I don’t remember making that point here before, but it is one I agree with.
I’m not, however, as sanguine as you are that this move will result in the gelding of the Democratic Party’s electoral hopes.
Understood. But surely Shodan is simply one example, and a larger sample size assists in more accurate conclusions… doesn’t it?
When I said nothing much changed in Virginia, let’s be clear - the 1993 legislation codified a state Supreme court decision from the 1970s.
School districts here are not immune from market forces, and that includes teacher salaries. And while local teachers associations cannot collectively bargain, they can ask localities for a pay raise, just like any citizens group can lobby for any purpose.
But the local governments and the state have more flexibility when it comes to spending and revenue, and can respond in the face of a need or crisis. This is why, though we have had to cut spending considerably here, we have not had a budget crisis on the order of New York or California.
If teachers’ unions pressed for proposals more in line with what you’ve written above, I’d be more sympathetic to their existence. I’d be interested in hearing more about the pitfalls associated with tracking individual student scores, because that strikes me as the wisest approach, but that’s probably a hijack here.
Not if you’re specifically talking about Shodan, no.
Whack a Mole wrote:
I have an important question, which no one has raised or addressed: If this has been the situation in Virginia for over a decade and a half, what has been the effect on Virginia Democratic fundraising?
A quick look at the Wikipedia entry on the Democratic party in Virginia notes:
There’s no way that I can accept that at face value. In the state closest to DC the Republicans can’t even get half the funding of the Democrats? That seems absurd. But it’s precisely because I’m not sure of who’s “hiding” which funds where that I have to ask – if this step has been taken in Virginia, what has been the effect of it on the parties? Or is there some fundamental difference between Virginia and Wisconsin?
I agree with the first part of this. It’s just inconceivable to me that professionals would not be paid according to how good they are. I know it’s not always possible to perfectly judge merit, but we do it all the time for engineers, managers, architects, and other professions. And why in the world is tenure needed for teachers? A bad teacher can impact a students entire education if they don’t learn the requirements to go on to the next level.
But pay based on certifications is not merit pay, and it is already in place to some degree. And fuck “best practices”. Those are usually some fad dreamed up by consultants that will be totally reversed by the next fad.
I think teaching should be among the best paid professions, but we also need to make sure that it is done by highly talented and motivated people. A number of teachers I have met are astonishingly dim, and I would not want my kids any where near them. My son knew more about science by the time he was 8 then many teachers I’ve talked with.
Can I get a cite of some places where this has been proposed?
Not that I’m not the world’s biggest fan of single-metric evaluations, but I have never, ever heard of anyone advocating using unadjusted scores to compare teachers working with dissimilar populations. I hear it thrown out all the time by teacher’s union supporters, but as far as I can tell, it’s a myth. So, cite?
I don’t think this has had any effect on politics here. Democrats and Republicans are both competitive parties for most statewide races, depending on the candidate. Virginia traditionally voted Republican in presidential elections, but went for Obama last time.
I suppose that it’s perfectly okay that the reason for this to be done wasn’t to save money or anything, but purely to cripple unions because they’re liberal?
And if it’s so clearly a legal move, why did the Republicans completely ignore the objection raised at the time, and call roll and vote and close even before the objection was finished?
For the record:
I have mentioned in the past (on this board) and will mention again my extreme dislike of teacher unions. I think they cause far more trouble then they are worth and bring numerous bad consequences (happy to debate that again if someone wants to but this is not the thread for that).
My issue here is with what I view as a power grab by republicans and worker rights in general.
I too find tenure to be without merit. That said teachers are not generally judged the same way a person in another job is. In the private sector someone needs to generate enough value for their employer to keep their job. How do you do that for a teacher? Judge them by test scores of their students?
We see around the country the pressure education is under. School budgets are being cut all over the place. If you are a school administrator and need to make cuts then that young, $25,000/year college graduate looks pretty good compared to the $55,000/year teacher with 20 years of experience.
Mind you I am playing Devil’s Advocate here. I am not sure what a good solution is and not sure we will sort it in this thread. Just saying the issue is complex and what looks on the face to be absurd has more nuance to it then is immediately apparent.
But this is the home of Great Debates. An argument about union bargaining that rested on one poster’s behavior would be classic ad hominem, wouldn’t it?
Because it was so clearly a legal move.
If you contend it’s not a legal move, then rather than inviting your readers to infer based on that leap of logic, you have merely to identify the law that was violated.
I’m all about the hijacks. Here’s my thoughts on individual-student-tracking:
Where does it begin? It’s got to begin somewhere, and the teachers at that level will need a different metric. For example, you could do standardized tests in kindergarten that track a student’s growth over the course of that year. Does the K teacher get paid according to the difference between the EOY test and the BOY test? That wouldn’t be fair: the K teacher with smarter kids will get paid more than the others.
So you need that different metric. Now, say you’re a first-grade teacher. There are two K teachers at your school. One of them is by reputation phenomenal, and gets huge improvements from her students. The other is mediocre; his students actually score slightly below average on metrics of improvements (and unless you live in Lake Woebegon, don’t suggest firing the second teacher).
If you’re going to be paid based on student’s progress in your class compared to student’s progress in last year’s class, from a purely self-interest perspective, which teacher do you want to get students from? Certainly the latter, since you’ll have a better chance of improving student progress from last year’s mediocre teacher than from last year’s phenomenal teacher.
The kindergarten teachers come to you looking for ideas on working with some advanced kids. Do you give them the help? If you do, you’ll torpedo yourself: your pay depends on how students perform with you compared to their track record of performance, so it’s in your best interest to have kids with a lousy track record.
A principal wants to get rid of a teacher. He fills that teacher’s class with students from last year’s best teachers. Now that teacher will have a much harder time with the metric: unless he’s as good as the last year’s best teachers, all his students will show a slowing in growth, and it’ll look like it’s his fault.
It’s still a better proposal than the across-the-board scores (furt, these proposals are much rarer in recent years, but NCLB was largely based on across-the-board scores when it was written a decade ago), but it has, like I said, some unintended consequences.
I’m not up on my parliamentary procedure. Bricker, according to your expertise( honest-no sarcasm here), how legit was this move?
Considering that the Republicans didn’t even wait for the law to be read before voting and then /walking out/ of the room, I don’t see how this argument helps your case.
My kid never did anything this juvenile and petty in his life. Way to set the bar.
Showing that a poster has been inconsistent and merely seems to make arguments that they find convenient is an ad hominem?
Shodan makes a statement that “elections have consequences” to support his argument and showing he did not seem to feel that way in the past is an ad hominem?
How so?
On the one hand, it is an ad hominem. Whether Shodan is consistent has no bearing on whether his argument holds merit.
On the other hand, his argument was to mock Democrats for being sore losers–a much more classic ad hominem and absolutely without merit, and it’s a little odd to call out responders to this argument for their own ad hominems.
I’m curious if the people who currently oppose filibusters (many of whom apparently came to this opinion after Obama was elected) are also the same people who support the minority party leaving the state to deny a quorum.