adults are unable to make professional judgments about coworkers?

tunesmith 14y ago
Well, there are some built-in standards that go along with being a software developer. Like, does it compile?