Government Employees Are the Scum of the Earth

[MRT144]

Standardized testing could reduce the chances for fraud.

I am not buying that you cannot compare the achievements of a class with: the past performance of the students in the class, the past performance of students of the same teacher and others in similar classes, and similar classes the same year.

I don't think anyone suggested using this as a pass/fail for every teacher on a yearly basis. It might be useful to recognise the outstanding teachers who consistently have classes do better than expected and those whose students consistently crater. Over time it would be evident which teachers deserve performance bonuses and which teachers should be reassigned and if necessary, fired.

I think we all had older teachers who were on cruise control and heading for the pension cheques. Personally, I'm thinking of one old fart who 'taught' social studies by spending the entire class writing essays on the board with the class hurrying to make notes. He would fill every board and then erase from the beginning to fill yet more boards. There was zero discussion. It would be helpful to weed teachers like that out, assuming his students did as poorly in general over time as I suspect they would.

How much time do you think is needed to achieve sufficient data to make these choices? 3 years? 5 years? 10 years? 15 years?

And I'm not saying that it can't be done, I'm saying it doesn't want to be done, both by teachers (who are mostly comfortable with the status quo) and by people who think there is a very easy and non cost intensive way to apply metrics. Oh and school admins who don't want to dig too deeply into how well they're doing.

In the case of your old fart, if he were teaching an AP class at an American High School, there's a fairly good chance his students would be educated enough to do well on a standardized test, and allow him to fly under the radar.

[Aeson]

Standardized testing would need to be revamped in a big way. Most of what's on those things is total crap, and teaching toward it would ****** the growth of students more than push them to do better. The good teachers (which let's face it, was probably just 2 of them) that I had were teaching me things that would be useful later on in life (college, real life) rather than trying to drive the will to live out of me completely by making me repeat some dumb fact or formula for the millionth time. Yet that type of interesting and useful teaching definitely isn't going to translate into standardized test scores for that year. It might help out on later years' test scores, and actually make learning interesting and fun ... but pushing your students above this year's testing is going to mean you spent less time cramming this year's facts and formulas.

The formulas can be useful (but I can just use a calculator or look them up in the case I've forgotten them) ... the facts, most of them will never be useful and can be completely replaced by knowing how to use Google. Reading comprehension is ok, but usually pretty dumbed down. It's a very bad target to shoot for IMO.

Then it really falls apart for high performing students (which some magnet schools will likely have a high percentage of). I always scored 99 percentile on everything in those tests and it had nothing to do with the teachers. It was my parents teaching me to read before kindergarten, buying a set of encyclopedias, staying interested in what I was learning (not in class, but on my own), and mostly just passing me on some good genes in regards to IQ. I slept through classes and avoided going as much as possible because most of my teachers were doing the repetition of formulas and facts that let's face it, are never going to be useful in real life. But that's what standardized tests test for the most part so they teach to it. They'd have more reason to do so if their pay depended on it.

[KrazyHorse]

The impact a teacher has is not binary. In a school system where the vast majority of students and parents are motivated, do you believe that successful student outcomes are the results of the teachers primarily? In a school system where the vast majority of students and parents are not motivated do you believe it is a teacher's failing alone?

Are you unable to read or to reason?

If the quality of the teacher has very little impact on the outcome then we should pay teachers less because their quality DOES NOT MATTER. They are low marginal product relative to cheaper alternatives.

If the quality of the teacher DOES MATTER then it is an effect we should be able to measure.

Saying that teachers are really important, and then excusing them because they have no control over the outcomes of students ISN'T INTERNALLY CONSISTENT.

Furthermore, this is PRECISELY the type of garbage we constantly hear from public sector workers. Public sector workers are overpaid and overprotected pieces of trash. The involuntary turnover rate in the public sector is a small fraction of what it is in the private sector AND the pay is higher.

You ****ing ****.

[KrazyHorse]

By the way, claiming to measure "teacher quality" through something not directly related to STUDENT PERFORMANCE is why we have garbage like seniority-based and education-based pay. Neither of which does ANYTHING to improve outcomes. Instead, we have a bunch of ****ty teachers with loads of seniority and useless ****ing degrees getting paid to fail at their jobs.

Due to the complete lack of accountability under the current system I have no doubt that the are enormous gains to be had from low hanging fruit. To eat them, the only thing which is necessary is to destroy teachers' unions, rid the school systems of seniority-based pay or degree-based pay and incentivize teachers to do something better than their current terrible job through firings and incentive pay.

