Clearly the best way to attract talent is to pay less

9/14/2012 3:51:30 PM

I've learned that among right-leaning folks (and trollin' communists, apparently), the law of supply affects all occupations but teachers.

"Teacher quality is the biggest problem in education today, and they're paid too much" was more or less the gist of a major Heritage Foundation study a couple months back.



[Edited on September 14, 2012 at 5:05 PM. Reason : ]

9/14/2012 5:01:36 PM

9/14/2012 5:05:11 PM

Quote :

"I've learned that among right-leaning folks (and trollin' communists, apparently), the law of supply affects all occupations but teachers. "Teacher quality is the biggest problem in education today, and they're paid too much" was more or less the gist of a major Heritage Foundation study a couple months back."

This ignores what the strike is about, which is that the teachers don't want to be evaluated. They'll tell you themselves, and their salaries compared the national average will verify, they are paid fine, this is about them keeping their job even if they aren't the right person for it. And that does hurt the teacher quality, probably more than pay cuts.

And the reason web developers are more valuable than teachers is that the web developer could easily be a teacher, the reverse is not true.

9/14/2012 5:12:32 PM

Quote :

"And the reason web developers are more valuable than teachers is that the web developer could easily be a teacher"

lolno

9/14/2012 5:20:44 PM

Sure they could, any web developer on this site could probably do it right now:
http://www.ncpublicschools.org/licensure/steps/

9/14/2012 5:32:06 PM

I know of quite a few people who quit teaching in a hurry. Obtaining the license might be easier than performing the job itself.

9/14/2012 6:23:49 PM

48th in education

9/14/2012 6:24:27 PM

Quote :

"This ignores what the strike is about, which is that the teachers don't want to be evaluated. "

Then you're misinformed. They don't want to be evaluated with value-added models derived from tests.

I explained why I agreed with the strikers on the first page, but to reiterate: VAMs aren't reliable yet. They're being instituted because the people leading education reform want numbers-- the validity of said numbers be damned. I've done well in NC's value-added models, and I'd still not want our pay to be effected by it.

Quote :

"I know of quite a few people who quit teaching in a hurry. Obtaining the license might be easier than performing the job itself."

A quick look at teacher attrition rates will dispel any notion that teaching is easy.



[Edited on September 14, 2012 at 7:27 PM. Reason : ]

9/14/2012 7:00:33 PM

Software developers attrition rate is ~2/10 or 20%.

I am also not sure how you are correlating attrition rate with how hard a job is as there are many reasons and factors behind job turnover.

9/14/2012 7:27:14 PM

It's a good thing you converted that fraction into an easy to read percentage for all us simpletons.

9/14/2012 7:40:04 PM

A quick number crunch shows us that software developers quit at about a 33.33 rate......






...repeating, of course.

9/14/2012 7:41:11 PM

^^^Attrition from the profession, not turnover within the profession. The latter has nothing to do with the difficulty of the profession; the former has everything to do with it.

Over 45% of teachers leave the profession within five years. Can you tell me what percentage of software developers leave for another profession within 5 years of starting?






[Edited on September 14, 2012 at 7:47 PM. Reason : ]

9/14/2012 7:41:18 PM

lol Kris think getting a certification means you're going to be able to be an effective teacher

i'd love to see a web app developer get dropped into an inner city school and effectively teach 18 year old kids repeater algebra when they're reading at a 4th grade level

[Edited on September 14, 2012 at 8:54 PM. Reason : .]

9/14/2012 8:51:39 PM

Quote :

"I've learned that among right-leaning folks (and trollin' communists, apparently), the law of supply affects all occupations but teachers. "Teacher quality is the biggest problem in education today, and they're paid too much" was more or less the gist of a major Heritage Foundation study a couple months back. "

Not exactly a free market or supply/demand when you introduce unions and taxpayer money. Everyone will admit it is difficult to fire bad teachers. "Right leaning folks" arent anti-teacher they are anti-union. Shit you have teachers averaging over 70k in an area where the average household income is 39k (and they probably work year round). In a district that has poor results. (again, not all the teachers fault) What is more money going to do? Do they have more to give? Nope they are already in debt. At some point you would think one of the math teachers would help the other strikers figure this stuff out.

