Good Teachers....Bad Teachers

[PoliticalChic]

Sure there are good teachers...bet each of us can name three who changed our lives.

"Value-added teacher evaluation" can help identify the good ones.

From an interesting essay in the City Journal:

1. Value-added teacher evaluation—a method that estimates the contribution teachers make to student’s test-score gains—is a concept whose time has most definitely come. Californians are entitled to know precisely who is and isn’t delivering the goods for their children.

2. The Los Angeles Times last month published a much-anticipated follow-up to its path-breaking 2010 investigation, which ranked 6,000 third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade teachers based on their students’ progress on standardized tests year after year. The updated rankings include data for more than 11,500 teachers. Using the California Public Records Act, Times reporters Jason Felch, Jason Song, and Doug Smith obtained student math and language arts scores for the Los Angeles Unified School District from 2003 through 2009.

3. The newspaper commissioned Richard Budden, a senior economist and education researcher with the Santa Monica–based RAND Corporation, to analyze the data. Using the value-added technique, he converted the scores into percentile ratings, and then divided them into five equal categories from “least effective” to “most effective.”

4. The Times stories have exposed that what currently passes for teacher evaluation in California is useless. Currently, a principal or other administrator may visit a class several times (usually with a warning given long in advance), stay a few minutes, scribble down some notes, and leave….Thanks to this ineffective process, more than 99 percent of all teachers receive satisfactory ratings, and after just two years in the classroom achieve tenure—essentially a job for life.

5. Undaunted by the union’s bullying, the Times spent the next nine months showing the benefits of value-added teacher evaluations. The paper reported: “Highly effective teachers routinely propel students from below grade level to advanced in a single year. There is a substantial gap at year’s end between students whose teachers were in the top 10 percent in effectiveness and the bottom 10 percent. The fortunate students ranked 17 percentile points higher in English and 25 points higher in math.”

6. Studies have shown that two consecutive years with a bad teacher can leave students so far behind that they will never catch up.

7. Hoover Institution senior fellow and economist Eric Hanushek claims that while value-added analysis isn’t perfect, it’s “the best tool we have available to zero in on the impact of the individual teacher on student achievement gains.

8. Teachers’ unions dislike all forms of substantive teacher evaluation, viewing any kind of official differentiation among teachers as encouraging competition, which sows envy and thus undermines solidarity. Truth is, of course, objective evaluations show that some teachers really are more effective than others.Grading the Teachers by Larry Sand - City Journal


Let's not throw the baby out with the bad teachers....

 

[psikeyhackr]

The nice thing about good books is that they are independent of the teachers.

The Tyranny of Words by Stuart Chase
Books: Semantics - TIME

That is from 1938 but I only found out about it last year. But he talks about Alfred Korzybski who I read decades ago. But Korzybski is really hard to understand.

But now computers can get us stuff for free.

Eight Keys to Eden by Mark Irvin Clifton - Free eBook

even though some people want to make us pay.

Fictionwise eBooks: Eight Keys to Eden by Mark Clifton

psik

 

[Big Black Dog]

When I was in school, the good teachers always seemed to be pleased with my intelligence. The bad teachers were always the ones who were critical of the teachers that thought I was smart.

 

[psikeyhackr]

Good teachers taught math or science and concentrated on the subject not on convincing you that you could not learn the subject without them.

psik

 

[signelect]

Our country is in an education crisis, the administrators are paid huge fixed salaries and are not delivering. They don't want fair evaluations because it will show just how bad things are. We rank very near the bottom of the list in Texas and we have been throwing money at it for years. Teachers today can't teach because they have become day care providers for parents who can not or will not do anything to education their own children. It is far easier to blame someone else.

 

[midcan5]

Sure there are good teachers...bet each of us can name three who changed our lives.
[...]
6. Studies have shown that two consecutive years with a bad teacher can leave students so far behind that they will never catch up.
[...]

