In OECD Global Skills Study, U.S. Millennials Come Up Short

[fskimospy]

Three words. Fire bad teachers.

Define a 'bad teacher' in terms that can be generally and objectively applied.

 

[oobydoobydoo]

Something tells me the methodology for the test must be wrong. I know every year these studies come out that say all sorts of things about "the children", and consequently the people those children grow into, but come on.... Spain?


Maybe they are only testing children from Texas? Who knows why they are so dumb.

 

[cbrunny]

Define a 'bad teacher' in terms that can be generally and objectively applied.

Would that it were my responsibility to do so. I'm not an expert in education but I can guarantee there are more than zero bad teachers out there.

Shit, I'd be a bad teacher too if all I had to do was show up in order to make sure I could never get fired and to collect a pay cheque.

 

[PokerGuy]

Three words. Fire bad teachers.

You really think the union would allow for any such accountability? hahahahahahaha, funny guy.

That aside, IMO the vast majority of problems are not the result of "bad teachers", but rather bad parents raising bad kids and not participating in their education.

 

[cbrunny]

You really think the union would allow for any such accountability? hahahahahahaha, funny guy.

That aside, IMO the vast majority of problems are not the result of "bad teachers", but rather bad parents raising bad kids and not participating in their education.

fuck the union. that isn't a reason not to fire bad teachers.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Three words. Fire bad teachers.

What impact do demographic characteristics have on the performance of U.S. millennials?
Among all countries, there was a strong relationship between parental levels of educational attainment and skills; across all levels of parental educational attainment, there was no country where millennials scored lower than those in the United States.
The gap in scores between U.S. millennials with the highest level of parental educational attainment and those with the lowest was among the largest of the participating countries...

Firing bad teachers can only accomplish so much; the teachers aren't going to overcome an education-resistant culture fostered by parents who don't care about their children's education. You also assume there's some gigantic pool of qualified teachers to pull from, and that's just not the case. If you fire the bad teachers, where do you find good ones to replace them? Do you offer more money to entice better prospects? We already spend more on education than anywhere else, and that doesn't seem to be enough. It's a cultural problem, and seeing as how we can't fire bad parents, we find ourselves in a bit of a pickle.

 

[realibrad]

Define a 'bad teacher' in terms that can be generally and objectively applied.

A teacher who cannot get the kids up to the standards of their peers.

A bad teacher is not inherently a bad person. I dont have the physical ability to play sports at a pro level, which makes me a bad athlete. I may try as hard as I can, but I will not be good at sport x.

Teachers who cannot get the kids up to a specific standard should be the only measurement. I would set it up where it was relative, but the measurement is outcome. If the kids are not learning, then something needs to be changed.

 

[cbrunny]

That is not a reason not to fire bad teachers. I'm not saying it is the only solution but it is a massive push in the right direction.

Think about this. The people who are educating your children are bulletproof. They cannot be fired, no matter how shitty of a job they do.

"Fixing" parents is a different issue, and one that I really cant speak to since I am not a parent. I am a qualified teacher in Ontario but I choose not to teach because of how shitty and stupid the union is.

There are literally thousands of qualified wanna-be teachers in Ontario. I cant speak to what is happening directly in your country, but I can say that in Ontario - fuck the union, fire bad teachers.

 

[fskimospy]

A teacher who cannot get the kids up to the standards of their peers.

Standards of their peers as defined by what? Peers as defined by what?

 

[cbrunny]

Standards of their peers as defined by what? Peers as defined by what?

In Ontario, we have the Ontario College of Teachers, which is an accrediting body. Seems like a pretty good place to start.

 

[fskimospy]

Would that it were my responsibility to do so. I'm not an expert in education but I can guarantee there are more than zero bad teachers out there.

Shit, I'd be a bad teacher too if all I had to do was show up in order to make sure I could never get fired and to collect a pay cheque.

I agree that there are more than zero bad teachers out there. People have spent probably millions of man-hours at this point trying to find a way to determine what is a good or bad teacher, with at best modest success.

One of the major problems is that people can't even decide on what the goal of education is. Is it to do well on standardized tests? Is it to teach emotional and social skills? Is it to transmit cultural values? Is it some combination of the above, and if so how do we measure that?

If you can't agree on the goal, how can you measure if someone is failing to meet that goal?

