What does your ideal education system look like?

bandit0013 wrote:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/nyc_fire_proof_school_crooks_hEVEp3JWvGuP0oGwPRhCDP

You realize if you did any of what these teachers did your boss would march you to the door with HR approval immediately.

My job involves working for the state's lottery(indirectly), so the theft and fraud things would get me fired (I can be fired for just playing the lottery). My boss could suspend me without pay, but HR would have the final say about being fired (which would almost certainly happen). The dog attack wouldn't be a fire-able offense. The restraining of another person would depend on the situation. So in all of your examples, it would still go through some form of hearing process.

bandit0013 wrote:

This is a great read too. Shows that unionization as a performance booster is inconclusive at best, and is by far the most balanced research I've encountered.

http://ceep.indiana.edu/projects/PDF/PB_V6N8_Fall_2008_EPB.pdf

So because the POSITIVE effect of teacher's unions is inconclusive, that's the reason to blame teacher's unions for their NEGATIVE effect.

Explain that one to me?

CheezePavilion wrote:
bandit0013 wrote:

This is a great read too. Shows that unionization as a performance booster is inconclusive at best, and is by far the most balanced research I've encountered.

http://ceep.indiana.edu/projects/PDF/PB_V6N8_Fall_2008_EPB.pdf

So because the POSITIVE effect of teacher's unions is inconclusive, that's the reason to blame teacher's unions for their NEGATIVE effect.

Explain that one to me?

Remember this?

CheezePavilion wrote:

Then show me how unions keep the tenure system in place and keep poor educators from getting canned with some facts, because from what I know of the facts, that's an unsound theory of yours.

Just before that post I provided a litany of links showing abnormally low termination rates, teachers with criminal records that can't be fired, poor performing teachers that can't be fired, union sponsored legislation that makes it cost prohibitive to fire teachers and for good measure I cited an actual unbiased research study that puts doubts to the link between unions and performance.

If you believe that the system isn't keeping bad teachers employed, could you provide some facts about teacher terminations that show otherwise?

Nice study on teacher quality Here's some interesting tidbits if you don't want to read the whole thing:

Perhaps most remarkable is the finding that a master’s degree has no systematic relationship to teacher quality as measured by student outcomes. This immediately raises a number of issues for policy, because advanced degrees invariably lead to higher teacher salaries and because advanced degrees are required for full certification in a number of states. Indeed, over half of current teachers in the U.S. have a master’s degree or more.

And my favorite, the point I've been making:

While there is substantial variation across states in what is required for certification, the underlying theme is invariably attempting to set minimum requirements in an effort to ensure that no students are subjected to bad teaching. The problem is that, though certification requirements may prevent some poorly prepared teachers from entering the profession, they may also exclude others who would be quite effective in the classroom. Not only may some potentially good teachers be unable to pass the examinations, the certification requirements may discourage others from even attempting to enter the teaching profession; see, for example, Murnane et al. (1991). The nature of this tradeoff depends in large part on the objectives and skills of administrators who make teacher personnel decisions.

And just to throw another kink in OG's argument about low income:

The Rivkin et al. (2001) estimates of teacher performance suggest that having five years of good teachers in a row (one standard deviation above average, or at the 85th quality percentile) could overcome the average 7th grade mathematics achievement gap between lower income kids (those on free or reduced price lunch) and those from higher income families. In other words, high quality teachers can make up for the typical deficits that we see in the preparation of kids from disadvantaged backgrounds

I mean, you guys are right, I was throwing some stuff out there I just "know to be true" you were right to challenge me on it. So I've posted several links from media and several peer reviewed studies. The ball is in your court.

Oh, and that study I linked above ^ the lazy can skip right down to policy implications, it's really well written. Lots of math in there though, so some of us American education system products may not make it through.

bandit0013 wrote:

And my favorite, the point I've been making:

While there is substantial variation across states in what is required for certification, the underlying theme is invariably attempting to set minimum requirements in an effort to ensure that no students are subjected to bad teaching. The problem is that, though certification requirements may prevent some poorly prepared teachers from entering the profession, they may also exclude others who would be quite effective in the classroom. Not only may some potentially good teachers be unable to pass the examinations, the certification requirements may discourage others from even attempting to enter the teaching profession; see, for example, Murnane et al. (1991). The nature of this tradeoff depends in large part on the objectives and skills of administrators who make teacher personnel decisions.

This is a pretty poor argument against requiring certification. Because some hypothetical good teachers are discouraged from seeking certification, we should get rid of them entirely and also allow the hypothetically bad teachers in with them?

bandit0013 wrote:

And just to throw another kink in OG's argument about low income:

The Rivkin et al. (2001) estimates of teacher performance suggest that having five years of good teachers in a row (one standard deviation above average, or at the 85th quality percentile) could overcome the average 7th grade mathematics achievement gap between lower income kids (those on free or reduced price lunch) and those from higher income families. In other words, high quality teachers can make up for the typical deficits that we see in the preparation of kids from disadvantaged backgrounds

You do realize that this only supports OG's argument, right? It takes 5 consecutive years of having high quality teachers to overcome potentially (that "could" is no guarantee) to get a lower income 7th-grade kid (getting free or reduced price lunch) to achieve as well in math as one not getting free and reduced price lunches. So children from low income families require better teachers to do well in school, and not just a better teacher for one year, but 5 consecutive years.

