# Fixing Education **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 3, 2011, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fixing-education/587669 "2011-07-03T00:29:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2011, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fixing-education/587669/201 "2011-07-09T20:14:41Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > A teacher is as good as his students. Every year they get a new group in and sometimes they just are a poor group. That of course is proof the teacher is slipping and should be fired. > Judging teachers performance is difficult and surely inexact. The tests are poor ways to judge. Many schools are teaching kids to pass the test . The test is not a test of knowledge when that is done. This is why managers’ salaries are not determined by merit, right? Merit pay does not need to be based on standardized test results any more than programmers should be judged by lines of code; but somehow we do mange to use merit pay in professions that do not have clear metrics. I am truly shocked at the resistance to merit pay. ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2011, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fixing-education/587669/202 "2011-07-09T20:16:28Z")
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#): > > You have unionization of teachers in this country because we have relegated teaching to a disrespected, underpaid career that needs the defending a union can give. We’re unwilling to pay them anything NEAR what a good teacher deserves, so they’ve had to resort to the protection of unions instead of money and respect. Tenure for teachers is given in place of real salaries… I agree with this 100%. Well said. ETA: to go further, we don’t have a crappy educational system because of unions, we have teachers’ unions as a result of having a crappy educational system. But that doesn’t mean I think teachers’ unions are helping the situation. ---
**Author:** ![Recovering\_Republican](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@Recovering\_Republican](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Recovering_Republican)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2011, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fixing-education/587669/203 "2011-07-16T13:27:27Z")
> [@CannyDan](#): > > And where, pray tell, will the “bad students” go? Drop out to face an increasingly complicated and information-intensive society with even fewer tools than they might have had if they stayed? Moved to another privatized school, and another, and another, in some revolving door of failure? Or just go off and discorporate themselves quietly, saving everybody all sorts of money and aggravation? > > One of the problems with “merit pay” systems is that the teacher has no control over the base line of the incoming students, and virtually no control over the curriculum. Demonstrating an “increase in reading ability by 1 grade level for more than 95% of the class” or some other supposedly objective criterion is far, far different in a classroom full of English second language students, or socioeconomically disadvantaged inner city youth with apathetic or nonexistent parents, than it is in a white, middle class suburban school. > > If privatized schools cherry pick their students, their teachers will appear meritorious. Conversely, those students not chosen (like your “bad students” above), and their teachers, will come off rather dramatically less so. And that cherry picking need not be imposed as a condition of enrollment, but imposed by the circumstances of location and transportation requirements. Even people holding a voucher for tuition may well have serious problems in simply getting to certain schools, making the cherry picking \*de facto \*but still quite real. Oh, I agree. Little Johnny (or little Juan or little Jamal) who brings guns to school, deals drugs and is an all around dirtbag, isn’t going to be picked by any school. I still submit that’s better than sticking him in with the rest of the kids who might have a chance to make something of themselves, but all the effort is focused on the little dirtbag because he causes all the trouble. Frankly, I think that would put more pressure on parents to man up. If your little angel keeps getting bounced out of schools, you probably have a problem you need to address. ---
**Author:** ![Recovering\_Republican](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@Recovering\_Republican](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Recovering_Republican)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2011, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fixing-education/587669/204 "2011-07-16T13:28:43Z")
> [@sh1bu1](#): > > I agree with this 100%. Well said. > > ETA: to go further, we don’t have a crappy educational system because of unions, we have teachers’ unions as a result of having a crappy educational system. But that doesn’t mean I think teachers’ unions are helping the situation. We didn’t have a crappy system until the unions messed it up. Bad teachers were fired. ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2011, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fixing-education/587669/205 "2011-07-16T19:44:52Z")
> [@Recovering\_Republican](#): > > We didn’t have a crappy system until the unions messed it up. Bad teachers were fired. Tenure predates unions. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2011, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fixing-education/587669/206 "2011-07-17T05:46:31Z")