 

[Atomic Playboy]

There are literally thousands of qualified wanna-be teachers in Ontario. I cant speak to what is happening directly in your country, but I can say that in Ontario - fuck the union, fire bad teachers.

Canada ranks above the USA in every metric in that study; apparently, we should be copying your system, shitty as you feel it is.

 

[fskimospy]

In Ontario, we have the Ontario College of Teachers, which is an accrediting body. Seems like a pretty good place to start.

We already have those.

 

[cbrunny]

I agree that there are more than zero bad teachers out there. People have spent probably millions of man-hours at this point trying to find a way to determine what is a good or bad teacher, with at best modest success.

One of the major problems is that people can't even decide on what the goal of education is. Is it to do well on standardized tests? Is it to teach emotional and social skills? Is it to transmit cultural values? Is it some combination of the above, and if so how do we measure that?

If you can't agree on the goal, how can you measure if someone is failing to meet that goal?

Jesus christ man. If a teacher shows up and doesnt fucking teach, fire the asshole. It isn't that hard to fire bad teachers. Start with the epic shitty ones and then figure out how to do the rest once society actually understand that bad teachers are bad. Start simple.

 

[cbrunny]

We already have those.

So why can't they develop standards as to what constitutes good and bad teaching?

 

[cbrunny]

Canada ranks above the USA in every metric in that study; apparently, we should be copying your system, shitty as you feel it is.

lol our system isn't all that bad. It has problems - the union being the top of the list in my opinion - but generally it is pretty good. I'm a product of it and I'm doing pretty ok.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

You are arguing against evidence based evaluation of educational programs. That's absurd. The fact that you need to try and say that anyone who wants to do so doesn't value education shows the weakness of what you're trying to say.

Argue for AP courses on the merits. Use actual research. It may be out there, I really have no idea.

But I have argued AP on it's merits...it keeps intelligent kids engaged in their education. I think that's enough and any other AP benefits are just gravy. Without AP courses I highly doubt my daughter's ACT score would have been as high which in turn would have drastically affected her chances of getting into some of our better universities. You know this, I know this. Don't deceive yourself.

Arguing about the causation of future outcomes in pointless in my opinion. I don't know how anyone who truly values education can even remotely rationalize making a case for degrading the quality of education for society's most needy students. But hey, that's just me.

See how that works? Suddenly evidence matters when it's not your kid.

WTF...I was making an argument for improving education not degrading it. Bottom line, I want our children to enjoy learning and I think that this is extremely important in their development. I'll leave the causation debate to the experts who appear to be somewhat divided on this subject.

 

[fskimospy]

So why can't they develop standards as to what constitutes good and bad teaching?

For all the reasons I've listed above.

 

[cbrunny]

For all the reasons I've listed above.

You didn't list any. Or is your argument that teachers deserve to be bulletproof because its too hard? Because that's a pretty slippery slope that makes even less sense than the quaking ground that your argument is currently standing on.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Jesus christ man. If a teacher shows up and doesnt fucking teach, fire the asshole. It isn't that hard to fire bad teachers. Start with the epic shitty ones and then figure out how to do the rest once society actually understand that bad teachers are bad. Start simple.

How exactly do you know if a teacher shows up and doesn't teach? Do you audit every single classroom in the country? How many manhours would that take? And what teacher is going to phone it in when they know there's an inspector auditing their class? Do you install cameras and choose moments at random to judge performance? Do you stick to our current standard of ranking achievement based on test scores, in which case you'll be firing every teacher every semester in poor districts that consistently perform poorly on standardized tests? Saying "just do this, it's easy" is like saying "I don't understand what's so hard about peace, just get along with each other." It's a lovely theory, but completely useless for solving actual problems.

 

[cbrunny]

How exactly do you know if a teacher shows up and doesn't teach? Do you audit every single classroom in the country? How many manhours would that take? And what teacher is going to phone it in when they know there's an inspector auditing their class? Do you install cameras and choose moments at random to judge performance? Do you stick to our current standard of ranking achievement based on test scores, in which case you'll be firing every teacher every semester in poor districts that consistently perform poorly on standardized tests? Saying "just do this, it's easy" is like saying "I don't understand what's so hard about peace, just get along with each other." It's a lovely theory, but completely useless for solving actual problems.

Those are questions for experts to find answers to. I can't believe that as society we are comfortable saying "evaluating teachers is too hard so we won't do it" - that boggles my fucking mind.