I see absolutely no evidence that current public education is run for the benefit of students; the students are an afterthought, and the primary stakeholder appears to be the teachers.

**** them.

[KrazyHorse]

From the complete lack of teacher accountability to the overwhelming influence of teachers' unions to the ridiculous lack of school competition (created both by the artificial cost wedge between public and private schools and the general lack of student choice in the public system) the public education system as it exists in the US and Canada (and likely elsewhere in the developed world) is like a clinic in "how to fail at building institutions".

**** the teachers, **** the politicians who take ~15-20k out of my pocket every year to fund the abortion that is the public school system, **** imbeciles like MRT who think that pay without accountability is a good idea.

Public education is a ****ing monster. It eats more and more, and produces less and less.

[Hauldren Collider]

The only reason people* like public education the way it is is because they are used to it being that way and are reflexively defending the current system. If we had a system with school choice, no teacher's unions, and performance-based pay, there would be NO ONE clamoring to change it to be seniority based, noncompetitive and unionized.

The arguments in favor of keeping public schools the way they are simply reek of pathetic rationalization.

*"People" does not include members of teacher's unions, as they support policies so sick that I don't believe a real human being could possibly be a member

[DaShi]

The only reason people* like public education the way it is is because they are used to it being that way and are reflexively defending the current system. If we had a system with school choice, no teacher's unions, and performance-based pay, there would be NO ONE clamoring to change it to be seniority based, noncompetitive and unionized.

The arguments in favor of keeping public schools the way they are simply reek of pathetic rationalization.

*"People" does not include members of teacher's unions, as they support policies so sick that I don't believe a real human being could possibly be a member

This is stupid and unsubstantiated, even for you. First, no one really likes public education the way it is. Those that get any substantial benefit from it are in the vast minority. In the current system, students lose, teachers lose, administrators lose, and the tax payers lose. Those people aren't complaining about keeping the system, they're against proposals for change that only punish teachers. Your kind of talk is part of the problem. You sound like the bone-headed OCW protesters who simply believe that punishing bankers will fix the financial system.

[MRT144]

Are you unable to read or to reason?

If the quality of the teacher has very little impact on the outcome then we should pay teachers less because their quality DOES NOT MATTER. They are low marginal product relative to cheaper alternatives.

If the quality of the teacher DOES MATTER then it is an effect we should be able to measure.

Saying that teachers are really important, and then excusing them because they have no control over the outcomes of students ISN'T INTERNALLY CONSISTENT.

Furthermore, this is PRECISELY the type of garbage we constantly hear from public sector workers. Public sector workers are overpaid and overprotected pieces of trash. The involuntary turnover rate in the public sector is a small fraction of what it is in the private sector AND the pay is higher.

You ****ing ****.

Youre smart enough develop a testing methodology, but you havet even thought about it. Read some of my other thoughts.
Stop being equal parts lazy and *****y.

[a.kitman]

i cant wait for kh to get kids. maybe then he will get that you dont want some low payed dickheads teaching your kids. whit that said i will admit that i think US teachers are overpaid. but blameing unions for weak politicians is dumb. plenty of countrys whit strong unions have lower teacher wages then the US.

[Felch]

You think his kids are going to public schools?

[Hauldren Collider]

Well, his kids might go to Stuyvesant.


stuyvesant sucks by the way < /obligatory>

[a.kitman]

You think his kids are going to public schools?

no i dont. thats kinda the point.

[Kidlicious]

i cant wait for kh to get kids. maybe then he will get that you dont want some low payed dickheads teaching your kids. whit that said i will admit that i think US teachers are overpaid. but blameing unions for weak politicians is dumb. plenty of countrys whit strong unions have lower teacher wages then the US.

Don't worry about kh. He doesn't represent the general population. He has nothing to do with what teachers are paid.

[Fake Boris]

You guys are ****ing idiots. If teachers have little to no impact then why should we ****ing pay them? If they do have impact then we should be able to measure it and discriminate based on this. WE ALREADY MEASURE HOW MUCH STUDENTS LEARN THROUGH THINGS CALLED TESTS.

You're a ******.

Not everything is easily measurable. Exhibit: Mexico has an utterly crappy education system but pays off people's gas and electricity bills (with nationalized PeMex money). People seem to be happy the way it works.

Result: Mexico.

[Fake Boris]

I see absolutely no evidence that current public education is run for the benefit of students; the students are an afterthought, and the primary stakeholder appears to be the teachers.

**** them.

We've already discussed this. The unions are those fighting cuts to extra activities and special help, not the other way around!