City Journal is full of simplistic nonsense and this is just another example. Two years will leave students behind forever? Where did this conclusion come from? A genuine study? No, of course not, it came from the imagination of someone too lazy to figure out what was really going on in our schools and in our culture. What about a lifetime of TV watching? That should destroy anyone forever. Or lousy, lazy parents? Or lousy, lazy self? How about the inner city schools that are falling down, and full of juvenile delinquents with little parental support? Anyone with half a brain would know two years hardly make up a lifetime, nor does school fill enough of that time to have such impact. You wanna know why some students do poorly? They just don't live in zip codes in which income is in the top brackets. If you doubt that check it out sometime and throw City Journal in the trash where it belongs.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Sure there are good teachers...bet each of us can name three who changed our lives.
[...]
6. Studies have shown that two consecutive years with a bad teacher can leave students so far behind that they will never catch up.
[...]

City Journal is full of simplistic nonsense and this is just another example. Two years will leave students behind forever? Where did this conclusion come from? A genuine study? No, of course not, it came from the imagination of someone too lazy to figure out what was really going on in our schools and in our culture. What about a lifetime of TV watching? That should destroy anyone forever. Or lousy, lazy parents? Or lousy, lazy self? How about the inner city schools that are falling down, and full of juvenile delinquents with little parental support? Anyone with half a brain would know two years hardly make up a lifetime, nor does school fill enough of that time to have such impact. You wanna know why some students do poorly? They just don't live in zip codes in which income is in the top brackets. If you doubt that check it out sometime and throw City Journal in the trash where it belongs.

Oooooo.....

This is bad news....

I post about a statistical method for identifying poor teachers...and you go berserk.
What are you so sensitive about?

Hmmmmm....

 

[Big Black Dog]

Teachers don't need to teach you how to read and write or to do basic math and by all means, don't worry about teaching history as it really happened. What they are required to do though is to teach you that condoms are available in the nurses office, you don't need to have your parent's permission to get an abortion and the only real political solution to today's problems come from only the liberal politicians. They are also determined to inform your kid about how nice is it that there are queers in the world.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Teachers don't need to teach you how to read and write or to do basic math and by all means, don't worry about teaching history as it really happened. What they are required to do though is to teach you that condoms are available in the nurses office, you don't need to have your parent's permission to get an abortion and the only real political solution to today's problems come from only the liberal politicians. They are also determined to inform your kid about how nice is it that there are queers in the world.

Hey, Doggie...are you suggesting that education isn't what it once was???

It's no longer the attempt to instill middle class values and erudition??

Why...I never!


Hey, wanna feel worse, this from one of Winchester's books, check out what the English folk of the time were like:

On Wednesday, June 6, 1928 the Oxford English Dictionary was completed. In "The Meaning of Everything," Simon Winchester discusses the English of the time as follows:

“The English establishment of the day might be rightly derided at this remove as having been class-ridden and imperialist, bombastic and blimpish, racist and insouciant- but it was marked undeniably also by a sweeping erudition and confidence, and it was peopled by men and women who felt they were able to know all, to understand much, and in consequence to radiate the wisdom of deep learning.”


(sigh)

 

[Big Black Dog]

Teachers don't need to teach you how to read and write or to do basic math and by all means, don't worry about teaching history as it really happened. What they are required to do though is to teach you that condoms are available in the nurses office, you don't need to have your parent's permission to get an abortion and the only real political solution to today's problems come from only the liberal politicians. They are also determined to inform your kid about how nice is it that there are queers in the world.

Hey, Doggie...are you suggesting that education isn't what it once was???

It's no longer the attempt to instill middle class values and erudition??

Why...I never!


Hey, wanna feel worse, this from one of Winchester's books, check out what the English folk of the time were like:

On Wednesday, June 6, 1928 the Oxford English Dictionary was completed. In "The Meaning of Everything," Simon Winchester discusses the English of the time as follows:

“The English establishment of the day might be rightly derided at this remove as having been class-ridden and imperialist, bombastic and blimpish, racist and insouciant- but it was marked undeniably also by a sweeping erudition and confidence, and it was peopled by men and women who felt they were able to know all, to understand much, and in consequence to radiate the wisdom of deep learning.”


