Government Employees Are the Scum of the Earth

[MRT144]

I know why I hold the opinion I do, I'm just giving you a hard time for being part of the monocle, spats and scuba set.

[rah]

I don't think he was seriously giving him abuse.

I guess you're wrong about that.

[KrazyHorse]

I know why I hold the opinion I do, I'm just giving you a hard time for being part of the monocle, spats and scuba set.

As I said, pure mood affiliation.

[MRT144]

As I said, pure mood affiliation.

[MRT144]

But seriously, can you provide some of this supposed authoritative voice on the matter of testing as is, and as a sole means to evaluate teacher's impact and merit?

I haven't come across a source that supports solely using student evals to determine teacher's ability and impact, nor a source that says that VAM is without caveats (some of which I stated) or generally unable to precisely measure teachers.

I've read a research brief from RAND and EPI now that validate my concerns and objections. Mood affiliation at RAND?

[The Mad Monk]

They are mostly concerned with special ed cases, not the average cases.

JM

Considering that it is Cabinet level, I find this amazing and disheartening. Why is this Cabinet level???

[rah]

Student evals can be flawed.
Testing results can be flawed.
Parent evals can be flawed.
Peer evals can be flawed.

All done together can reduce some of the flaws. The biggest area is testing. Evaluations based on testing is only as good as the test. Old college entrance exams showed racial bias. Fact basted tests just test the ability to memorize facts. Creating tests that judge learning can be difficult but not impossible.

I've always been a fan of before and after testing, but that has been shown to be easily scammed. But I still think there is some place for it as a component in the overall eval.

[Pax]

I would be interested in knowing what KH would propose to replace teachers.

[KrazyHorse]

I would be interested in knowing what KH would propose to replace teachers.

ROBOTS!!11!!

I would be interested in knowing why you think that I'm proposing eliminating the profession of "teacher".

[giblets]

I would be interested in knowing what KH would propose to replace teachers.

I dunno, he probably thinks school is just a daycare. Maybe robots.

[KrazyHorse]

But seriously, can you provide some of this supposed authoritative voice on the matter of testing as is, and as a sole means to evaluate teacher's impact and merit?

I haven't come across a source that supports solely using student evals to determine teacher's ability and impact, nor a source that says that VAM is without caveats (some of which I stated) or generally unable to precisely measure teachers.

I've read a research brief from RAND and EPI now that validate my concerns and objections. Mood affiliation at RAND?

1) I assume this means that you've realized how ****ing retarded your earlier pair of positions was ("teachers are really important so we should pay them a lot" + "teacher quality has no impact on student achievement, so we shouldn't discriminate between teachers based on achievement")

2) If you want to discuss specific research, please cite the results, not the policy recommendations.

The research I'm aware of says that neither seniority (past the first couple of years) nor educational qualifications have any impact on teacher effectiveness as measured by student testing scores. Other research I'm aware of says that student testing scores are good predictors of lifetime earnings even after other explanatory variables are included. The last piece of research I'm aware of states that there are significant, measurable differences between teacher effectiveness as measured by student testing scores.

The only reason to pay for other metrics of teacher performance than student testing scores would be if there were significant residual differences between teachers' effects on student lifetime earnings (or other measures of student lifetime success such as low incarceration rates, etc) after the effects of testing differences was controlled for (if these other measures of teacher quality provided additional explanatory power). I am not aware of any research which suggests this to be the case, nor of any research which suggests it is not the case. The point is that we only have on metric I'm aware of (test scores) which can reasonably be affected by teachers and which also provides explanatory power for life outcomes. There are other metrics which provide predictive power (race, parental income, parental education etc) but these are not affected by teachers.

[KrazyHorse]

Underfunding is even worse than the Mexican teachers' union.
I teach in a union free private school, and the academic level sucks as much.

You're a teacher? Exhibit ****ing A.

[Hauldren Collider]

Kinda like how Ben is a teacher.

[MRT144]

1) I assume this means that you've realized how ****ing retarded your earlier pair of positions was ("teachers are really important so we should pay them a lot" + "teacher quality has no impact on student achievement, so we shouldn't discriminate between teachers based on achievement")

2) If you want to discuss specific research, please cite the results, not the policy recommendations.

The research I'm aware of says that neither seniority (past the first couple of years) nor educational qualifications have any impact on teacher effectiveness as measured by student testing scores. Other research I'm aware of says that student testing scores are good predictors of lifetime earnings even after other explanatory variables are included. The last piece of research I'm aware of states that there are significant, measurable differences between teacher effectiveness as measured by student testing scores.

The only reason to pay for other metrics of teacher performance than student testing scores would be if there were significant residual differences between teachers' effects on student lifetime earnings (or other measures of student lifetime success such as low incarceration rates, etc) after the effects of testing differences was controlled for (if these other measures of teacher quality provided additional explanatory power). I am not aware of any research which suggests this to be the case, nor of any research which suggests it is not the case. The point is that we only have on metric I'm aware of (test scores) which can reasonably be affected by teachers and which also provides explanatory power for life outcomes. There are other metrics which provide predictive power (race, parental income, parental education etc) but these are not affected by teachers.

Change 1 to an if then statement and you've got my position.

2. I'll have to dig deeper than the briefs but I don't see why the briefs are invalid in at least highlighting the relevant issue of the difficulty of measuring teacher performance.

[Fake Boris]

You're a teacher? Exhibit ****ing A.

Exhibit of what, you moron?