Do you think paying teachers extra for increasing test scores from one year from the

[AquaAthena]

"Do you think paying teachers extra for increasing test scores from one year from the"

No, I think allowing teachers to retain their jobs should be their reward. That will eliminate the poorer educators and motivate the best.

 

[rosends]

What have your years in the classroom revealed about student ability as reflected by external assessment?

That "Oh, I just don't like tests!" is nothing but a cop-out 99.9% of the time, and that reveals plenty right there.

Performative issues aren't about liking the test. They are more often about psychological blocks (sometimes called test anxiety) or about processing. Some students express their understanding in a select format not addressed by a multiple choice test. Take a student who is extremely verbal and wows everyone with his work on the debate team which demands quick, geometric thinking and responsiveness. Give him a seemingly simple question with only 5 possible short answers and he might freeze up because he can't find a written answer which would crystallize what he knows the answer should be. It isn't about his knowledge base or even his ability to demonstrate, in another way, what he knows and knows how to do. There is a reason why certain tests are falling out of fashion -- it has become more accepted that students might still be extremely smart despite test scores.

 

[Unkotare]

What have your years in the classroom revealed about student ability as reflected by external assessment?

That "Oh, I just don't like tests!" is nothing but a cop-out 99.9% of the time, and that reveals plenty right there.

Performative issues aren't about liking the test. They are more often about psychological blocks (sometimes called test anxiety) or about processing.

Also known as bullshit. Even in the 00.1% of the cases where anything more than excuse-making is at play, in what circumstances - educational or professional - is being a choke artist of any value to anyone, including the artist himself?

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Do you think paying teachers extra for increasing test scores from one year from the next is a good idea? Maybe some other reforms like within the innercities we can link welfare to a parent's willingness to help their children. Home work, etc. I think we should also allow choices for people to choose either Public education to money or private schools, ect. Why not?

Another idea for the innercities is classes for teaching the "basic concepts of working hard to being a good father". This would allow for the next generation to improve greatly.

Do you think paying teachers extra for increasing test scores from one year from the next is a good idea?

Dreadful idea.

Teaching is an art, a calling, a teacher’s success and ability can’t be measured by test scores alone. Teachers need to be evaluated on best practices, training, consistency, and their ability to interact with students and be efficient with teaching methods.

Maybe some other reforms like within the innercities we can link welfare to a parent's willingness to help their children. Home work, etc.

This would be un-Constitutional, a violation of due process and equal protection rights; just because one lives in an ‘inner-city’ doesn’t mean he should be subject to additional requirements to receive an education not required in other communities.

I think we should also allow choices for people to choose either Public education to money or private schools, ect. Why not?

Because it would undermine and degrade the quality of public schools; education is not a ‘business,’ not subject to profit or loss alone; the ‘profit’ of public education isn’t realized over the short-term, it’s realized after a student graduates from high school, attends college or receives vocational training, and becomes a productive member of society.

Another idea for the innercities is classes for teaching the "basic concepts of working hard to being a good father". This would allow for the next generation to improve greatly.

This would also be un-Constitutional, a violation of due process and equal protection rights, for the same reason as noted above.

Otherwise, the OP is clearly hostile to, and ignorant of, teaching and public education; his ‘proposals’ are offered in bad faith, intended to be punitive, not helpful.

 

[Unkotare]

Because it would undermine and degrade the quality of public schools; education is not a ‘business,’ not subject to profit or loss alone;

Bullshit. Our colleges and universities operate on a competitive model and they are by far the best in the world.

 

[rosends]

That "Oh, I just don't like tests!" is nothing but a cop-out 99.9% of the time, and that reveals plenty right there.

Performative issues aren't about liking the test. They are more often about psychological blocks (sometimes called test anxiety) or about processing.

Also known as bullshit. Even in the 00.1% of the cases where anything more than excuse-making is at play, in what circumstances - educational or professional - is being a choke artist of any value to anyone, including the artist himself?

call it that if you'd like. That doesn't make it so, or your expletive a persuasive argument. Being a "choke artist" (if that's what you want to call it) isn't about having value. It is about being given other modes of expression through which to demonstrate mastery. Unless you think that one size fits all and everyone has to take the exact same way and be measured by the same rubric. Then there wouldn't be any "artists" anyway.

 

[Unkotare]

Performative issues aren't about liking the test. They are more often about psychological blocks (sometimes called test anxiety) or about processing.