I disagree with pay being totally based on student performance but there needs to be ways to determine if a teacher is good or bad. To simply say Ive been teaching for 3 years, I cant be fired is one helluva way to make sure you get stuck with burnt out teachers who are just collecting paychecks. imo

9/14/2012 9:58:36 PM

Quote :

"They don't want to be evaluated with value-added models derived from tests."

That's how everywhere evaluates their teachers. If it's so bad why do other places fare better with it? I have a feeling that it has much more to do with bad teachers who don't want to lose their comfy position.

Quote :

"A quick look at teacher attrition rates will dispel any notion that teaching is easy."

Summer camp counselors have HUGE attrition rates, especially after five years, that must mean they are by far the hardest job ever. There's probably a big chance that those attrition rates have to do with something else, I'll bet it has to do with 76% of them being female and 44% of them being under forty years old, you dig?

There are other jobs that actually aren't easy. That you don't get to do in the air condition and that involve a large amount of physical effort and pain. Those are hard jobs, I doubt attrition rates will state that. Teaching is not a "hard job".

Quote :

"lol Kris think getting a certification means you're going to be able to be an effective teacher i'd love to see a web app developer get dropped into an inner city school and effectively teach 18 year old kids repeater algebra when they're reading at a 4th grade level"

I could do it just as well as I could work an assembly line at a factory. There's no huge skill outside of the basic ones you learn in high school and early college.

[Edited on September 14, 2012 at 10:46 PM. Reason : ]

9/14/2012 10:43:18 PM

Quote :

"Over 45% of teachers leave the profession within five years. Can you tell me what percentage of software developers leave for another profession within 5 years of starting?"

A more useful statistic would be why they quit. I imagine that for many, it's because they realize that their ideals of saving the world one child at a time are going to be crushed by a combination of apathetic if not downright hostile parents and an ever increasing, ever more political bureaucracy overseeing them from every angle of government. But none of that has anything to do with how difficult it is to do the core activity which is teaching a child.

9/14/2012 10:46:16 PM

^ That post very neatly summarizes why I contemplate getting out of teaching at least a couple of times per year. None of it has anything to do with the kids themselves, whom I really enjoy teaching.

9/14/2012 11:17:51 PM

it would be nice if teaching was controlled by teachers and not politicians. Thats private school. Private schools can be great but I'm not for privatization because lower income kids would miss out. I think that government should provide funding and get out of the way though. Putting more control into each teacher's hand with them being directly controlled by the principal and vague standards.

Standardized testing is a complete joke and means nothing. Stop wasting time and money on it.

9/14/2012 11:23:04 PM

Quote :

"Everyone will admit it is difficult to fire bad teachers."

In Chicago, admittedly. I've already stated that I have a hard time sympathizing with them. But not in most states. Teachers can be fired pretty easily in NC.

Quote :

"That's how everywhere evaluates their teachers. If it's so bad why do other places fare better with it?"

You're speaking pretty assertively about shit you know nothing about, dude. As of four years ago, no one attached value-added models to teacher evaluations. Since then a number of cities and states have been adding them in order to snag Race to the Top money. The only public data we have on overall teacher VAM data is in NYC, and from that we learned that VAM's aren't yet ready. Here are NYC teachers' scores plotted on a scatter-plot; 2009 VAM scores on the Y-axis, 2010 VAM scores on the X-axis. There is a correlation coefficient of .35:



Either teachers are incredibly inconsistent (and then what would be the purpose of rating us in the first place?) or these measures are not accurate. This reflects my personal experience in NC (although we've been smart enough not to tie these measures to our evaluation until just recently-- thanks Obama!).

Quote :

"Summer camp counselors have HUGE attrition rates, especially after five years, that must mean they are by far the hardest job ever. There's probably a big chance that those attrition rates have to do with something else, I'll bet it has to do with 76% of them being female and 44% of them being under forty years old, you dig?"

Retirement of course doesn't affect the five-year attrition rate. So pregnancy looks to make up what-- 15% of the five-year attrition rate?

Quote :

"There are other jobs that actually aren't easy. That you don't get to do in the air condition and that involve a large amount of physical effort and pain. Those are hard jobs, I doubt attrition rates will state that. Teaching is not a "hard job"."

Now you're changing the definition of a "hard job." Under this definition the presidency is an easy job. I'm not saying teaching is the toughest thing in the world to do. In fact if you're good at it, it's very enjoyable. But look at the data I've presented. I could give you a dozen anecdotes about adults who left their private sector jobs to teach, only to flee the profession after a year or two.

