Ahh the French

[Dinner]

I wouldn't say it's so much bull****. However, I'd like to point out that Virginia had standardized testing before NCLB

We had state standardized testing in California when I was in the third grade. So... 1984-1985? Were you even born back then, son?

[Ben Kenobi]

Which is not the case in TX. If you are a minority, your best shot at a good education is in TX.

You should come here, Oerdin. It will really open your eyes.

[Hauldren Collider]

The biggest problem with FCPS is the fact that they refuse merit based pay for teachers and spend too much on administration. FCPS is fantastic, but they could do so much better with a few obvious reforms, such as being willing to pay harder-to-hire subjects like Physics more than Music and paying higher-performing teachers better, and not paying more for stupid PhDs and Masters like Philosophy or Creative Writing. If the Republicans take over the legislature this fall the state may force them to change that.

The teacher's unions are extremely ineffective here, but they do manage to control the outcome of a fair number of school board elections. Elected school boards are probably the root problem with FCPS.

[Fake Boris]

HC, it's almost impossible to evaluate the "merit" of a teacher.

[loinburger]

Do you mean that hiring teachers is a crapshoot?

Because if it's impossible to evaluate a teacher after they've been teaching for several years, then it must be impossible to evaluate a prospective teacher in a job interview. Might as well just flip a coin when deciding whether to hire them. Or whether to grant them tenure later. (This would tend to explain how Ben got a job as a teacher, though.)

[Ben Kenobi]

HC, it's almost impossible to evaluate the "merit" of a teacher.

Hrm? No. It's not that difficult to evaluate the teacher if you have the student's grades from the year before.

[Ben Kenobi]

(This would tend to explain how Ben got a job as a teacher, though.)

I teach at a private Catholic school. I got the job because:

1, I have a degree in history from an accredited university.
2, My references.
3, I'm a Catholic who has stood up for what the Church teaches.

How do you explain the fact that I kept my job, if I'm apparently incompetent?

[loinburger]

Fellatio

[Ben Kenobi]

You DO know that my supervisor is a lady?

[loinburger]

You know all there is to know about the crying game

[giblets]

As usual, HC is clueless.
France has one of the lowest rate of McDonald's per capita in the developped world.

No, unless you consider places like Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy to be undeveloped.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/foo_mcd_res_percap-food-mcdonalds-restaurants-per-capita

I guess the French can congratulate themselves for having less of an Americans restaurant chain than the Americans do, however.

[Fake Boris]

No, unless you consider places like Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy to be undeveloped.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/foo_mcd_res_percap-food-mcdonalds-restaurants-per-capita

I guess the French can congratulate themselves for having less of an Americans restaurant chain than the Americans do, however.

If you look at this chart, you'll see 3x more developed countries above France than below.

[Fake Boris]

Do you mean that hiring teachers is a crapshoot?

Because if it's impossible to evaluate a teacher after they've been teaching for several years, then it must be impossible to evaluate a prospective teacher in a job interview. Might as well just flip a coin when deciding whether to hire them. Or whether to grant them tenure later. (This would tend to explain how Ben got a job as a teacher, though.)

Yes, it's almost a crapshoot, for anything that is not quantitative.

No one really knows how things go on in a classroom, except the students.

Teachers can never be as popular or renowned as to command a premium over their qualitative performance. And any quantitative measure is bound to fail.

[giblets]

If you look at this chart, you'll see 3x more developed countries above France than below.

Given that only 15 countries rank about France, it would seem that you think only five of the 23 countries below France are developed. So out of Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Iceland, Portugal, Hungary, Spain, Belgium, Czech Republic, Italy, South Korea, Poland, Greece and Slovakia you only consider ~5 to be developed.

[Fake Boris]

Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Greece are not developed, for the purpose of this comparison. Even Spain is on the limit.