Also known as bullshit. Even in the 00.1% of the cases where anything more than excuse-making is at play, in what circumstances - educational or professional - is being a choke artist of any value to anyone, including the artist himself?

call it that if you'd like. That doesn't make it so, or your expletive a persuasive argument. Being a "choke artist" (if that's what you want to call it) isn't about having value. It is about being given other modes of expression through which to demonstrate mastery.

I'll call it that because that's what it is. Try getting a job and telling your boss you need "other modes of expression through which to demonstrate mastery" when something important needs to be done and your skills are put to the 'test.' See how that works out. You want to offer such 'understanding' to your surgeon, your pilot, your chef? You do nobody a service by enabling bullshit excuse-making.

 

[Samson]

Without trying to trot out my CV, I'll say that my academic performance was never reflected by the scores on standardized tests. I also note many students of mine over the years who excelled and demonstrated brilliance in certain performative milieus but who, for a variety of reasons, could not perform on a closed-ended, multiple choice, timed standardized test. What have your years in the classroom revealed about student ability as reflected by external assessment?

My years in the classroom suggest you are full of shit.

"Many" students do not have trouble both performing on standardized test as well as other performance measurements. Perhaps a few, but I cannot think of "Many."

However, "Many" students that cannot, or have not learned standard skills and knowledge cannot do well on standardized tests.

Teachers who have trouble admitting this obvious fact are normally the deadbeats who do not like teaching to standardized methods, do not like composing assessments, are too fucking lazy to grade frequently, and like teaching so they are never held accountable for their poor performance.

That certainly is one opinion. One that has not been borne out by any experience that I have had and one presented with an attitude so antithetical to what a good teacher should reflect that it is worthless. That you can't think of many doesn't mean I can't. That you think of teachers who have had different experiences as deadbeats is just sad and closed minded. I pity your students, if indeed you have or have had any.

What is sad is that the entire teaching profession is tainted by moronic teaching ethics and idiotic logic like your own.

Happily any parent can easily see their students grades, wonder how the grades are being assessed, voice concerns through the district policy procedure, then if dissatisfied, vote against any additional local taxation that might go toward perpetuating a system that will not hold teachers accountable for anything as simple as teaching standards or performance.

 

[rosends]

Also known as bullshit. Even in the 00.1% of the cases where anything more than excuse-making is at play, in what circumstances - educational or professional - is being a choke artist of any value to anyone, including the artist himself?

call it that if you'd like. That doesn't make it so, or your expletive a persuasive argument. Being a "choke artist" (if that's what you want to call it) isn't about having value. It is about being given other modes of expression through which to demonstrate mastery.

I'll call it that because that's what it is. Try getting a job and telling your boss you need "other modes of expression through which to demonstrate mastery" when something important needs to be done and your skills are put to the 'test.' See how that works out. You want to offer such 'understanding' to your surgeon, your pilot, your chef? You do nobody a service by enabling bullshit excuse-making.

I don't argue with this practical point -- I have, for years, been concerned about the upwards filtering of "extra time". If your heart surgeon has 29 minutes to keep you on a machine before you die, no one will care that he is supposed to get time and a half. But that isn't the issue here. Not every student is slated to be a surgeon. And those who aren't ever going to be surgeons because they don't thrive under a particular set of circumstances and demands shouldn't then have their educational success measured by standards suited to those who are going to be surgeons.

I'm not saying (at all) that every student is equal and that every student should have accommodations made to give to him every of the same opportunities. But if we wish to assess the success of the teaching process (that's what this stream of the top post is about) then we have to recognize that students who have intellectual abilities and can demonstrate mastery may not be able to do it through standardized testing. Maybe that means that they will take that same mastery and go into a different field with it, but it shouldn't diminish that they have achieved the mastery in the first place and the standardized tests is deficient at assessing it.

 

[Unkotare]

call it that if you'd like. That doesn't make it so, or your expletive a persuasive argument. Being a "choke artist" (if that's what you want to call it) isn't about having value. It is about being given other modes of expression through which to demonstrate mastery.

I'll call it that because that's what it is. Try getting a job and telling your boss you need "other modes of expression through which to demonstrate mastery" when something important needs to be done and your skills are put to the 'test.' See how that works out. You want to offer such 'understanding' to your surgeon, your pilot, your chef? You do nobody a service by enabling bullshit excuse-making.

I don't argue with this practical point -- I have, for years, been concerned about the upwards filtering of "extra time". If your heart surgeon has 29 minutes to keep you on a machine before you die, no one will care that he is supposed to get time and a half. But that isn't the issue here. Not every student is slated to be a surgeon. And those who aren't ever going to be surgeons because they don't thrive under a particular set of circumstances and demands shouldn't then have their educational success measured by standards suited to those who are going to be surgeons.