Meanwhile, software development is such a difficult line of work that it's at constant risk of being sent off to a 20 year-old Indian with an associates degree.

I don't know why you dislike the profession so much, but so far all you've been able to demonstrate is that your opinion is based entirely on ignorance.

Quote :

"There's no huge skill outside of the basic ones you learn in high school and early college."

Teaching, in and of itself, is a skill. It's called Pedagogy. To teach effectively is not intuitive, and it requires much more knowledge than simply knowing the subject you're teaching. This runs counter to your bias, though, so you'll probably dismiss it out of hand.




[Edited on September 15, 2012 at 7:54 AM. Reason : ]

9/15/2012 7:28:42 AM

Quote :

"A more useful statistic would be why they quit. I imagine that for many, it's because they realize that their ideals of saving the world one child at a time are going to be crushed by a combination of apathetic if not downright hostile parents and an ever increasing, ever more political bureaucracy overseeing them from every angle of government. But none of that has anything to do with how difficult it is to do the core activity which is teaching a child."

Sure, but one might say:

"If it weren't for mazes of gov't regulations, difficult math, and long hours in a cubicle, engineering would be easy. None of that has anything to do with the core activity which is using AutoCAD."

And then you'd agree that the difficulties in the quoted text are inherent components of the job.



[Edited on September 15, 2012 at 8:09 AM. Reason : ]

9/15/2012 8:05:29 AM

Quote :

"Retirement of course doesn't affect the five-year attrition rate. So pregnancy looks to make up what-- 15% of the five-year attrition rate?"

It's the third biggest reason outside of retirement, the other two are illustrated by my lifeguard example. According to that graph I got the top three, meanwhile "It was too hard" doesn't look like it even made the top ten.

Quote :

"Now you're changing the definition of a "hard job.""

No, it's the same, I'm just establishing a standard for a hard job and comparing your "attrition rate as indicator of a hard job" claim against it. Under any understanding of the term "hard job", ones that require a great deal of physical effort and pain are "hard jobs". They don't necessarily have high attrition rates, thus high attrition rates don't necessarily indicate a "hard job".

Quote :

"Meanwhile, software development is such a difficult line of work that it's at constant risk of being sent off to a 20 year-old Indian with an associates degree."

If that were true it would be unlikely that software developers were currently one of the most in demand and highest paid careers.

Quote :

"I don't know why you dislike the profession so much"

I don't dislike it. A lot of teachers simply think they are more important than they are.

Quote :

"Teaching, in and of itself, is a skill. It's called Pedagogy. To teach effectively is not intuitive, and it requires much more knowledge than simply knowing the subject you're teaching."

I would say pretty much everyone in any profession has to do it numerous times in their own line of work. It's not some wizardry that mere mortals could never achieve without the "gift". It's a profession that anyone with a four year degree could easily pick up.

9/15/2012 9:10:25 AM

Quote :

"meanwhile "It was too hard" doesn't look like it even made the top ten."

Now you're just being insincere. You don't think job difficulty is a factor when one decides to pursue another career, more pay, or another degree? All the factors that made the list other than retirement, pregnancy, and health are different ways of saying "I'm not paid enough for this shit."

Quote :

"Under any understanding of the term "hard job", ones that require a great deal of physical effort and pain are "hard jobs". They don't necessarily have high attrition rates, thus high attrition rates don't necessarily indicate a "hard job"."

White collar v. blue collar attrition is not an apples to apples comparison.

Quote :

"I would say pretty much everyone in any profession has to do it numerous times in their own line of work. "

My wife's an engineer. She has to teach UL compliance to classes of 30 teenagers all the time

That you'd equate teaching to reading off powerpoint slides to adults who are being paid to listen shows that you really, really aren't qualified to give your opinion in this thread.



Anyhoo-- any thoughts on the data I gave you re: value-added models?




[Edited on September 15, 2012 at 10:11 AM. Reason : ]

9/15/2012 10:01:34 AM

Yeah, I think that until the teachers offer a counter proposal for annual evaluation that offer quantitative analysis and objective criteria they need to shut the fuck up.

I'm sure that value added has its issues, any and all evaluation based on results will, but unless you can offer a better, more fair solution you deal with it.

Time for the teachers union to climb down off the cross and get back in the classroom.

9/15/2012 10:14:30 AM

Quote :

"You don't think job difficulty is a factor when one decides to pursue another career, more pay, or another degree?"