> [@Recovering\_Republican](#): > > No, actually, I’m not. > > My nieces went to Catholic Schools, and the tuition was a fraction of what the CPS spends per student. Two of them now have Master’s degrees. > > Throwing money at the problem is what we’ve let you guys do for 20 years, and things have gotten worse. That’s because generally speaking the quality of the students (brains, motivation) are the most important factors (see p 3 of link). I’d recommend that you read Robert Weissberg’s '[Bad Students, Not Bad Schools](http://books.google.com/books?id=vgW11iNcl5cC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Bad+Students,+Not+Bad+Schools&hl=en&ei=fXYiTpjBOZDPmAWPraTKAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false). ---
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2011, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fixing-education/587669/207 "2011-07-17T15:24:32Z")
> [@Recovering\_Republican](#): > > Oh, I agree. Little Johnny (or little Juan or little Jamal) who brings guns to school, deals drugs and is an all around dirtbag, isn’t going to be picked by any school. I still submit that’s better than sticking him in with the rest of the kids who might have a chance to make something of themselves, but all the effort is focused on the little dirtbag because he causes all the trouble. > > Frankly, I think that would put more pressure on parents to man up. If your little angel keeps getting bounced out of schools, you probably have a problem you need to address. Although it’s nice of you to agree, you haven’t answered the critical question. You said > [@Recovering\_Republican](#): > > I’m for privatization because it will foister competition. Competition breeds excellence. The bad teachers won’t last. And conversely, neither will bad students. if you are a trouble maker, they’ll get you out of there. And I still want to know where those “bad students” go. When the parents “man up” and “address” the “problem” their “little dirtbag” has, are you envisioning some sort of miraculous, completely home based, overwhelming adjustment in attitude? Is “Little Johnny (or little Juan or little Jamal)” going to wake up one morning (maybe from unconsciousness caused by a beating) and discover a hitherto undisplayed affinity for education? And are his parents (or more likely parent singular) going to suddenly have the time, interest, and disposable income needed to join the Parent – Teacher Association, start volunteering in the classroom, and become a helicopter parent? Further, you gloss over the reality that there is a continuum between “good Johnny” and “bad Johnny”. It’s a bell curve. But not every classroom contains the same distribution. Due to socioeconomic realities, different classrooms in the same school, and more profoundly different schools even in the same region, show bell curves shifted – sometimes strongly – to one side or the other. Fairly and accurately evaluating the performance of human teachers in this complex and ever changing milieu of student backgrounds and measurable outcomes is not impossible, but it is extremely difficult. Putting such evaluation into the hands of administrators who are answerable to both academic and political forces, and who are subject to the same human frailties as are we all (e.g., personality differences with individual teachers, philosophical differences, even differences in pedagogic training) is exactly what alarms teachers and is the reason tenure and union advocacy/protection are seen as so important by them. That we should be rid of actual “bad” teachers, including those scare examples repeatedly offered, is unquestioned. However, ‘he said, she said’ accusations cannot be sufficient to end someone’s career, in teaching or in any other facet of life. Administrators must take the time and effort needed to build a credible case against someone lest abuses of accusatory power become the norm. And advocates are necessary to challenge the accusations and ensure that they are supported to some reasonable standard. (I will not argue whether such might be a preponderance of the evidence, or beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt. But some standard beyond “I know he did it!!” is required.) Finally, let me state that merely throwing money into the system will not necessarily benefit education. However, raising teacher pay to a level that attracts the best and the brightest instead of (often) the idealistic and the defeated would produce profound benefit. And in a society that often views money as the supreme criterion for evaluating a person’s importance and worthiness of respect, it would help to elevate a teacher’s standing in society at large and in her own classroom. All teachers know how important that respect can be, and how it can be wielded to influence student and parental aspirations, expectations, study habits, and ultimately performance. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2011, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fixing-education/587669/208 "2011-07-17T15:59:05Z")
> [@sh1bu1](#): > > This is why managers’ salaries are not determined by merit, right? > > Merit pay does not need to be based on standardized test results any more than programmers should be judged by lines of code; but somehow we do mange to use merit pay in professions that do not have clear metrics. > > I am truly shocked at the resistance to merit pay. Imagine a manager that doesn’t get to choose his raw materials, isn’t allowed to choose the process to develop the raw materials into a final product, isn’t allowed to affect the conditions those raw materials are maintained in during the process and then imagine that manager having to explain why he isn’t able to achieve the desired results. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2011, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fixing-education/587669/209 "2011-07-17T17:48:30Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > This is one of those commonly-repeated myths that doesn’t make the least amount of sense if you think about it for a second. Of course teachers can be fired; in all systems there’s a clear method for firing teachers. Given that I have personally experienced this madness with a small number of egregiously negligent teachers, and the union impeded any action, I can say that it is no myth. Most of the teachers my kids have had have been good, and some incredible, but when you have personally dealt with the situation, you will change your tune. ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2011, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fixing-education/587669/210 "2011-07-17T17:50:36Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > Imagine a manager that doesn’t get to choose his raw materials, isn’t allowed to choose the process to develop the raw materials into a final product, isn’t allowed to affect the conditions those raw materials are maintained in during the process and then imagine that manager having to explain why he isn’t able to achieve the desired results. Happens all the time in the real world. If you are arguing that what teachers do does not affect the outcome of students, then the logical conclusion is that we may as well hire minimum wage flunkies to do their job. From personal experience I know that this is not the case. There are great teachers, mediocre teachers, and bad teachers. It’s a shame to penalize the great teachers by only paying them what everyone else with the same seniority and credentials makes. It’s a sure fire way to drive out the most qualified teachers though. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2011, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fixing-education/587669/211 "2011-07-17T20:20:47Z")
> [@sh1bu1](#): > > Happens all the time in the real world. It does huh, then by what metric do they judge merit? > [@sh1bu1](#): > > If you are arguing that what teachers do does not affect the outcome of students, Actually, there I was referring to the effort parents contribute to their childrens education, which is incredibly important and something a teacher has no control over. ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2011, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fixing-education/587669/212 "2011-07-17T23:07:36Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > It does huh, then by what metric do they judge merit? Managers are judged on all sorts of things: how well they kept to their budgets, are they developing their employees, are they accurately relaying status of their projects, did they meet schedule, are they doing performance management of their staff. Now if in your strawman the manager clearly has _no effect at all_ on outcome, then their position is not needed and the position should be eliminated. This seems to be what you are saying: we have no way of judging the performance of teachers because the quality of the students (and parents) is outside their control, and nothing the teacher can do will significantly affect what students learn. As I said previously, if that is your position than we either do not need teachers at all or we can just hire minimum wage flunkies. You seem to have a lower regard for teachers than I do > [@](#): > > Actually, there I was referring to the effort parents contribute to their childrens education, which is incredibly important and something a teacher has no control over. Are you saying that in your analogy the teachers were not “the managers”, the parents were? That makes no sense at all. Also, you seem to be backpedaling. I agree that parents are a key contributor to students success; I think everyone would agree with that. But teachers also affect what students learn. If they didn’t, then we wouldn’t need them. I can think of lots of ways to evaluate teachers: Do they have good lesson plans, are they progressing through the lesson plan at a pace such that it will be completed by year end, are they maintaining good records of performance, how well are they communicating with parents, is classroom discipline maintained, do they participate in career development, do they sponsor activities like school plays or the school newspaper, do the teachers receiving the students the following year think that they are well prepared, and on and on. Some of those judgement will be subjective, but that is true of any profession. ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2011, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fixing-education/587669/213 "2011-07-17T23:30:32Z")
> [@sh1bu1](#): > > I can think of lots of ways to evaluate teachers: > > Do they have good lesson plans, are they progressing through the lesson plan at a pace such that it will be completed by year end, are they maintaining good records of performance, how well are they communicating with parents, is classroom discipline maintained, do they participate in career development, do they sponsor activities like school plays or the school newspaper, do the teachers receiving the students the following year think that they are well prepared, and on and on. Some of those judgement will be subjective, but that is true of any profession. This is pretty much how it’s done now. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2011, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fixing-education/587669/214 "2011-07-18T01:01:22Z")
> [@RaftPeople](#): > > Given that I have personally experienced this madness with a small number of egregiously negligent teachers, and the union impeded any action, I can say that it is no myth. The myth is that teachers can’t be fired, not that administrators sometimes fail to fire bad teachers. I agree with the latter, but I place the blame for that on administration, not on the unions. The unions are doing their jobs by defending teachers, and administrators are NOT doing their jobs by not firing the bad ones. If you’ve experienced it directly, that means you’ve seen administrators do everything in their power to try to fire a bad teacher, and have seen their competent efforts fail. Is that the case? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2011, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fixing-education/587669/215 "2011-07-18T01:33:17Z")