Ah, that's the solution! Lowered expectations! That'll serve the next generation so well! Holy shit, I hope you're not a teacher. Talk about being part of the problem...


[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiRGRvE_Wqg]Caddyshack- The World Need Ditch Diggers, Too - YouTube[/ame]

 

[rosends]

My years in the classroom suggest you are full of shit.

"Many" students do not have trouble both performing on standardized test as well as other performance measurements. Perhaps a few, but I cannot think of "Many."

However, "Many" students that cannot, or have not learned standard skills and knowledge cannot do well on standardized tests.

Teachers who have trouble admitting this obvious fact are normally the deadbeats who do not like teaching to standardized methods, do not like composing assessments, are too fucking lazy to grade frequently, and like teaching so they are never held accountable for their poor performance.

That certainly is one opinion. One that has not been borne out by any experience that I have had and one presented with an attitude so antithetical to what a good teacher should reflect that it is worthless. That you can't think of many doesn't mean I can't. That you think of teachers who have had different experiences as deadbeats is just sad and closed minded. I pity your students, if indeed you have or have had any.

What is sad is that the entire teaching profession is tainted by moronic teaching ethics and idiotic logic like your own.

Happily any parent can easily see their students grades, wonder how the grades are being assessed, voice concerns through the district policy procedure, then if dissatisfied, vote against any additional local taxation that might go toward perpetuating a system that will not hold teachers accountable for anything as simple as teaching standards or performance.

Well, don't worry about it. I'm busy undermining the educational system in the private school system where parents spend more time trying to get their kids INTO my classes than out. Of course, I got my SDA with public school teachers who were all learning and espousing (and practicing) the same "moronic teaching ethics and idiotic logic" in the public schools. And only a non-teacher would claim that there is anything "simple" about teaching standards or performance.

 

[Samson]

I don't argue with this practical point -- I have, for years, been concerned about the upwards filtering of "extra time". If your heart surgeon has 29 minutes to keep you on a machine before you die, no one will care that he is supposed to get time and a half. But that isn't the issue here. Not every student is slated to be a surgeon. And those who aren't ever going to be surgeons because they don't thrive under a particular set of circumstances and demands shouldn't then have their educational success measured by standards suited to those who are going to be surgeons.

I'm not saying (at all) that every student is equal and that every student should have accommodations made to give to him every of the same opportunities. But if we wish to assess the success of the teaching process (that's what this stream of the top post is about) then we have to recognize that students who have intellectual abilities and can demonstrate mastery may not be able to do it through standardized testing. Maybe that means that they will take that same mastery and go into a different field with it, but it shouldn't diminish that they have achieved the mastery in the first place and the standardized tests is deficient at assessing it.

Shit, all we want are kids to be able to read, write and do math: not be able to perform open heart surgey.

You'd think that you might be willing to teach these things without too much whinning about being held accountable through a standardized test.

And stop with the absurd notion that any significant portion of the student population cannot take a fucking multiple choice test: Everyone reading this post has taken dozens of these tests throughout their educational carrers, and no one believes that "Many" students are simply too dazed and confused to "bubble in the correct response."

 

[rosends]

I'll call it that because that's what it is. Try getting a job and telling your boss you need "other modes of expression through which to demonstrate mastery" when something important needs to be done and your skills are put to the 'test.' See how that works out. You want to offer such 'understanding' to your surgeon, your pilot, your chef? You do nobody a service by enabling bullshit excuse-making.

I don't argue with this practical point -- I have, for years, been concerned about the upwards filtering of "extra time". If your heart surgeon has 29 minutes to keep you on a machine before you die, no one will care that he is supposed to get time and a half. But that isn't the issue here. Not every student is slated to be a surgeon. And those who aren't ever going to be surgeons because they don't thrive under a particular set of circumstances and demands shouldn't then have their educational success measured by standards suited to those who are going to be surgeons.

Ah, that's the solution! Lowered expectations! That'll serve the next generation so well! Holy shit, I hope you're not a teacher. Talk about being part of the problem...

interesting how you take "lowered expectations" out of a discussion on different assessment modalities. You really do think one-size-fits-all? One test is the best way to assess every student's singular expression of content acquisition? I certainly hope you are not anywhere near the classroom if only for your lack of reading comprehension.

 

[rosends]

I don't argue with this practical point -- I have, for years, been concerned about the upwards filtering of "extra time". If your heart surgeon has 29 minutes to keep you on a machine before you die, no one will care that he is supposed to get time and a half. But that isn't the issue here. Not every student is slated to be a surgeon. And those who aren't ever going to be surgeons because they don't thrive under a particular set of circumstances and demands shouldn't then have their educational success measured by standards suited to those who are going to be surgeons.