@Strengah

Actually the opposite. Most of the certification/requirements involve level of education, like master's degree, which were shown to have negative correlation with teacher quality. Experience is a factor, as per the study, but there's really not much of an experience gap between someone entering the field from another career and a brand new green teacher. What is unanswered by research is whether experience in other education type activities (like training) has an impact on that experience factor. I would hypothesize that it does.

The top comment from the research is just affirming my stance that the certification requirements aren't necessarily keeping bad teachers out. I'm not suggesting that there be no measurement of ability at all, I'm just suggesting that given the poor performance of additional training/education level versus student outcomes maybe my previous comment about qualities intrinsic to the teacher being important is valid. More so that completing a certification track.

Given all that, how can we be more creative in the hiring and firing of teachers to maximize the probability that those kids get their 5 years of good teachers? The current system is NOT doing that.

1st: It's Stengah, no "r"

I don't disagree with you that some of the currently required criteria for certification could stand to be changed, or that experience in the field should be taken into account. I also don't disagree with you that teachers unions make it hard for their members to get fired. I do disagree with your belief that it's some sinister plot to keep bad teachers employed (which you've shown zero evidence for, despite repeated requests. The reason it's hard to get a teacher fired? To protect teachers from spurious allegations and overzealous parents. I'm fully willing to admit that it also makes it hard to fire bad teachers, but that's no reason to dismantle the unions, it's a reason to renegotiate (and actually try to negotiate, not make outrageous demands, refuse to budge an inch, then paint the unions as unwilling to negotiate).

bandit0013 wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:
bandit0013 wrote:

This is a great read too. Shows that unionization as a performance booster is inconclusive at best, and is by far the most balanced research I've encountered.

http://ceep.indiana.edu/projects/PDF/PB_V6N8_Fall_2008_EPB.pdf

So because the POSITIVE effect of teacher's unions is inconclusive, that's the reason to blame teacher's unions for their NEGATIVE effect.

Explain that one to me?

Remember this?

CheezePavilion wrote:

Then show me how unions keep the tenure system in place and keep poor educators from getting canned with some facts, because from what I know of the facts, that's an unsound theory of yours.

Just before that post I provided a litany of links showing abnormally low termination rates, teachers with criminal records that can't be fired, poor performing teachers that can't be fired, union sponsored legislation that makes it cost prohibitive to fire teachers and for good measure I cited an actual unbiased research study that puts doubts to the link between unions and performance.

The point of an educational system isn't to fire bad teachers. The point of an educational system is to educate students. If the best you can do on the topic of performance is one that puts doubts to a connection that not only doesn't support your argument, but would contradict it if true.

If you believe that the system isn't keeping bad teachers employed, could you provide some facts about teacher terminations that show otherwise?

Could you show me some connection between unions and keeping bad teachers employed? From everything I've read, it's no easier to get a teacher fired in a state where unionized collective bargaining is prohibited by law than in one with a strong union.

Whatever facts you've offered, none of them show (1) unions are the cause of our education problems or (2) curtailing the power of unions would make it easier to fire bad teachers.

CheezePavilion wrote:

Could you show me some connection between unions and keeping bad teachers employed? From everything I've read, it's no easier to get a teacher fired in a state where unionized collective bargaining is prohibited by law than in one with a strong union.

Whatever facts you've offered, none of them show (1) unions are the cause of our education problems or (2) curtailing the power of unions would make it easier to fire bad teachers.

If you're going to challenge me, at least don't throw me a softball:

Chicago. In a school district that has by any measure failed its students — only 28.5 percent of 11th graders met or exceeded expectations on that state’s standardized tests — Newsweek reported that only 0.1 percent of teachers were dismissed for performance-related reasons between 2005 and 2008. When barely one in four students nearing graduation can read and do math, how is it possible that only one in one thousand teachers is worthy of dismissal?

During that same time frame, Toledo, Ohio, dismissed just .01 percent, and Akron, Ohio and Denver, Colorado did not dismiss any. Instead of getting rid of poor performers, principals try to shuffle them into other schools and districts – a process known as the "dance of the lemons" by many schools today.

How about the teacher in NY who admitted to sending sexual emails to a 16 yr old student. Took 6 years and $350,000 in fees to fire the teacher.

The reason teachers are difficult to fire is because of the union policies that protect them. Curtailing the power of the union to enforce these procedures (like the NEA policy link I posted previously) would make it more efficient to go through the termination process.

Oh, and that .1%. Compare that to 8% in the private sector.

---------------

Ever research what you do if you don't like your school system? Your choices are to pony up the cash for a private school, or homeschool. Know what organization consistently comes out against the concept of vouchers which would allow parents the choice in who educates your kids? Unions. If public schools are doing such a great job, why would any teacher's union be opposed to parents moving their kids to districts that are successful or taking them out of the system? If the quality is so high there is nothing to fear amiright?

Know what a lot of those OECD countries that out perform us like Finland, Sweden, etc have that we don't? School choice. Each student is assigned a dollar value, and that money goes wherever the parents decide they should go. Regional schools "compete" via specialization (one school focuses on having the best math and sciences program, another does art, another does english and literature). Naturally students get the full curriculum wherever they decide to go, but some schools focus on attracting students of a certain type, and try to focus on getting the best teachers in those areas on board. Why would anyone be opposed to this?

Of course, the DC school system recently killed $18 million in federal aid for disadvantaged kids that allowed them to leave the horrible DC public school system? Oh that was Eleanor Norton, the DC delegate. Let's go browse her campaign contributions... wow, the American Federation of Teachers is her #3 donor. I'm sure they talked to her about these evil vouchers.

How about the well documented opposition by teacher's union of charter schools (also a "school choice") issue?

