Teacher layoff by seniority or ability

[Exterous]

Your argument is that it is impossible to identify bad teachers because it can't be measured.

Hell - did you even read my posts?

(In reponse to someone saying it can be done)

I completely agree. But that is not what we are seeing in the political arena. Sure there is some valuable discourse going on here but setting up a teacher performance metric with the state of our education system is hard.

Here - I bolded the part to help you out. Clearly your assertion that I said it is impossible is comepletely incorrect

Student performance across grades is better but additional work needs to be done to deal with issues of grade inflation. Also you need to account for major curriculum changes. If the changes affect over x% of teaching days you get an additional y% of additional tolerance for low grades. Give additional leeway if kids don't do their homework. (Some subjects just require additional time to get right. It's not the teacher's fault if the kid doesn't do assigned work at home) Stricter rules about kid's classroom behavior would be immensely helpful.

Hey - there is a basis for a plan right there! I think it can be done just that the needed groundwork for a viable plan isn't being laid.

The fact that they know who the good teachers are means that the fact is at least easily knowable.

Just because someone believes something to be true that doesn't mean that it is actually true. People firmly believe (They would say that they know it to be true) that the Earth is flat. Now - if a large percentage of parents agree that is something else. But blanket statements like yours are part of the issue

My argument is that however you measure it, it is easy to determine who the bad teachers are because kids, other teachers, admin, and parents know who they are. My point is that the problem exists because of the unions, not because it is impossible to know who to lay off first.

You must have missed the part where I said that some teachers are obvisouly bad teachers and that it should be harder to fire them. The issue comes into play when school districts are cutting large numbers of jobs. If you cut 100 jobs and only have 5 obviously terrible teachers, how do you determine who goes next without clearly defined metrics?

Curriculum changes are also very easy to take into account. If it affects all teachers, or some known subset, you can calculate that effect. Kids not doing their homework is also easy to take care of. If a teacher is at a school which is performing poorly because the demographics of the region mean that kids don't have the support at home that they need, that is adjusted for.

Yes - I already addressed that

 

[silverpig]

Hell - did you even read my posts?

(In reponse to someone saying it can be done)

Here - I bolded the part to help you out. Clearly your assertion that I said it is impossible is comepletely incorrect.

I asserted you said it was impossible. You actually said it was hard. It actually isn't. I took a little liberty with extending the language, but the sentiment is the same.

Nice job on the flat earth strawman. The problem is that MOST people don't believe the earth is flat. Most people know it to be round. While you might find one or two people who like the terrible teacher, going with what most people know will put you on the right track.

You must have missed the part where I said that some teachers are obvisouly bad teachers and that it should be harder to fire them. The issue comes into play when school districts are cutting large numbers of jobs. If you cut 100 jobs and only have 5 obviously terrible teachers, how do you determine who goes next without clearly defined metrics?

Seniority.

 

[cwjerome]

I love how some think teachers are the problem yet the Admins know everything.

Who in here said admins know everything... maybe I missed it. I don't know of anyone in the real world saying that either, although I suppose it's possible. Evidence?

There are good and bad teachers and there are good and bad administrators, but the real problems in education are cultural, structural and systemic. Being able to remove bad teachers can help with this reality.

 

[werepossum]

We're already paying for national standardized tests, presumably measuring what our kids need to know. A teacher's evaluation is thus the progress (or lack thereof) her students have made over the last year, as measured by their performance on national standardized tests. Want to take a chance using the latest trendy teaching method? Jump if you feel froggy, and you will be judged by your results, relative to your peers, so that at most you can screw two or three classes before you get sent packing. (Learn to do your job on your own time and your own dime like the rest of the world, then reapply to reattach yourself to the public teat.) If your new teaching method gets results, you'll be recognized and rewarded - and copied. Administrators will be judged by the teachers under their control, using the same standards. No gradations, no peer reviews, no office politics, just simple reviews of standardized tests.

Only problem I see is what one teacher said: "These kids come in unable to read and I'm going to be graded on how well I teach them chemistry?" Once accountability is established, this problem goes away, but the transition from existence-based to performance-based job evaluation will be rough.

After that, good teachers can be recognized and rewarded for their skills and hard work, and bullshit teachers likely won't spend half of geometry class explaining why Republicans suck once their own jobs depend on whether or not the kids learn geometry. And yes, I do recognize that kids need to learn more than what's on the standardized tests, but that material needs to be learned first.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

There is no incentive for students to even try on the standardized tests. It doesnt affect their grade and they can spell out their names with the bubbles if they wanted to.

Second thing is that the standardized tests tell you nothing about what students learned. The only thing that teachers do all year is to teach you how to take the test, nothing more. Id much rather learn something that has some use than to pass some stupid test so that the school can get more money from the state.

 

[werepossum]

There is no incentive for students to even try on the standardized tests. It doesnt affect their grade and they can spell out their names with the bubbles if they wanted to.

Second thing is that the standardized tests tell you nothing about what students learned. The only thing that teachers do all year is to teach you how to take the test, nothing more. Id much rather learn something that has some use than to pass some stupid test so that the school can get more money from the state.

<sigh>
Maybe the next generation can be saved.

 

[Exterous]

I asserted you said it was impossible. You actually said it was hard. It actually isn't. I took a little liberty with extending the language, but the sentiment is the same.

The sentiment is not even close to the same - unless you really believe impossible = hard. And - if it wasn't so hard I would think we would have a much better system in place right now

Nice job on the flat earth strawman. The problem is that MOST people don't believe the earth is flat. Most people know it to be round. While you might find one or two people who like the terrible teacher, going with what most people know will put you on the right track.

Yes - because never in the history of the world did most people 'know' the world was flat. Never in the history of the world did most people 'know' that slavery was ok. There is a reason the founding fathers setup the Electoral College. Just because most people 'know' doesn't make it right or correct.

I will give you that it is generally along the right lines, but I hate performance ratings/firings based on generalities. There is too much room for abuse/manipulation. That is why I harp on people giving specifics. Now - as I said earlier if you have a very very strong consensus of people (Say 75&#37; of parents whose students have taken the class plus a majority of administrators) that might work\

Seniority.

Well - that would be an interesting solution. Bottom 5% of teachers get fired and the rest get determined by senority. It wouldn't be as good as a full ranking system but would be a step in the right direction

<sigh>
Maybe the next generation can be saved.

They won't be saved by grading only on standardized test scores