> [@Mach Tuck](#): > > This is pretty much how it’s done now. FWIW, [here’s how North Carolina evaluates teachers](http://www.dpi.state.nc.us/docs/profdev/training/teacher/teacher-eval.pdf). The rubric we use comprises pages 21-29 of the pdf. For folks thinking we need a different model for teacher evaluations, how, specifically, would you change this model? ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2011, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fixing-education/587669/216 "2011-07-18T02:22:56Z")
> [@sh1bu1](#): > > Are you saying that in your analogy the teachers were not “the managers”, the parents were? That makes no sense at all. > > Also, you seem to be backpedaling. I agree that parents are a key contributor to students success; I think everyone would agree with that. But teachers also affect what students learn. If they didn’t, then we wouldn’t need them. You misunderstood so I was illuminating my analogy for you. There is no backpeddling. Teachers do not get to choose the students, the curriculum or the level of parental involvement. Those three are massive factors that cannot be ignored and yet play no part in your ‘pay by merit’ calculus. Children at private schools do better, and they should, because those institutions have direct control over the first two points I made and parents spending so much guarantees a compelling interest in getting their moneys worth, taking care of the third. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2011, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fixing-education/587669/217 "2011-07-18T02:30:56Z")
Are y’all maybe talking past one another? It looks to me as though each of you thinks the other is staking out an extreme (and foolish) position. **Sitnam** doesn’t think that teachers have no control over their students’ educational outcomes, and **sh1bu1** doesn’t think they have complete control. It seems uncontroversial to me that teachers have **some** influence on students’ educational outcome. Good teachers can help difficult students reach positive outcomes; lousy teachers can help strong students spin their wheels. Of course we can’t evaluate teachers based solely on test scores, though. Trying to do so is one of the major failings (among many failings and some successes) of NCLB. Although it’s ideologically pleasing to hold students from a crime-ridden impoverished neighborhood to the exact same academic standards as students from a neighborhood populated by professors, doing so is foolish. It’s extraordinarily difficult to devise a teacher evaluation tool that tracks test scores fairly; but I think doing so is very important. ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2011, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fixing-education/587669/218 "2011-07-18T02:42:45Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > You misunderstood so I was illuminating my analogy for you. There is no backpeddling. > > Teachers do not get to choose the students, the curriculum or the level of parental involvement. Those three are massive factors that cannot be ignored and yet play no part in your ‘pay by merit’ calculus. You are confusing merit pay with paying by test scores of students. The latter is stupid and leads to “teaching to the test”. I certainly would include those factors in my ‘pay by merit’ calculus. A teacher that had students with greater needs and yet managed to improve them over the course of a year should be rewarded for that. That is how things work in other professions; taking on a difficult task and succeeding is judged more highly than taking on a simple task and succeeding. Ignoring merit altogether and just going by seniority and credentials does not weed out the bad teacher or reward the good ones. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2011, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fixing-education/587669/219 "2011-07-18T02:44:02Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Are y’all maybe talking past one another? It looks to me as though each of you thinks the other is staking out an extreme (and foolish) position. **Sitnam** doesn’t think that teachers have no control over their students’ educational outcomes, and **sh1bu1** doesn’t think they have complete control. Fair enough, noted. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > It seems uncontroversial to me that teachers have **some** influence on students’ educational outcome. Good teachers can help difficult students reach positive outcomes; lousy teachers can help strong students spin their wheels. Yes. But a great teacher could expend massive effort to help a child get a passing grade in an inner city school and a horrible teacher might do fuck all and the child might still get an A. So if grades don’t mean good teachers, I’d like to hear what metric **sh1bu1** would use to judge teachers that isn’t used now. Especially since their livelihood will then be at stake. **here I really debate for the hell of it and to help solidify my own thoughts, I agree merit pay is essential for performance in every single work environment. Going about it though is more difficult for public school teachers.** ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2011, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fixing-education/587669/220 "2011-07-18T02:45:39Z")
> [@sh1bu1](#): > > Ignoring merit altogether and just going by seniority and credentials does not weed out the bad teacher or reward the good ones. **Left Hand of Dorkness** is right, we’re talking past eachother. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fixing-education/587669.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fixing-education/587669.md?page=12)