-----

It's cool though, let them unionize all they want. Can you at least be for school choice then? How about allowing teachers the option of not joining a union? I believe only 8 states offer that privilege, Ohio where I live isn't one of them.

Stengah wrote:

1st: It's Stengah, no "r"

I don't disagree with you that some of the currently required criteria for certification could stand to be changed, or that experience in the field should be taken into account. I also don't disagree with you that teachers unions make it hard for their members to get fired. I do disagree with your belief that it's some sinister plot to keep bad teachers employed (which you've shown zero evidence for, despite repeated requests. The reason it's hard to get a teacher fired? To protect teachers from spurious allegations and overzealous parents. I'm fully willing to admit that it also makes it hard to fire bad teachers, but that's no reason to dismantle the unions, it's a reason to renegotiate (and actually try to negotiate, not make outrageous demands, refuse to budge an inch, then paint the unions as unwilling to negotiate).

I think sinister plot is a bit too far into tin foil hat land for me but as I've posted above the result of said policies has been to keep bad teachers employed. It doesn't matter what the intent was, it's the result I'm worried about. Do I think that union leadership wants to show value to their members by providing them job security at nearly any cost? The data seems to hold up to that. Do I think they sit around a table in a poorly lit room and cackle about it? No...

But seriously dude, 6 years for that sexual email teacher. They had the emails and an admission of guilt... still 6 years. What other conclusion can you draw? The policy is BAD.

Here's another great one, it's even from huff-po so you won't think I'm only drawing from "right wing" sources.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/22/new-york-teachers-paid-to_n_219336.html

Because their union contract makes it extremely difficult to fire them, the teachers have been banished by the school system to its "rubber rooms" _ off-campus office space where they wait months, even years, for their disciplinary hearings.

The 700 or so teachers can practice yoga, work on their novels, paint portraits of their colleagues _ pretty much anything but school work. They have summer vacation just like their classroom colleagues and enjoy weekends and holidays through the school year.

Because the teachers collect their full salaries of $70,000 or more, the city Department of Education estimates the practice costs the taxpayers $65 million a year. The department blames union rules.


"It is extremely difficult to fire a tenured teacher because of the protections afforded to them in their contract," spokeswoman Ann Forte said.

Is that good enough for you Cheeze?

bandit0013 wrote:

I think sinister plot is a bit too far into tin foil hat land for me but as I've posted above the result of said policies has been to keep bad teachers employed. It doesn't matter what the intent was, it's the result I'm worried about. Do I think that union leadership wants to show value to their members by providing them job security at nearly any cost? The data seems to hold up to that. Do I think they sit around a table in a poorly lit room and cackle about it? No...

But seriously dude, 6 years for that sexual email teacher. They had the emails and an admission of guilt... still 6 years. What other conclusion can you draw? The policy is BAD.

I never said it was good, just that it wasn't a good reason to vilify or dismantle unions. If you want to get mad at someone, get mad at the negotiators that agreed to the terms the union asked for. As for your 6 year/$350,000 example, it's just that: an example. Unless you can show that the average time to fire a teacher caught sending emails of a sexual nature to a student, it's just an extreme outlier. As for Hufffington-Post article, the reasons the teachers were stuck there were as follows:

Accused of lying at a hearing on whether to suspend a student
Accusing an assistant principal of tinkering with test results
Having a student sit in class with a hat on, singing
Using abusive language when a girl cut her with scissors
Throwing a girl's test sign-up form in the garbage during an argument
Pushing a boy while breaking up a fight

So out of the 6 individuals interviewed, only one has done anything that would (in my eyes) warrant disciplinary action. Furthermore, the reason teachers spend so long there is that the there are only 23 arbitrators who can hear their cases, and they only work 5 days a month. Before you cite this as an example of unions making bad policy, find out who is in charge of those arbitrators, why they only work 5 days a month, and why there aren't more of them being hired. If the union controls all that, I'll agree that it's the union being unreasonable and that particular bit ought to be changed ASAP (with the stipulation that whoever was on the other side of the negotiating table was severely incompetent for agreeing to it).

bandit0013 wrote:

Is that good enough for you Cheeze?

No, it isn't (I've already heard that story), and, I don't see how you could possibly think it was:

City officials said that they make teachers report to a rubber room instead of sending they home because the union contract requires that they be allowed to continue in their jobs in some fashion while their cases are being heard. The contract does not permit them to be given other work.

So instead of complaining about the government dragging its heels and not getting these cases resolved quicker, you choose to blame the teachers for wanting a hearing before being fired?

Guess what: teachers probably hate this as much as anyone. You think a good teacher that is unfairly accused wants to sit in a 'rubber room' and not get back to teaching?

You think this is about unions, and not about the city trying to avoid a lawsuit from parents?

"The day just seemed to crawl by until I started painting," Cohen said, adding that others read, play dominoes or sleep. Cohen said she was charged with using abusive language when a girl cut her with scissors.

Sally can't read because Ms. Cohen turned into a potty mouth after Sally shanked her? That's your argument that unions are to blame?

bandit0013 wrote:

It's cool though, let them unionize all they want. Can you at least be for school choice then? How about allowing teachers the option of not joining a union? I believe only 8 states offer that privilege, Ohio where I live isn't one of them.

And how does student performance in those eight compare to the other states?

Why would I be convinced to make 42 states like the other 8 states when you haven't shown the 8 states are doing a better job than the other 42?

