5 ms·

Why haven't schools adopted the business model of "hiring great people and letting them do what they do best"? Pay them well, give them support, infrastructure,

by j2kun 12y ago

Why haven't schools adopted the business model of "hiring great people and letting them do what they do best"? Pay them well, give them support, infrastructure, and enough oversight to help them resolve their issues quickly and effectively...and then just trust them to be productive and successful. Is it a lack of funding that stops this from being a reality? A lack of qualified applicants? Is there a good reason this model wouldn't work?

jshen 12y ago
Schools have a fixed level of funding. If employees do an amazing job it does not increase revenue. I.e it's not a business. How many great peopke do you know that will take 60k a year in salary?
- a3n 12y ago
  ... with too many students, more each year, and ridiculous amounts of homework assigned, so much that there's no way a teacher can even look at it all (on your own time at night) much less evaluate it, ...
  - barry-cotter 12y ago
    There is at least a solution to that one, stop assigning homework. It has no positive effects before middle school that anyone has been able to find. Are we wasting our children's time by giving them more homework? Ozkan Erena, Daniel J. Henderson Following an identification strategy that allows us to largely eliminate unobserved student and teacher traits, we examine the effect of homework on math, science, English and history test scores for eighth grade students in the United States. Noting that failure to control for these effects yields selection biases on the estimated effect of homework, we find that math homework has a large and statistically meaningful effect on math test scores throughout our sample. However, additional homework in science, English and history are shown to have little to no impact on their respective test scores.
    - keithpeter 12y ago
      I suspect that finding is more about the testing process than the content of the homework. Google 'flipped classroom' (which is often IT based but need not be) for a common approach in UK.
magpi3 12y ago
That would require the state giving up some measure of control, which is the opposite of how it generally tries to solve problems.
wyager 12y ago
A) There is a finite supply of great teachers. Only tele-teaching technology might allow great teachers reach every student B) Letting great teachers do their thing would require the government to voluntarily give a large group of people autonomy (which is why many great teachers elect to take a lower salary at a private school, where they have more latitude)
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- barry-cotter 12y ago
  You got a citation for that?
billsix 12y ago
How much should they get paid? Who are these great people and where do I find them? How much oversight should they be given without restricting them? How much should I trust the teacher vs a few vocal parents? Vs the silent majority? The reason why your model wouldn't work is that nothing concrete was stated.
kaitai 12y ago
It works quite well in other countries (for instance, Finland). We have a few problems in the US: -- no profit in it (as observed above) -- we don't really respect teachers or education in the US -- school boards and local politicians want control over curricula and political agendas. Can you imagine some bright amazing young teacher teaching unadulterated evolution in some counties in Texas? Kids are seen as a cost, not an asset or an investment, and we like to cut costs. And I do think there are broad swathes of the political establishment that are really invested in keeping America dumb.
- jorgecastillo 12y ago
  >And I do think there are broad swathes of the political establishment that are really invested in keeping America dumb. To me this sounds as crazy as thinking that the US government knew about 9/11. Unless your under living under extraordinary circumstances (a disease bankrupting you, etc) nothing can stop you from learning. People choose how they spend their free time if they choose to watch TV instead of learning, it's their own choice not some mandate from the establishment.
- xorcist 12y ago
  > we don't really respect teachers or education in the US That's probably the most important answer right there. If teachers had the same, or even higher, status in society as doctors and lawyers (had just as many tv-series where they were superstars etc.) we wouldn't be having this discussion at all. The same issues with measuring performance exists in those other jobs as well, but the perspective on teaching is always from the top. Everone's an expert in a way that's not true for law and medicine (to carry on the metaphor above).
  - aetherson 12y ago
    There are tons of bad doctors and lawyers out there.
- j2kun 12y ago
  > Kids are seen as a cost, not an asset or an investment I doubt people are actively trying to keep the population dumb, but this sounds like it would have such a side-effect.
Quizz 12y ago
The problems of inner city schools go beyond the education system. It's like trying to fix Iraq by sending more doctors - it does little to address the root cause.
pinkyand 12y ago
Elizabeth Green , in her book[1] claims that this whole debate regarding teacher evaluation, free markets VS teacher autonomy is wrong. The answer lies in better teacher training. [2] Is an interesting article about that, which shows what can be done and how does it work when you offer better teacher training. [1]http://www.amazon.com/Building-Better-Teacher-Teaching-Everyone/dp/0393081591/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=13MH7ES531K70S21N75S http://www.amazon.com/Building-Better-Teacher-Teaching-Every... [2]http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Teachers-t.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Teachers-t.html...
gaius 12y ago
Because there's no way to weed out under performers, the teachers unions block every attempt at doing so. So the system must be highly regulated and inspected to limit the damage that bad teachers can do. The weird thing is, good teachers are happy to be shackled to the same system, collective pay bargaining etc. If bad teachers could be fired! then the money spent on inspections would easily cover better pay for the good ones. But the unions must be smashed first.
- Iftheshoefits 12y ago
  So you don't actually have any understanding of how schools, teachers' unions, funding, and education work then. Or were you being sarcastic?
  - gaius 12y ago
    This is an argument often used by teachers to shut down debate, but what you forget is we have all been to school. We know what goes on first hand, everyone does. So I hear teachers whine about their long hours, but I remember perfectly well that "teaching" consists of putting a video on then going outside for a smoke. For the same pay as the guy who actually does a lesson.
    - Iftheshoefits 12y ago
      Your first comment wasn't about debate, so it's curious you'd imply otherwise. You'd do well to consider that not all teachers act the way you describe; but that might require some small effort on your part to get over yourself.
- applicative 12y ago
  And this is why charter schools are such a sterling success? This is why West European schools are uniformly catastrophic wastelands compared to ours? -- This experiment has already been run repeatedly, there is nothing in it at all.
TeMPOraL 12y ago
> and then just trust them Herein lies the problem. People in control of the system are afraid to trust. It's a tradeoff for them, and they choose heavily standarized education that delivers mediocre but predictable and consistent results over an education that could deliver significantly better results but is much harder to quantify. They also get measured and promoted based on some performance metrics , so it's not surprising that they decided to screw up the system to make it more quantifiable.
- mjklin 12y ago
  "We've even got the children blinking in unison...(blink)...I love that sound!" - Principal Skinner
aetherson 12y ago
How do you hire great people? Seriously. This is a perennial topic here at HN, and we don't have good answers. We know that interviews don't work. We know that tests can help weed out the truly unqualified, but can't reliably identify great candidates. Ultimately, we mostly fall back to "hire quickly, fire quickly." And now we're right back to evaluating performance and firing.
- joelgrus 12y ago
  This. Think about how hard it is to figure out who is going to be a good developer, and then think about how much harder it is to figure out who is going to be a good teacher.
  - j2kun 12y ago
    Why not simply put them in a classroom and watch them teach? Give them a day of lecturing to (existing) classes on whatever topic they want (or you can pick the topic). The incumbent teacher can observe and comment. Or you could hire them on a trial basis (one year) with oversight. There aren't any trade secrets to hide here.
    - dhimes 12y ago
      Often they are on a probationary hire arrangement. When I was in college, I knew of only one person who was competent in our mathematics classes whose aim was to be a HS teacher. For many, teaching is a career they fall into. When a couple starts a family, for instance, one of the spouses will seek a job in teaching so that his or her hours will eventually be aligned with their children's. I know very few successful engineers or journalists (etc.) who switch to a career in teaching. Those folks teach night school at the local college. Maybe if we made teachers, full-time, year-round professionals? I know administrators are, but I'm talking about the people who are actually in the classroom. Summers can be spent improving instruction, maybe in a collaborative session with other teachers. The problem is, again, money. (Edit: spelling and clarity)
      - 12y ago
gadders 12y ago
Unions.