I'm not saying (at all) that every student is equal and that every student should have accommodations made to give to him every of the same opportunities. But if we wish to assess the success of the teaching process (that's what this stream of the top post is about) then we have to recognize that students who have intellectual abilities and can demonstrate mastery may not be able to do it through standardized testing. Maybe that means that they will take that same mastery and go into a different field with it, but it shouldn't diminish that they have achieved the mastery in the first place and the standardized tests is deficient at assessing it.

Shit, all we want are kids to be able to read, write and do math: not be able to perform open heart surgey.

You'd think that you might be willing to teach these things without too much whinning about being held accountable through a standardized test.

And stop with the absurd notion that any significant portion of the student population cannot take a fucking multiple choice test: Everyone reading this post has taken dozens of these tests throughout their educational carrers, and no one believes that "Many" students are simply too dazed and confused to "bubble in the correct response."

"all we want are kids to be able to read, write and do math"
really? I like kids to think. But that's just me. You might want to review the common core standards and see that there is more to it than that. And your glibness about being "dazed and confused" accounting for difficulty on any particular type of testing shows both an ignorance of and insensitivity to the needs of students.

 

[Samson]

That certainly is one opinion. One that has not been borne out by any experience that I have had and one presented with an attitude so antithetical to what a good teacher should reflect that it is worthless. That you can't think of many doesn't mean I can't. That you think of teachers who have had different experiences as deadbeats is just sad and closed minded. I pity your students, if indeed you have or have had any.

What is sad is that the entire teaching profession is tainted by moronic teaching ethics and idiotic logic like your own.

Happily any parent can easily see their students grades, wonder how the grades are being assessed, voice concerns through the district policy procedure, then if dissatisfied, vote against any additional local taxation that might go toward perpetuating a system that will not hold teachers accountable for anything as simple as teaching standards or performance.

Well, don't worry about it. I'm busy undermining the educational system in the private school system where parents spend more time trying to get their kids INTO my classes than out. Of course, I got my SDA with public school teachers who were all learning and espousing (and practicing) the same "moronic teaching ethics and idiotic logic" in the public schools. And only a non-teacher would claim that there is anything "simple" about teaching standards or performance.

Maybe it is your poor reading comprehension skills that prevented you from being able to bubble in the correct response, but I never said teaching was simple.

I said, "simple as teaching STANDARDS OR PERFORMANCE," idiot.

I see I must spell it out for you:


A. You teach.

B. Then you write an assesment instrument.

C. Your students demonstrate whether or not they learned anything using the instrument

 

[blimpo]

Wow, this might be a first--A thread and comments (for the most part) that actually deal with real education issues instead of the liberal, commie, Nazi, right-wing, left-wing, indocrination, brainwashing, crap that usually pops up.

My thoughts on the merit deal.

1. My state has started to put this in motion without making any allowances for where this money will originate. Thus, merit pay is a pipe dream.

2. Merit pay is considered practical at the elementary level with self-contained classrooms, but no plan I know of has been successfully worked out where students have different teachers for different subjects. How will teachers be rated in subject areas that are not tested?

3. Unless a starting point is used to see progress gained from the start of the year to the end using the same kids with the same variables none of this is a valid working study. If this is not used, one teacher could be "stuck" with the majority of low learners and labeled failing while another gets the "cream of the crop" and comes out smelling like a rose. The best teacher might not receive the merit pay. That will go to the one that 'sucks up' the best to the counselor or principal that assigns students.
Also, unless this start and end of year assessment is used, who would be willing to sacrifice their career teaching in schools in low-performing areas?
4. Competition among teachers in one building is not really a great thing. If a teacher comes up with or uses a method that gets results they are not going to share it and possibly lose merit pay to another teacher that adopts this method. Colaboration which can improve teaching won't exist.

5. It has been suggested that in a school which has students moving to different classrooms for different subjects (secondary ed), the teachers will possibly be rated as one group and the merit pay will be shared or blame shared.
This means P.E., Art, Music, Health, and Social Studies will cease to exist as taught subjects. Since Math and Language Arts are the core of standardized testing, teachers of these named subjects will become Math and Language Arts teachers. Kids will be writing in Shop and P.E. classes. Before I retired this last year this was already happening.

6. Lastly, teachers are human. Basing teacher pay on test performance will create an extreme bitterness toward the students that don't put forth any effort to pass the tests or don't have the ability to pass. These students will have a direct affect on teacher pay making some teachers resentful.