You think it's the only factor, or even one of the most important factors? I doubt it.

Quote :

"All the factors that made the list other than retirement, pregnancy, and health are different ways of saying "I'm not paid enough for this shit.""

So then the problem is with the graph not being specific enough? Hell if that's true I'd call it downright misleading to put "Pursue another career" and mean "I'm not paid enough for this shit". Isn't it also likely that my comparison to the summer camp counselor is true and that many people use teaching (because it can be done by so many people) as a layover career?

Quote :

"White collar v. blue collar attrition is not an apples to apples comparison."

Why not?

Quote :

"My wife's an engineer. She has to teach UL compliance to classes of 30 teenagers all the time That you'd equate teaching to reading off powerpoint slides to adults who are being paid to listen shows that you really, really aren't qualified to give your opinion in this thread."

That's a strawman.

Quote :

"Anyhoo-- any thoughts on the data I gave you re: value-added models?"

You told me I didn't know shit about them.

9/15/2012 10:16:19 AM

Quote :

"Yeah, I think that until the teachers offer a counter proposal for annual evaluation that offer quantitative analysis and objective criteria they need to shut the fuck up"

Could you name another profession whose yearly evaluation is entirely or mostly based on raw data?

I know engineers aren't (number of spreadsheets created?). Neither are programmers (lines of code? That'd yield great results). Doctors and nurses aren't (number of deaths? Who'd take positions in risky fields?). The only profession I can think of is sales, and since the purpose of sales is to make numbers, it stands to reason that numbers are a valid measure of ability.

Face it-- in nearly every profession, the boss makes the call based on any number of unquantifiable variables. And yet teaching, of all things, should be subject to a different standard?

VAM's should be refined, then used to improve the craft-- not used for punitive purposes. Keep in mind that VAM's are inherently relative; if you fire people with low VAM scores, you're firing the left side of the bell curve every year, regardless of how proficient people are. Also consider whether we even really need VAM to know which teachers need to go. You knew as a student who needed to go, and it's even more apparent to peers and principals. Chicago needs a way to fire bad teachers, but VAM isn't the way to go.

Quote :

"Isn't it also likely that my comparison to the summer camp counselor is true and that many people use teaching (because it can be done by so many people) as a layover career?"

Do you really think teaching is so unimportant that it should be a layover career? I'm not saying it's the most important profession out there, or that the profession requires the best and brightest workers, but come on...

Quote :

"Why not?"

Selection bias. You're comparing a group of people with the means and ability to go to college with a group who don't. Blue collar workers are inherently more "stuck" in their line of work than white collar workers.

Quote :

"That's a strawman."

{Willy Wonka} Tell me how teaching paid adults is just like teaching K-12 {Willy Wonka}

Quote :

"You told me I didn't know shit about them."

I want to taste the delicious taste of you acknowledging this.



[Edited on September 15, 2012 at 10:54 AM. Reason : ]

9/15/2012 10:31:24 AM

Quote :

"Could you name another profession whose yearly evaluation is entirely or mostly based on raw data?"

Sure. Policemen, service technicians, IT contractors (some of those are programmers FYI), factory workers, farmers, those are all that come off the top of my head, but there are plenty more.

Quote :

"Chicago needs a way to fire bad teachers, but VAM isn't the way to go."

Then what is?

Quote :

"Do you really think teaching is so unimportant that it should be a layover career?"

Garbage collectors are more important than divorce lawyers, but that doesn't mean one should be paid more than the other. Pay is determined by demand, demand is determined by supply, and supply is determined by how easy it is to be able to do a given job.

Quote :

"Selection bias. You're comparing a group of people with the means and ability to go to college with a group who don't. Blue collar workers are inherently more "stuck" in their line of work than white collar workers."

It still supports my argument that attrition doesn't determine the difficulty of the job. In fact you're making that argument for me, as attrition can be related to how much you are "stuck" rather than how hard the job is.

Quote :

"{Willy Wonka} Tell me how teaching paid adults is just like teaching K-12 {Willy Wonka}"

I never said it was, also it would be [Willy Wonka] Question? [/Willy Wonka]

9/15/2012 1:57:53 PM

So what I am getting from this thread is:

(a) software developers contribute very little to society unlike teachers.
(b) being a software developer is a easy job compared to being a teacher based on attrition rates.

I personally don't understand how a higher attrition rate means its a harder job as there are a lot of factors involved.