by j2kun 12y ago

jshen 12y ago

Schools have a fixed level of funding. If employees do an amazing job it does not increase revenue. I.e it's not a business. How many great peopke do you know that will take 60k a year in salary?

a3n 12y ago
... with too many students, more each year, and ridiculous amounts of homework assigned, so much that there's no way a teacher can even look at it all (on your own time at night) much less evaluate it, ...
- barry-cotter 12y ago
  There is at least a solution to that one, stop assigning homework. It has no positive effects before middle school that anyone has been able to find. Are we wasting our children's time by giving them more homework? Ozkan Erena, Daniel J. Henderson Following an identification strategy that allows us to largely eliminate unobserved student and teacher traits, we examine the effect of homework on math, science, English and history test scores for eighth grade students in the United States. Noting that failure to control for these effects yields selection biases on the estimated effect of homework, we find that math homework has a large and statistically meaningful effect on math test scores throughout our sample. However, additional homework in science, English and history are shown to have little to no impact on their respective test scores.
  - keithpeter 12y ago
    I suspect that finding is more about the testing process than the content of the homework. Google 'flipped classroom' (which is often IT based but need not be) for a common approach in UK.

magpi3 12y ago

That would require the state giving up some measure of control, which is the opposite of how it generally tries to solve problems.

wyager 12y ago

A) There is a finite supply of great teachers. Only tele-teaching technology might allow great teachers reach every student B) Letting great teachers do their thing would require the government to voluntarily give a large group of people autonomy (which is why many great teachers elect to take a lower salary at a private school, where they have more latitude)

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

barry-cotter 12y ago
You got a citation for that?

billsix 12y ago

How much should they get paid? Who are these great people and where do I find them? How much oversight should they be given without restricting them? How much should I trust the teacher vs a few vocal parents? Vs the silent majority? The reason why your model wouldn't work is that nothing concrete was stated.

kaitai 12y ago

It works quite well in other countries (for instance, Finland). We have a few problems in the US: -- no profit in it (as observed above) -- we don't really respect teachers or education in the US -- school boards and local politicians want control over curricula and political agendas. Can you imagine some bright amazing young teacher teaching unadulterated evolution in some counties in Texas? Kids are seen as a cost, not an asset or an investment, and we like to cut costs. And I do think there are broad swathes of the political establishment that are really invested in keeping America dumb.