I'm out of the loop now (and I thank God due to what I read on these forums) so merit pay won't affect me, but I can see some real issues that haven't been totally thought out.
The eggheads that run education have for years, hopped on any bandwagon that comes along without thinking things through. I can't even begin to count the number of new and improved methods that look wonderful on paper but are impractical in a classroom that have flowed through over the years only to be chucked for the next new thing. We used to laugh that all these ideas had at the most a ten year cycle. If you had a kid in school during that time the best you could hope for was that the fad wasn't a disaster.
What a lot of all this boils down to is every school system, every school, every principal, every teacher, and every student is different. The needs of any one of these might not be the needs of the others.
The variable here is the product is unstable. Kids are going through all this with little maturity, little experience, (and in some grades) and a social path that changes almost daily. Someone tells a kid they don't like the kid's shirt and that student feel his/her world is ending. I'm not even going to get into what a kid's homelife is like. The key here to merit pay is based on beings that are mentally, emotionally, and even physically (hormonal) unstable.

We'd all like success and here we go through another cycle. For those going into education, that business degree is looking pretty attractive...

 

[Unkotare]

I don't argue with this practical point -- I have, for years, been concerned about the upwards filtering of "extra time". If your heart surgeon has 29 minutes to keep you on a machine before you die, no one will care that he is supposed to get time and a half. But that isn't the issue here. Not every student is slated to be a surgeon. And those who aren't ever going to be surgeons because they don't thrive under a particular set of circumstances and demands shouldn't then have their educational success measured by standards suited to those who are going to be surgeons.

Ah, that's the solution! Lowered expectations! That'll serve the next generation so well! Holy shit, I hope you're not a teacher. Talk about being part of the problem...

interesting how you take "lowered expectations" out of a discussion on different assessment modalities. You really do think one-size-fits-all? One test is the best way to assess every student's singular expression of content acquisition? I certainly hope you are not anywhere near the classroom if only for your lack of reading comprehension.

You are not a teacher. You are an enabler of mediocrity.

 

[rosends]

What is sad is that the entire teaching profession is tainted by moronic teaching ethics and idiotic logic like your own.

Happily any parent can easily see their students grades, wonder how the grades are being assessed, voice concerns through the district policy procedure, then if dissatisfied, vote against any additional local taxation that might go toward perpetuating a system that will not hold teachers accountable for anything as simple as teaching standards or performance.

Well, don't worry about it. I'm busy undermining the educational system in the private school system where parents spend more time trying to get their kids INTO my classes than out. Of course, I got my SDA with public school teachers who were all learning and espousing (and practicing) the same "moronic teaching ethics and idiotic logic" in the public schools. And only a non-teacher would claim that there is anything "simple" about teaching standards or performance.

Maybe it is your poor reading comprehension skills that prevented you from being able to bubble in the correct response, but I never said teaching was simple.

I said, "simple as teaching STANDARDS OR PERFORMANCE," idiot.

I see I must spell it out for you:


A. You teach.

B. Then you write an assesment instrument.

C. Your students demonstrate whether or not they learned anything using the instrument

oh, I get it. Making accurate, authentic and fair assessments is the easy part. That must explain why there is a single formula for doing so, and no debate within the profession about how to do it. I teach. I make two to three different types of assessments. I then look at the student, the student's history, the types of errors made, the performances and the modes and try to sift through the noise to decide if a student has developed competency and mastery. It would be a sad class if it was reduced to you "simple" formula.

 

[rosends]

Ah, that's the solution! Lowered expectations! That'll serve the next generation so well! Holy shit, I hope you're not a teacher. Talk about being part of the problem...

interesting how you take "lowered expectations" out of a discussion on different assessment modalities. You really do think one-size-fits-all? One test is the best way to assess every student's singular expression of content acquisition? I certainly hope you are not anywhere near the classroom if only for your lack of reading comprehension.

You are not a teacher. You are an enabler of mediocrity.

Call names if you need to and think so if you want. I'll let my experience and reputation tell me otherwise. Fortunately, I don't rely on anonymous posts from people outside the profession determine how successful I am.

 

[Unkotare]

interesting how you take "lowered expectations" out of a discussion on different assessment modalities. You really do think one-size-fits-all? One test is the best way to assess every student's singular expression of content acquisition? I certainly hope you are not anywhere near the classroom if only for your lack of reading comprehension.

You are not a teacher. You are an enabler of mediocrity.

Call names if you need to and think so if you want.

How about I'll call the obvious what it is?