CheezePavilion wrote:
bandit0013 wrote:

It's cool though, let them unionize all they want. Can you at least be for school choice then? How about allowing teachers the option of not joining a union? I believe only 8 states offer that privilege, Ohio where I live isn't one of them.

And how does student performance in those eight compare to the other states?

Why would I be convinced to make 42 states like the other 8 states when you haven't shown the 8 states are doing a better job than the other 42?

International figures. It's quite simple.

I'm kind of tired of providing all the articles and data points. If you want to convince people, go get some sources. I'm not on this board to be your research assistant.

I do notice that you're focusing on the 6 out of 700. I also notice that you have completely ignored the extremely low termination rate. You also have nothing to say about the fact that the average (well documented) cost of firing teachers is prohibitive.

CheezePavilion wrote:

So instead of complaining about the government dragging its heels and not getting these cases resolved quicker, you choose to blame the teachers for wanting a hearing before being fired?

Please read the NEA policy I linked earlier in the thread. It's not the government dragging its heals. The arbiters are union appointed/approved.

bandit0013 wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:
bandit0013 wrote:

It's cool though, let them unionize all they want. Can you at least be for school choice then? How about allowing teachers the option of not joining a union? I believe only 8 states offer that privilege, Ohio where I live isn't one of them.

And how does student performance in those eight compare to the other states?

Why would I be convinced to make 42 states like the other 8 states when you haven't shown the 8 states are doing a better job than the other 42?

International figures. It's quite simple.

I'm kind of tired of providing all the articles and data points. If you want to convince people, go get some sources. I'm not on this board to be your research assistant.

I do notice that you're focusing on the 6 out of 700. I also notice that you have completely ignored the extremely low termination rate. You also have nothing to say about the fact that the average (well documented) cost of firing teachers is prohibitive.

Just an aside, as a New Yorker, we're well aware of the rubber rooms. While they're not a good thing in terms of *cost*, they also more or less immediately remove bad teachers from their positions of influence over children. The bureaucracy only delays the money parts of the equation, not the ones that matter from a classroom perspective.

Tanglebones wrote:

Just an aside, as a New Yorker, we're well aware of the rubber rooms. While they're not a good thing in terms of *cost*, they also more or less immediately remove bad teachers from their positions of influence over children. The bureaucracy only delays the money parts of the equation, not the ones that matter from a classroom perspective.

Yeah, I used to live in NY. My quibble with the rubber rooms is purely a matter of cost. We're in an economic environment where governments are cutting funds to schools (which I think is a mistake, we need reform or cuts are pretty useless). So to be spending $65 million a year on this is one hell of an opportunity cost since those funds would be much better allocated to classrooms.

I mean, with the statistics on the cost of terminating teachers, why not just renegotiate that a teacher can be fired just like any private sector worker but gets 1 year severance pay? It would cost less, be quicker, and they'd have a year's worth of protection from those evil parents and administrators.

bandit0013 wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:
bandit0013 wrote:

It's cool though, let them unionize all they want. Can you at least be for school choice then? How about allowing teachers the option of not joining a union? I believe only 8 states offer that privilege, Ohio where I live isn't one of them.

And how does student performance in those eight compare to the other states?

Why would I be convinced to make 42 states like the other 8 states when you haven't shown the 8 states are doing a better job than the other 42?

International figures. It's quite simple.

What international figures? What country are you talking about where the education system was in need of improvement, and then they busted up the unions and instituted school choice and all of a sudden the educational system went from looking like ours to something better?

So instead of complaining about the government dragging its heels and not getting these cases resolved quicker, you choose to blame the teachers for wanting a hearing before being fired?

Please read the NEA policy I linked earlier in the thread. It's not the government dragging its heals. The arbiters are union appointed/approved.

But because their cases are heard by 23 arbitrators who work only five days a month, stints of two or three years in a rubber room are common, and some teachers have been there for five or six.

If you want faster resolution of cases, why not hire more arbitrators?

I'm kind of tired of providing all the articles and data points. If you want to convince people, go get some sources. I'm not on this board to be your research assistant.

I do notice that you're focusing on the 6 out of 700. I also notice that you have completely ignored the extremely low termination rate. You also have nothing to say about the fact that the average (well documented) cost of firing teachers is prohibitive.

Of course I'm completely ignoring your statistics--you still haven't linked any of them to the solution of better student performance. I don't care if there's a low termination rate or there's a prohibitive cost to firing teachers. Until you start linking unionization with poor student performance, I'm going to continue to ignore your statistics. Statistics that only get your argument halfway from premise to conclusion are useless--I don't understand your difficulty here, other than you *can't* find the statistics to do so because your argument is unsound.

I mean, with the statistics on the cost of terminating teachers, why not just renegotiate that a teacher can be fired just like any private sector worker but gets 1 year severance pay? It would cost less, be quicker, and they'd have a year's worth of protection from those evil parents and administrators.

1) I'm not even sure if that's constitutional--procedural due process enters into this;

2) Why should a good teacher have the protection of only a year's worth of severance pay? We don't run the government like the private sector because we don't want to be a bunch of dicks like the private sector;

3) Again, the most important issue here: you keep trying to prove over and over how hard it is to fire teachers, yet you have done nothing to show how the ease with which teachers is responsible for the problems in our educational system.

This is starting to boil down to you saying A->B->C, and I keep asking 'show me how B leads to C' and you keep trying to prove to me that A leads to B. When I tell you that's great, but now show me how B leads to C, you keep telling me to go back and read your support for A leads to B.

Do you see the error in your logic here? The error you're making in thinking if you prove half your argument even more, that somehow proves the other half of it?