jorgecastillo 12y ago
>And I do think there are broad swathes of the political establishment that are really invested in keeping America dumb. To me this sounds as crazy as thinking that the US government knew about 9/11. Unless your under living under extraordinary circumstances (a disease bankrupting you, etc) nothing can stop you from learning. People choose how they spend their free time if they choose to watch TV instead of learning, it's their own choice not some mandate from the establishment.
xorcist 12y ago
> we don't really respect teachers or education in the US That's probably the most important answer right there. If teachers had the same, or even higher, status in society as doctors and lawyers (had just as many tv-series where they were superstars etc.) we wouldn't be having this discussion at all. The same issues with measuring performance exists in those other jobs as well, but the perspective on teaching is always from the top. Everone's an expert in a way that's not true for law and medicine (to carry on the metaphor above).
- aetherson 12y ago
  There are tons of bad doctors and lawyers out there.
j2kun 12y ago
> Kids are seen as a cost, not an asset or an investment I doubt people are actively trying to keep the population dumb, but this sounds like it would have such a side-effect.

Quizz 12y ago

The problems of inner city schools go beyond the education system. It's like trying to fix Iraq by sending more doctors - it does little to address the root cause.

pinkyand 12y ago

Elizabeth Green , in her book[1] claims that this whole debate regarding teacher evaluation, free markets VS teacher autonomy is wrong. The answer lies in better teacher training. [2] Is an interesting article about that, which shows what can be done and how does it work when you offer better teacher training. [1]http://www.amazon.com/Building-Better-Teacher-Teaching-Everyone/dp/0393081591/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=13MH7ES531K70S21N75S http://www.amazon.com/Building-Better-Teacher-Teaching-Every... [2]http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Teachers-t.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Teachers-t.html...

gaius 12y ago

Because there's no way to weed out under performers, the teachers unions block every attempt at doing so. So the system must be highly regulated and inspected to limit the damage that bad teachers can do. The weird thing is, good teachers are happy to be shackled to the same system, collective pay bargaining etc. If bad teachers could be fired! then the money spent on inspections would easily cover better pay for the good ones. But the unions must be smashed first.

Iftheshoefits 12y ago
So you don't actually have any understanding of how schools, teachers' unions, funding, and education work then. Or were you being sarcastic?
- gaius 12y ago
  This is an argument often used by teachers to shut down debate, but what you forget is we have all been to school. We know what goes on first hand, everyone does. So I hear teachers whine about their long hours, but I remember perfectly well that "teaching" consists of putting a video on then going outside for a smoke. For the same pay as the guy who actually does a lesson.
  - Iftheshoefits 12y ago
    Your first comment wasn't about debate, so it's curious you'd imply otherwise. You'd do well to consider that not all teachers act the way you describe; but that might require some small effort on your part to get over yourself.
applicative 12y ago
And this is why charter schools are such a sterling success? This is why West European schools are uniformly catastrophic wastelands compared to ours? -- This experiment has already been run repeatedly, there is nothing in it at all.

TeMPOraL 12y ago

> and then just trust them Herein lies the problem. People in control of the system are afraid to trust. It's a tradeoff for them, and they choose heavily standarized education that delivers mediocre but predictable and consistent results over an education that could deliver significantly better results but is much harder to quantify. They also get measured and promoted based on some performance metrics , so it's not surprising that they decided to screw up the system to make it more quantifiable.

mjklin 12y ago
"We've even got the children blinking in unison...(blink)...I love that sound!" - Principal Skinner

aetherson 12y ago

How do you hire great people? Seriously. This is a perennial topic here at HN, and we don't have good answers. We know that interviews don't work. We know that tests can help weed out the truly unqualified, but can't reliably identify great candidates. Ultimately, we mostly fall back to "hire quickly, fire quickly." And now we're right back to evaluating performance and firing.

joelgrus 12y ago
This. Think about how hard it is to figure out who is going to be a good developer, and then think about how much harder it is to figure out who is going to be a good teacher.
- j2kun 12y ago
  Why not simply put them in a classroom and watch them teach? Give them a day of lecturing to (existing) classes on whatever topic they want (or you can pick the topic). The incumbent teacher can observe and comment. Or you could hire them on a trial basis (one year) with oversight. There aren't any trade secrets to hide here.
  - dhimes 12y ago
    Often they are on a probationary hire arrangement. When I was in college, I knew of only one person who was competent in our mathematics classes whose aim was to be a HS teacher. For many, teaching is a career they fall into. When a couple starts a family, for instance, one of the spouses will seek a job in teaching so that his or her hours will eventually be aligned with their children's. I know very few successful engineers or journalists (etc.) who switch to a career in teaching. Those folks teach night school at the local college. Maybe if we made teachers, full-time, year-round professionals? I know administrators are, but I'm talking about the people who are actually in the classroom. Summers can be spent improving instruction, maybe in a collaborative session with other teachers. The problem is, again, money. (Edit: spelling and clarity)
    - 12y ago

gadders 12y ago

Unions.