(sigh)

When I was in high school, there was a dress code. No facial hair, no jeans or tennis shoes, shirts had to have a collar and everybody had to have a proper haircut. You were not allowed to participate in any sports if you had a grade average of less than a C in any class. Teachers (males) all wore at the least a tie and most wore a suit, and all of the female teachers wore some sort of dress or a skirt, etc. No jogging suits, jeans, etc. Today, there is no dress code, in our local area schools you can be failing two classes and still be active in sports, it's ok to have a cell phone, drink pop and chew gum in class. The education we got back then was far superior to what the kids are getting now. You be the judge. My opinion is that our schools, teachers, and just about every element of eduction is broken - badly. It's going to be the cause of our demise.

 

[midcan5]

Sure there are good teachers...bet each of us can name three who changed our lives.
[...]
6. Studies have shown that two consecutive years with a bad teacher can leave students so far behind that they will never catch up.
[...]

City Journal is full of simplistic nonsense and this is just another example. Two years will leave students behind forever? Where did this conclusion come from? A genuine study? No, of course not, it came from the imagination of someone too lazy to figure out what was really going on in our schools and in our culture. What about a lifetime of TV watching? That should destroy anyone forever. Or lousy, lazy parents? Or lousy, lazy self? How about the inner city schools that are falling down, and full of juvenile delinquents with little parental support? Anyone with half a brain would know two years hardly make up a lifetime, nor does school fill enough of that time to have such impact. You wanna know why some students do poorly? They just don't live in zip codes in which income is in the top brackets. If you doubt that check it out sometime and throw City Journal in the trash where it belongs.

Oooooo.....

This is bad news....

I post about a statistical method for identifying poor teachers...and you go berserk.
What are you so sensitive about?

I am the calmest person you'd ever meet. Your post has nothing to do with identifying poor teachers, it has more to do with finger pointing from a publication that sucks. You need to see that, I already do.

 

[Dabs]

Teachers don't need to teach you how to read and write or to do basic math and by all means, don't worry about teaching history as it really happened. What they are required to do though is to teach you that condoms are available in the nurses office, you don't need to have your parent's permission to get an abortion and the only real political solution to today's problems come from only the liberal politicians. They are also determined to inform your kid about how nice is it that there are queers in the world.

Hey, Doggie...are you suggesting that education isn't what it once was???

It's no longer the attempt to instill middle class values and erudition??

Why...I never!


Hey, wanna feel worse, this from one of Winchester's books, check out what the English folk of the time were like:

On Wednesday, June 6, 1928 the Oxford English Dictionary was completed. In "The Meaning of Everything," Simon Winchester discusses the English of the time as follows:

“The English establishment of the day might be rightly derided at this remove as having been class-ridden and imperialist, bombastic and blimpish, racist and insouciant- but it was marked undeniably also by a sweeping erudition and confidence, and it was peopled by men and women who felt they were able to know all, to understand much, and in consequence to radiate the wisdom of deep learning.”


(sigh)

When I was in high school, there was a dress code. No facial hair, no jeans or tennis shoes, shirts had to have a collar and everybody had to have a proper haircut. You were not allowed to participate in any sports if you had a grade average of less than a C in any class. Teachers (males) all wore at the least a tie and most wore a suit, and all of the female teachers wore some sort of dress or a skirt, etc. No jogging suits, jeans, etc. Today, there is no dress code, in our local area schools you can be failing two classes and still be active in sports, it's ok to have a cell phone, drink pop and chew gum in class. The education we got back then was far superior to what the kids are getting now. You be the judge. My opinion is that our schools, teachers, and just about every element of eduction is broken - badly. It's going to be the cause of our demise.