IMAGE(http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/cf_images/20080628/CIR535.gif)

CheezePavilion wrote:

1) I'm not even sure if that's constitutional--procedural due process enters into this;

2) Why should a good teacher have the protection of only a year's worth of severance pay? We don't run the government like the private sector because we don't want to be a bunch of dicks like the private sector;

1) I have to quibble here. There's no constitutionality involved with worker terminations. Due process is for criminal law. I suppose they could sue for wrongful termination though.

2) I think it's telling that you think that the government sector isn't a "bunch of dicks" like the private sector. Now I guess I know why you're all riled up about the union thing.

@Cheeze

Numerous studies show (that I linked) that good teachers make a huge difference.

Numerous data points show that teachers of poor quality are remaining in the schools. Numerous data points show year over year poor performance at districts and no staffing changes to deal with it.

For international data, if you've never heard of PISA, I have nothing further to discuss with you because you're not educated enough in the topic to provide a reasonable debate. The top scorer in recent years is Finland. Know what's awesome about the Finnish system that is the big distinction between their system and ours?

Only 1 in 10 applicants is accepted to the master's education program.

Their teacher pay and benefits are very high compared to ours, but they are extremely selective in who is allowed to teach. Those bottom percentile people who major in education in our country would be rejected from the education program in Finland. They understand that to achieve high quality education they have to make the pay and prestige equivalent to the private sector AND be pretty ruthless about keeping bad educators out of the system. Because they have the best and brightest teachers applying, they don't have the rigorous curriculum requirements we have, teachers have a lot of freedom to teach how they want, and it works because the best and brightest typically are passionate about the craft.

Trusting the schools and teachers is a common feature in Finnish schools. Schools receive full autonomy in developing the daily delivery of education services. The ministry of education always believed that teachers, together with principals, parents and their communities know how to provide the best possible education for their children and youth. Contrast this with the Department of Education and Teacher's Unions trying to bureaucratize everything.

Finland also greatly invests in education. They've shown that investing in facilities and materials, not bureaucracy and administrative chains is the best use of funds. Contrast that to our system. What we have is a realization that our system isn't performing well. The reflexive instinct by the teacher's union side is more money but we spend just as much per pupil as Finland does. I think it's pretty clear that the problem isn't the total amount of funding, but the way the funding is being used. You simply aren't going to get people to accept that investment in our schools is a good thing when the bottom quarter of college students are able to be accepted and make it through the program and once tenured only have a .1% chance of being dismissed.

I am a big advocate of better teachers in the classroom. Polling data shows the vast majority of Americans favor merit pay for teachers. Merit pay needs to go to merit, however, and that is NOT how the union contracts are structured. Finnish teachers are unionized too you know (almost all workers in all fields are in Scandinavia), it's not the mere existence of a union that causes problems. It is the existence of a union that supports bad policies and doesn't self-police to ensure that its members maintain the highest standards of quality and professionalism. Did you know the Finnish teacher's union has ongoing education reform studies overseen by university researchers? When they come up with a better way of doing things they embrace it, which is the opposite of what happens here.

BTW, know who has a terrible education system up there? Norway. Guess whose system they are most like? Ours. They're homogeneous and have a lot of oil money too.

/And yes, the Finnish system was like ours until they reformed it.

bandit0013 wrote:

1) I have to quibble here. There's no constitutionality involved with worker terminations. Due process is for criminal law. I suppose they could sue for wrongful termination though.

2) I think it's telling that you think that the government sector isn't a "bunch of dicks" like the private sector. Now I guess I know why you're all riled up about the union thing.

1) Constitutional protection applies to many acts of the government, whether part of a criminal prosecution or not. For example, there are times the First Amendment protects you from being fired from a government job when it would not protect you from being fired from a private industry job.

2) You're the one that characterized the private sector as firing people first and asking question never, not me.

bandit0013 wrote:

For international data, if you've never heard of PISA, I have nothing further to discuss with you because you're not educated enough in the topic to provide a reasonable debate. The top scorer in recent years is Finland. Know what's awesome about the Finnish system that is the big distinction between their system and ours?

Their poverty rate.

Finland's poverty rate is 3.4. Their PISA score is 536.

Want to know what the PISA score for those areas of America with not just a 3.4%, but even up to a 10% poverty rate?

15 points HIGHER at 551.

Feel free to claim bias--I wish I could easily find source more easily demonstrated to be accurate about those numbers-- but also feel required to explain this apparent connection between poverty, PISA score, and frankly AMERICAN SUPERIORITY before bringing it up again.

@Cheeze

According to CIA Statistics, I give you percentage of population living at or below poverty line:

Estonia- 19.7%
Canada- 9.4%
Japan- 15.7%
Netherlands-10.5%

So uh, do you really want to associate the united states at 14.3% with our inability to perform like these other countries on the list? That chart I posted was just the top 10. We're 21st Cheeze.

And for the record, I didn't characterize the private sector as rampantly firing without asking questions. Private sector terminations are at ~8%. I'm sure some are "dicks" but most companies don't go around firing for cause for giggles. The difference between 8% and .1% is significant.

I'm done with you though. You clearly don't want to debate actual policy.

bandit0013 wrote:

@Cheeze

According to CIA Statistics, I give you percentage of population living at or below poverty line:

Estonia- 19.7%
Canada- 9.4%
Japan- 15.7%
Netherlands-10.5%

So uh, do you really want to associate the united states at 14.3% with our inability to perform like these other countries on the list?

