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>>>You can't compare a teacher that has a class of 15 native english speaking, upper middle class, 2 parent house holds kids to a teacher with a class of 32 eng

by patmcc 13y ago

>>>You can't compare a teacher that has a class of 15 native english speaking, upper middle class, 2 parent house holds kids to a teacher with a class of 32 english as a second langurage, poor, hungry, cold, kids that are children of drug addicts, drunks, refugees especially using test written in English. Nor should you, but hopefully no one is seriously suggesting comparing those two groups directly. What you can do is compare teachers to their peers in similar schools, and see whose students improve more over a given year. If an average student in Teacher A's class goes from reading at level x to x+2 in the course of a year, that's better than going from x to x+1.

dsk139 13y ago
This is making the assumption that a sample size of 30 kids in one school year doesn't have anomalies that will skew the average and that the testing for reading levels such as the DRAs are foolproof?
- patmcc 13y ago
  To your second point, I wouldn't test only reading levels - I'd test whatever we want/expect students to improve in. Reading, writing, math, social skills, happiness, physical fitness, whatever. And sure, we need good solid methods for testing these things, so let's get started on it. To your first point...maybe 30 kids isn't a big enough sample. I'm not suggesting this be implemented tomorrow as the absolute standard on which to judge teachers. Maybe they need to be observed over 3-5 years, maybe we can try to control/adjust for other variables. What bothers me is the idea that because measuring teacher skill/success is difficult, we shouldn't try at all and just use seniority (or absolute test scores) as the single deciding factor.
Iftheshoefits 13y ago
There is a rather large contingent of people in America who suggest exactly that. Broadly, they are generally conservatives who believe that "government" and "evil" are the same thing.

by patmcc 13y ago

dsk139 13y ago

This is making the assumption that a sample size of 30 kids in one school year doesn't have anomalies that will skew the average and that the testing for reading levels such as the DRAs are foolproof?

patmcc 13y ago
To your second point, I wouldn't test only reading levels - I'd test whatever we want/expect students to improve in. Reading, writing, math, social skills, happiness, physical fitness, whatever. And sure, we need good solid methods for testing these things, so let's get started on it. To your first point...maybe 30 kids isn't a big enough sample. I'm not suggesting this be implemented tomorrow as the absolute standard on which to judge teachers. Maybe they need to be observed over 3-5 years, maybe we can try to control/adjust for other variables. What bothers me is the idea that because measuring teacher skill/success is difficult, we shouldn't try at all and just use seniority (or absolute test scores) as the single deciding factor.

Iftheshoefits 13y ago

There is a rather large contingent of people in America who suggest exactly that. Broadly, they are generally conservatives who believe that "government" and "evil" are the same thing.