Just for the record, in my school, where I work and my grandchildren go, we do have a dress code.
The elementary schools, which is K thru 5th doesn't have as strict a code, but shorts must not be too short and no tank tops, simple things really.
But in our middle school- which is 6th, 7th and 8th graders, they must wear Khaki pants/shorts/skirts and a Blue shirt---ONLY.
No yellow shirts, or white shirts or red and blue ones, no tie dyed, no sequins, no tank tops or t-shirts that have any words, of any kind...they have to wear BLUE shirts. And the shirts must have sleeves. The shirt can be a t-shirt, but with no pockets or a golf-type shirt, with a couple of buttons in front, or a whole dress shirt, buttoned completely down.
And when I say Khaki pants, I mean the tan colored Khakis...nothing else is allowed.
I find it rather annoying at times, because my granddaughter feels like she is wearing the same damn outfit every day, and so one basically has to buy about 4 or 5 pairs of the same pant.
But, the teachers are to dress nice too. No teachers in our schools wear shorts, they wear long slacks or dresses or a pair of capris is allowed.
And our high schools have dress codes too. If your child is in 5th grade or less, you have more to choose from, in regards to what you send your child to school in. But once they reach 6th grade, it's over for the child's choosing, they must be in dress code.

 

[random3434]

Teachers don't need to teach you how to read and write or to do basic math and by all means, don't worry about teaching history as it really happened. What they are required to do though is to teach you that condoms are available in the nurses office, you don't need to have your parent's permission to get an abortion and the only real political solution to today's problems come from only the liberal politicians. They are also determined to inform your kid about how nice is it that there are queers in the world.

Your teacher friends here at the USMB, Annie, Chanel and myself thank you for this post.

 

[PoliticalChic]

City Journal is full of simplistic nonsense and this is just another example. Two years will leave students behind forever? Where did this conclusion come from? A genuine study? No, of course not, it came from the imagination of someone too lazy to figure out what was really going on in our schools and in our culture. What about a lifetime of TV watching? That should destroy anyone forever. Or lousy, lazy parents? Or lousy, lazy self? How about the inner city schools that are falling down, and full of juvenile delinquents with little parental support? Anyone with half a brain would know two years hardly make up a lifetime, nor does school fill enough of that time to have such impact. You wanna know why some students do poorly? They just don't live in zip codes in which income is in the top brackets. If you doubt that check it out sometime and throw City Journal in the trash where it belongs.

Oooooo.....

This is bad news....

I post about a statistical method for identifying poor teachers...and you go berserk.
What are you so sensitive about?

I am the calmest person you'd ever meet. Your post has nothing to do with identifying poor teachers, it has more to do with finger pointing from a publication that sucks. You need to see that, I already do.

Well, you certainly would have a degree of expertise as to "a publication that sucks." After all, you read "Sojourners," don't you?

1. "Your post has nothing to do with identifying poor teachers,..."
Wrong again...

"Value-added evaluations offer a better way of assessing a teacher’s strengths and weaknesses in the classroom....Value-added isn’t new, but the technique has gained greater acceptance recently as a way of evaluating teachers. Louisiana, Texas, and North Carolina have incorporated value-added into their teacher evaluation rules."

2. "There is a substantial gap at year’s end between students whose teachers were in the top 10 percent in effectiveness and the bottom 10 percent. The fortunate students ranked 17 percentile points higher in English and 25 points higher in math.”

Had enough? No?

3."Ever wonder how effective your child’s teacher is? Officials in Albany would rather you didn’t know. At least that’s the lesson one has to take from their refusal to allow data systems to match students to teachers,…

Standardized tests produce rich sources of information that researchers can use to identify effective policies and practices. The data revolution, moreover, promises to move education policy away from politics. Numbers don’t have agendas or run for reelection. Accurately collected and properly analyzed, data can reveal truths that escape our sight.

One such truth is the effectiveness of individual teachers. Data analysis is far from perfect, and no one argues that it should be used in isolation to make employment decisions. But modern techniques can help us distinguish between teachers whose students excel and teachers whose students languish or fail. There’s just one problem with the data revolution: it doesn’t work without data."

Teachers’ Unions vs. Progress—Again by Marcus A. Winters, City Journal 14 December 2009

Sure seems informative.