That chart I posted was just the top 10. We're 21st Cheeze.

None of this explains why the gap in PISA scores is so great between those areas of the US with poverty rates comparable to those countries and areas of the US with much greater poverty rates, the ones that have the low PISA scores that pull down the national average.

It also does not explain when areas of America are compared to comparable countries, they have at least and equal PISA score, if not a higher one.

I mean, what: the answer to America's educational issues is secession so we can massage the statistics?

I would say it's teacher quality in those areas.

Stengah wrote:

At the risk of putting words in his mouth, I think OG's assertion is not that old people can't teach kids. It's that a randomly selected old person with no education training shouldn't be teaching kids. He's also right that a younger teacher is more likely to be able to cope with the challenges that new technology introduces. You certainly will have plenty of older teachers that will rise to those challenges, but there will also be plenty of older teachers that find themselves way out of their league.

You're not putting words into my mouth.

Bandit's original premise was that retirees should be able to walk into a classroom without taking any education classes, without doing student teaching and being evaluated, and without being certified by the state (which involves taking and passing a test about their education concepts as well as the subject they'll be teaching to prove they know what they're doing). I simply questioned that and got accused of ageism.

bandit0013 wrote:

What does income inequality have to do with learning how to read? Do I need to cite one of the litany of studies that de-links per pupil spending from performance? Even within the US you can find schools that spend as little as $4,000 per student that outperform schools that spend up to $22k per student. (Taft union high, Kern county)

We're talking about income inequality, not spending per pupil.

And income inequality actually has a lot to do with academic performance. The research of the past 20, 30 years has shown that low incomes are directly related to poor academic performance and that children of low income families score at half the level as their rich counterparts in reading, math, and language. And this is by the age of four. So by the time low income children even get into kindergarten they are already well behind children from families with higher incomes.

Other studies support this (and also show that the performance gap is also involves race):

The achievement gap among students of different income levels is equally severe. Impoverished students (a group here defined as those eligible for federally subsidized free lunches) are roughly two years of learning behind the average better-off student of the same age. The poverty gap appears early and persists over the lifetime of a student; only 9 percent of freshmen in the nation’s 120 “Tier 1” colleges (whose total freshman enrollment is 170,000) are from the bottom half of the income distribution (Exhibit 6). At the school-wide level, moreover, schools comprised mostly of low-income students perform much worse than schools with fewer low-income students. As with the racial achievement gap, these income gaps remain large even in otherwise high-performing states. Massachusetts has among the highest overall NAEP scores, for example, but students eligible for free lunch are six times more likely to be below “basic” in fourth grade math than ineligible students.

As I believe I pointed out in your NCLB thread (and referred to in this thread only to be accused by you of blaming everything on parents) parents can have a massive affect on their children's academic performance simply by talking to them. Most dramatically, the study found that children of parents who were professionals heard 35 million more words by they time they were four than their low income counterparts.

Longitudinal studies have shown that things like Head Start can have a dramatic improvement on both the academic and social performance of low income students.

bandit0013 wrote:

I mean, I know your'e a bit surly that in 2009 in math scores we fell behind economic powerhouses like the czech republic, slovakia, slovenia, china, and singapore. It's not like there's any poor people there right?

Why would you say I'm surly about that fact? You're the one essentially demanding that the US be #1 the OCED rankings or our education system should be deemed an absolute failure.

That countries like Slovakia or Slovenia outperform US students in math isn't the end of the world. That's not to say that it isn't good for us in the long term, but we've never been a country that places an extreme importance on education. And while I'm sure you'll accuse me of racism over this, it's not exactly shocking news that countries like China and Singapore outperform us when it comes to education considering the value which most Asian societies place in it. I mean would you ever expect to see something like this for average American fathers?

Like I mentioned before it will take something far grander than tweaking teacher requirements to stimulate interest in math and sciences here. That we have a culture views those skills and the professions where they're used largely in contempt doesn't help.

bandit0013 wrote:

Actually the opposite. Most of the certification/requirements involve level of education, like master's degree, which were shown to have negative correlation with teacher quality.

Wait. How does the study saying "Perhaps most remarkable is the finding that a master’s degree has no systematic relationship to teacher quality as measured by student outcomes" and turn into you claiming that having a master's degree had a "negative correlation with teacher quality"?

bandit0013 wrote:

Experience is a factor, as per the study, but there's really not much of an experience gap between someone entering the field from another career and a brand new green teacher.

Again, think about the consequences of your policy. As you pointed out earlier the average age of teachers is 42.5 years. So even accounting for late starters like my friend, your average teacher is going to have 10, 15, or more years of experience. By the time your retiree get's five years of experience under their belt, they'll be pushing 70. Unfortunately, the big payoffs in experience vs. performance gains come at between 10 and 14 years of experience (Table 3), something a retiree turned teacher isn't likely going to reach.

bandit0013 wrote:
study wrote:

The problem is that, though certification requirements may prevent some poorly prepared teachers from entering the profession, they may also exclude others who would be quite effective in the classroom. Not only may some potentially good teachers be unable to pass the examinations, the certification requirements may discourage others from even attempting to enter the teaching profession; see, for example, Murnane et al. (1991).