EDIT: Cliche: We can land a man on the moon, but we can't tell if a teacher is doing a good job.
EDIT2: No, wait, not even if a teacher is doing a good job. We can't tell if a teacher is doing a shitty job. We can't tell if a teacher is teaching better than a goddamn rock. And, we tend to believe that a teacher that teaches like a rock deserves to keep their job. Because.

 

[chucky2]

Lord knows we had some classic examples of bad teachers at my public high school, and for sure I'm in favor of standardized testing and not letting school admin/teachers dictate if their students are actually learning at the levels they should be at (way way way too much conflict of interest there, history proves they are not trustable to police themselves, surprise surprise...), however...

...to really blame teachers for large %'s of public school students not learning is really going too far. The reality is this: Kids with parents who have the desire and time to ensure their kid learns aren't a problem. Kids who naturally enjoy learning will learn, not a problem generally there either. Kids who have no desire to learn, and who don't have parents who a.) give a real shit, and/or, have the time/energy to give a real shit, well, they probably aren't going to learn all that well. We can spend massive sums of money attempting to pull a small % of these kids into the learning fold but will it be worth it to society overall to spend that amount of $ for those few %'s of kids? Probably not.

There's a reason we don't need a small tens of Millions of illegal invaders in the US, plus their tens of Millions kids - the large %'s of kids who don't want to learn, and won't, need to do some type of job, and the jobs they'll qualify for they will now compete with illegals and their kids (illegal/US Citizen who never should have been here). Congrats Politicians, you've sold out, and are selling out, the US Citizens who ironically need you most...good job!

 

[fskimospy]

But I have argued AP on it's merits...it keeps intelligent kids engaged in their education. I think that's enough and any other AP benefits are just gravy. Without AP courses I highly doubt my daughter's ACT score would have been so high which in turn would drastically affect her chances of getting into some of our better universities. You know this, I know this. Don't deceive yourself.

All I've asked for is some kind of evidence that enrollment in AP courses leads to better educational outcomes after controlling for other factors. Why is this so hard to provide if its merits are so clear? Here's why: the data doesn't really back it up as best as I can tell.

AP courses come with real costs to the school. It's only reasonable that they should bring results commensurate with that cost.

WTF...I was making an argument for improving education not degrading it. Bottom line, I want our children to enjoy learning and I think that this is extremely important in their development. I'll leave the causation debate to the experts who appear to be somewhat divided on this subject.

So why do you care about the causation of future outcomes for Head Start but not for AP classes?

 

[fskimospy]

You didn't list any. Or is your argument that teachers deserve to be bulletproof because its too hard? Because that's a pretty slippery slope that makes even less sense than the quaking ground that your argument is currently standing on.

I listed a whole bunch. Nowhere did I say that teachers should be bulletproof, but you said the answer was simple, to fire bad teachers. I simply asked the obvious question of how you would identify a bad teacher.

I'm all for teacher evaluation, but a common refrain from people with little experience in education is something similar to what you said: "just fire the bad ones!". It's nowhere even remotely close to that easy because determining what constitutes a 'bad teacher' is insanely hard. Sure there's the drunk guy sleeping on the desk, but that's a tiny tiny fraction of teachers, including a tiny fraction of those you would probably want to consider 'bad'.

 

[chucky2]

Those are questions for experts to find answers to. I can't believe that as society we are comfortable saying "evaluating teachers is too hard so we won't do it" - that boggles my fucking mind.

EDIT: Cliche: We can land a man on the moon, but we can't tell if a teacher is doing a good job.
EDIT2: No, wait, not even if a teacher is doing a good job. We can't tell if a teacher is doing a shitty job. We can't tell if a teacher is teaching better than a goddamn rock. And, we tend to believe that a teacher that teaches like a rock deserves to keep their job. Because.

What is a good job though? We land men on the moon and if they arrive safely, accomplish their mission, and return safely, that's cut and dry performance/accomplishment. You have normal track teacher teaching math, and you've got 15 good kids this year, 3 marginal, and 2 useless students (useless for a potential multitude of reasons). That might be a good rated teacher. Next year, same teacher, same effort, same standardized tests (which indicate student knowledge not teacher performance), but teach has 7 good kids, 8 marginal, and 5 useless. All of a sudden when the students tests scores nosedive it's the teach who's at fault?