4. Now, as the link states, stats alone may not be sufficient...but:
"Recent statistical advances have made it possible to look at student achievement gains after adjusting for some
student and school characteristics. These approaches that measure growth using “value-added modeling” (VAM) are
fairer comparisons of teachers than judgments based on their students’ test scores at a single point in time or comparisons
of student cohorts that involve different students at two points in time. VAM methods have also contributed to stronger
analyses of school progress, program influences, and the validity of evaluation methods than were previously possible."
http://epi.3cdn.net/724cd9a1eb91c40ff0_hwm6iij90.pdf

5. But, hey, you probably insist we rely on ....what.....seniority?
Here, from your fav publication:
That is, upward of 98 percent of a teacher’s contribution to her student’s learning owes to factors other than experience. Since the number of years teachers spend in the classroom hardly explains why some of their students show lots of progress and others show none at all, it makes almost no sense to decide, entirely based on seniority, whom to let go and whom to retain.
Experience Doesn't Teach by Marcus A. Winters, City Journal 27 April 2010


But, like the citizen who wanted to avoid jury duty, and declared "I can just look at a perp and tell if he is guilty or not...."
... you can probably just look at a teacher and see if they are effective or not....

...as long as they're progressive, eh?

 

[William Joyce]

Truth is, of course, objective evaluations show that some teachers really are more effective than others.

"Some are better than others" is a forbidden notion in America. Wee iz all ekwal.

 

[Trajan]

well we can thank jerry brown for appointing union friendly thugs to the controlling agency, so as to stop or that is change a law, extent, that allows parents to demand closure and re org. of their failing schools...in Compton no less...thats just jerry doing his part to hep da weedle chillen to lernz..

 

[Polk]

Stricter performance standards would improve the quality of education, but it's really a dodge of the real problem. Teachers are expected to be professionals, but they aren't paid the kind of salaries professionals are paid. The result is that people who end up becoming teachers are, by and large, the people who couldn't cut it in other areas.

 

[JamesInFlorida]

Stricter performance standards would improve the quality of education, but it's really a dodge of the real problem. Teachers are expected to be professionals, but they aren't paid the kind of salaries professionals are paid. The result is that people who end up becoming teachers are, by and large, the people who couldn't cut it in other areas.

I think better teachers should be paid more than worse teachers. It's a simple solution. If a teacher is a great teacher-I don't think many people would resent paying them a nice salary. If a teacher sucks-they should be shown the door.

It's not that we spend too much, or too little money on education. It's that we waste the money that is spent, on stupid stuff.

 

[Polk]

Stricter performance standards would improve the quality of education, but it's really a dodge of the real problem. Teachers are expected to be professionals, but they aren't paid the kind of salaries professionals are paid. The result is that people who end up becoming teachers are, by and large, the people who couldn't cut it in other areas.

I think better teachers should be paid more than worse teachers. It's a simple solution. If a teacher is a great teacher-I don't think many people would resent paying them a nice salary. If a teacher sucks-they should be shown the door.

It's not that we spend too much, or too little money on education. It's that we waste the money that is spent, on stupid stuff.

The best teachers are still underpaid under that system.

 

[chanel]

A value-added system sounds good on paper, but how would it work? Testing in every subject every year? Do you know how much that would cost? How much time would be wasted? How would special education teachers be paid?

Is it fair to hold teachers responsible for truancy, transiency, and neglect?

Tenure needs to be reformed; not eliminated. "Bad teachers" need to be fired, but student test scores do NOT measure "bad teachers". When a 4th grader is tested in October, does that reflect what he has learned in 4th grade, or in K-3?

Believe it or not folks, good teachers are rewarded and bad teachers are punished. In the first 3 years, many new teachers are denied tenure. After that, certain favorites are given perks like good classes, duties, and paid extracurricular positions.. Consequently, less popular teachers are given those that nobody else wants. Good teachers are left alone; bad teachers are watched constantly.

Every single year, I have gotten all the classes I have requested. When I ask for supplies, maintenance requests, or anything else to make the job less stressful, it is granted. When others bitch about all of the above, I just smile. That's worth far more than money.