It should be noted that the book that came from, Who Will Teach: Policies that Matter, actually made that comment based not to refer to all teachers, but just minority teachers. It was also based on the analysis of data from one state, North Carolina, because no national data existed. It also only covered a small window of time in the late 1970s/early 1980s. That's important because what happened in the 1970s was the first decline in school enrollment because of the end of the Baby Boomer generation. That schools were closing left and right sent a powerful signal to people attending college that education was not a growth industry and they should look elsewhere. That created a small, temporary lack of teachers, not a systematic gap as you seem to think exists (thus requiring radical policy changes).

bandit0013 wrote:

According to CIA Statistics, I give you percentage of population living at or below poverty line:

Estonia- 19.7%
Canada- 9.4%
Japan- 15.7%
Netherlands-10.5%

So uh, do you really want to associate the united states at 14.3% with our inability to perform like these other countries on the list? That chart I posted was just the top 10. We're 21st Cheeze.

You do realize that all those countries don't calculate poverty the same way we do, right?

Estonia calculates it three different ways, one based on household expenditures, one on the EU standards (60% of median income), and by a "national minimum subsistence level". Just using the EU standard to calculate the poverty threshold in America would result in our poverty level being $27,000 instead of the current $22,000 (a whooping 22% increase).

Canada also uses three different measurements, though the "official" non-official number is the low-income cut-off. In 2011 number for a family of four was C$41,307, or nearly double what Uncle Sam says is the poverty level.

So do you want to rethink your position given that we have the lowest poverty threshold by pretty much every calculation?

bandit0013 wrote:

I would say it's teacher quality in those areas.

I think this is the most frustrating part of the discussion with you, Bandit. You've made up your mind that there are precisely two things wrong with education in America: teachers and their union.

You have consistently ignored every attempt to show you that education is a complicated thing that, for it to have the best results, needs to involve skilled and qualified teachers, involved parents, properly and equitably funded schools, and more. It also requires that the government get involved in the early development of children from low income families as all the research shows that if intervention doesn't happen those students will lag their richer counterparts in significant and lasting ways.

CheezePavilion wrote:
bandit0013 wrote:

@Cheeze

According to CIA Statistics, I give you percentage of population living at or below poverty line:

Estonia- 19.7%
Canada- 9.4%
Japan- 15.7%
Netherlands-10.5%

So uh, do you really want to associate the united states at 14.3% with our inability to perform like these other countries on the list?

That chart I posted was just the top 10. We're 21st Cheeze.

None of this explains why the gap in PISA scores is so great between those areas of the US with poverty rates comparable to those countries and areas of the US with much greater poverty rates, the ones that have the low PISA scores that pull down the national average.

It also does not explain when areas of America are compared to comparable countries, they have at least and equal PISA score, if not a higher one.

I mean, what: the answer to America's educational issues is secession so we can massage the statistics?

bandit0013 wrote:

I would say it's teacher quality in those areas.

So your solution involves not just having teachers as good as other countries, not just finding teachers that are *better* than other countries as we outperform even the best of other countries by fifteen PISA points when judged on a level playing field, but teachers that will be so much better than teachers in the rest of the world from Finland to Mexico that they will erase the connection we see between poverty rate and PISA points all those other countries have.

And the way to do this is to curtail the power of unions even though the best you can muster to prove that is a study that can only go so far as to cast doubt on unions actually increasing student performance, this way uncertified senior citizens can teach for such a short period of time it's not worth it for them to spend a year in a certification program because that would represent too large a portion of their remaining productive years as an educator and we will find these super seniors in the massive numbers we need to fix the system as a whole.

Hmm, you almost had me convinced, but, I find I still cannot agree with you.

OG_slinger wrote:

Bandit's original premise was that retirees should be able to walk into a classroom without taking any education classes, without doing student teaching and being evaluated, and without being certified by the state (which involves taking and passing a test about their education concepts as well as the subject they'll be teaching to prove they know what they're doing). I simply questioned that and got accused of ageism.

No, I said that a retiree should be able to take a speedier path to the classroom since they already have an undergraduate degree and decades of work experience that should be taken into account. Go back and re-read what I wrote.

You got accused of ageism because you made the assertion that older people can't cope with technology or the youth of today.

OG_slinger wrote:

And income inequality actually has a lot to do with academic performance.

Agreed, and I posted a peer reviewed study that showed that high quality teachers can remove that gap. High quality teachers are not found in the worst schools in the country for the income gap like DC, Chicago, etc.

OG_slinger wrote:

Why would you say I'm surly about that fact? You're the one essentially demanding that the US be #1 the OCED rankings or our education system should be deemed an absolute failure.

No, I'm saying that many of these other countries like Finland, Sweden, etc have teacher's unions and higher pay, but they also do not have the BS that our unions fight against like school choice, very selective education and hiring processes, etc. You always seem to be a big fan of the data, well the data is overwhelming that the structure of our system is bad.

OG_slinger wrote:

Like I mentioned before it will take something far grander than tweaking teacher requirements to stimulate interest in math and sciences here. That we have a culture views those skills and the professions where they're used largely in contempt doesn't help.

The contempt for education comes from two places that I can see. One is because of the poor quality of the system. The other is rooted in consumerism. (which is a fun philosophical debate to have). The marketing, media, and music that children are exposed to does way more damage to education values than the parents do. Working with the local parks and rec/volunteer stuff I meet a lot of poor families and every single parent I come across tells their kids to try hard in school. They might not be great parents, but most of them know the value of education. It's more that they just don't have the means to express it and help.

OG_slinger wrote:

Wait. How does the study saying "Perhaps most remarkable is the finding that a master’s degree has no systematic relationship to teacher quality as measured by student outcomes" and turn into you claiming that having a master's degree had a "negative correlation with teacher quality"?

Ok, I mis-typed that. I mean no correlation.

OG_slinger wrote:
bandit0013 wrote:

Experience is a factor, as per the study, but there's really not much of an experience gap between someone entering the field from another career and a brand new green teacher.

Again, think about the consequences of your policy. As you pointed out earlier the average age of teachers is 42.5 years. So even accounting for late starters like my friend, your average teacher is going to have 10, 15, or more years of experience. By the time your retiree get's five years of experience under their belt, they'll be pushing 70. Unfortunately, the big payoffs in experience vs. performance gains come at between 10 and 14 years of experience (Table 3), something a retiree turned teacher isn't likely going to reach.

Are we still asserting that any other form of experience in educating individuals is automatically invalid? If we are there's nothing more you and I can discuss on this particular bullet point.

OG_Slinger wrote:

You do realize that all those countries don't calculate poverty the same way we do, right?

That's why I used the CIA statistics which attempt to balance that out.

OG_Slinger wrote:
bandit0013 wrote:

I would say it's teacher quality in those areas.

I think this is the most frustrating part of the discussion with you, Bandit. You've made up your mind that there are precisely two things wrong with education in America: teachers and their union.

You have consistently ignored every attempt to show you that education is a complicated thing that, for it to have the best results, needs to involve skilled and qualified teachers, involved parents, properly and equitably funded schools, and more. It also requires that the government get involved in the early development of children from low income families as all the research shows that if intervention doesn't happen those students will lag their richer counterparts in significant and lasting ways.

1. I've supported equitable student funding. I have asserted in this thread that the usage of the funding we have is improper. However, even if we change the funding if we don't get talented teachers into the classroom it will accomplish nothing. You can give a crappy teacher an unlimited budget and the results will still be... crappy.

2. You sir, have ignored EVERY SINGLE statistic, article, and link I've posted that shows that on average teachers are the worst performing students and that the bar for becoming an educator as far as talent is exceptionally low, especially against international standards of countries that rank ahead of us in testing. You continue to assert that the educators have little to no blame for the performance of schools. I have also pointed out numerous union policies that have had the impact of keeping poor teachers in the classroom, little to no reform and almost non-existent termination rates among union teachers in districts with 28% graduation rates. I am well aware of the impacts of socioeconomic status on students, you seem to be in denial that great teachers can help close that gap. Read your posts in this thread, not once do you give any policy, thought, or idea that would improve the teacher quality side of the equation. Every time you respond to it you change the subject.

3. I've never been against early intervention. I even posted peer reviewed research that showed that low income students when exposed to better than average teachers close the gap and perform along norms. Since this clearly isn't happening, can you admit that the teachers in those classrooms are not better than average?

CheezePavilion wrote:

So your solution involves not just having teachers as good as other countries, not just finding teachers that are *better* than other countries as we outperform even the best of other countries by fifteen PISA points when judged on a level playing field, but teachers that will be so much better than teachers in the rest of the world from Finland to Mexico that they will erase the connection we see between poverty rate and PISA points all those other countries have.

This statement makes no sense. I'd really like to respond, but I have no idea what you're talking about. Good teachers are empirically proven to be able to close the gap between poverty students and not. There is a documented, major gap in our country. Therefore those students likely don't have good teachers in their classrooms. Is that really so hard to understand?

CheezePavilion wrote:

And the way to do this is to curtail the power of unions even though the best you can muster to prove that is a study that can only go so far as to cast doubt on unions actually increasing student performance, this way uncertified senior citizens can teach for such a short period of time it's not worth it for them to spend a year in a certification program because that would represent too large a portion of their remaining productive years as an educator and we will find these super seniors in the massive numbers we need to fix the system as a whole.

You guys are way too hung up on the seniors thing. I merely was pointing out that on average the students who enroll in college that the education majors tend to be the worst performing students. Is it any surprise that when the bulk of your graduates are C students that when they become teacher they put out less than average results? I was suggesting that making an easier transition from technical, business, medicine, etc degrees into teaching might benefit the school systems if you could attract those higher performers to come over.

At no point did I assert that a person with "no training or certification" should be put in charge of a classroom. I asserted that since some who has say, a degree in engineering has already taken calculus, perhaps it's not necessary for them to take 2 years of college classes to teach kids? I suggested that given the amount of classroom time spent on pedagogy and teaching elementary math in an education degree is only about 120 hours that spending 8 weeks split between that and mentoring may (note the word 'may') be enough for that person to teach elementary math. I'm not skipping all the requirements, I'm condensing them and focusing on the important things (since pedagogy is important) since these prospective educators would already have decades of experience and education/training that far exceeds that of the average teacher. But if you want to turn "faster certification for experienced, educated individuals" into "no certification", well, I don't know what to tell you. Since there is no correlation between a master's degree in education and teacher performance, I don't see why a quick track program would be terrible.

But fine, it was an off the cuff idea. I'm sure there's problems with it. However, you can poke holes at it all you want but the issue is that on average our teachers aren't good. You can take SAT scores, you can take certification test failure rates, you can take PISA performance, whatever. You sir, are incapable of admitting that the current structure of the education system and that many union policies (such as the tenure system) do more harm than good. I have never advocated "destroying the union", I don't care if people unionize, it's their right, and I have pointed out numerous times that many top performing nations are highly unionized. The difference is that the policies of those unions, like embracing specialization, school choice, and highly selective recruiting processes are policies that our unions do not support. So yes, I'd say there is a strong argument to be made that the decline in our education rate can be partially attributed to the unions.

In your black/white world though you seem to think I'm saying that all unions should be banned.