[Edited on September 15, 2012 at 2:45 PM. Reason : .]

9/15/2012 2:45:35 PM

Quote :

"Policemen, service technicians, IT contractors (some of those are programmers FYI), factory workers, farmers, those are all that come off the top of my head, but there are plenty more."

I was referring to white collar professions. Service technicians, factory workers, and farmers are employed to produce x number of widgets per unit of time, so raw data is useful. Police officers and IT contractors? Tell me more.

Quote :

"Then what is?"

Make tenure protections more sensible. Again, I'm not defending the Chicago union-- only its opposition to VAM.

Quote :

"Garbage collectors are more important than divorce lawyers, but that doesn't mean one should be paid more than the other. Pay is determined by demand, demand is determined by supply, and supply is determined by how easy it is to be able to do a given job."

I'd argue that teachers require a good deal more skill than you're willing to admit, and that attrition rates demonstrate that the current level of pay isn't sufficient to attract and retain people fit for the job.

Quote :

"It still supports my argument that attrition doesn't determine the difficulty of the job. In fact you're making that argument for me, as attrition can be related to how much you are "stuck" rather than how hard the job is."

But we can agree that the stickiness of a teacher and programmer's lots in life aren't significantly different. If not attrition from the field, what other metric can we use to rate whether pay is enough to attract and retain workers?

Quote :

"I never said it was"

When I said it wasn't, you claimed it was a strawman. Is teaching in the K-12 sense a skill every profession encounters or isn't it?

Quote :

"(a) software developers contribute very little to society unlike teachers. (b) being a software developer is a easy job compared to being a teacher based on attrition rates."

All the things I've said about software developers have been in reaction to the notion that they have a tougher job than teachers. In refuting that claim, I may have have implied that software development is easy. I didn't intend to make that point.

Quote :

"I personally don't understand how a higher attrition rate means its a harder job as there are a lot of factors involved."

What other factors? I can think of salary and non-monetary reward but not anything else. Attrition is a result of workers deciding that the difficulty (time/effort/strain/etc...) is not worth the pay/reward. Using this metric, it's clear that software developers are very, very well paid for their exertion relative to teachers.

What other metric do you propose?

9/15/2012 4:40:29 PM

Quote :

"Police officers and IT contractors?"

Generally there is at least some level of "quotas" for police officers, although they refuse to call them that, in how many incidents they respond to, how many tickets they write, etc. And it's not just IT contractors, most any contractor, whether it be engineer, business consultants, almost any profession, are ultimately judged by the hours they bill.

Quote :

"I'd argue that teachers require a good deal more skill than you're willing to admit"

A bachelors degree is something that 70% of americans do not have. However I, as well as most of the state licensing requirements, think that a college degree is really all that is required to do the job.

Quote :

"and that attrition rates demonstrate that the current level of pay isn't sufficient to attract and retain people fit for the job"

I've made a pretty good argument of why attrition rates do not show what you want them to show, do I need to keep going? If you want to get more of them, subsidize their education more, it's already done a decent amount in college debt forgiveness, do it some more. Artificially inflating their salaries will just result in more unions and a lot of teachers out of work in the long term, just like it did for the American auto industry.

Quote :

"If not attrition from the field, what other metric can we use to rate whether pay is enough to attract and retain workers?"

Let market determine pay, subsidize their training if you want, it's a much better option than artificially inflating it.

Quote :

"Is teaching in the K-12 sense a skill every profession encounters or isn't it?"

There are qualities of any teaching that are the same, they involve breaking down information and explaining it in a way that others can understand. That aspect is similar. Sounds reasonable when it's not in a strawman, doesn't it?

Quote :

"What other factors? I can think of salary and non-monetary reward but not anything else. Attrition is a result of workers deciding that the difficulty (time/effort/strain/etc...) is not worth the pay/reward. Using this metric, it's clear that software developers are very, very well paid for their exertion relative to teachers."

I don't think you're looking at attrition the right way. Attrition is not necessarily a bad thing.

9/15/2012 5:33:50 PM

Quote :

"Then you're misinformed. They don't want to be evaluated with value-added models derived from tests. I explained why I agreed with the strikers on the first page, but to reiterate: VAMs aren't reliable yet. They're being instituted because the people leading education reform want numbers-- the validity of said numbers be damned. I've done well in NC's value-added models, and I'd still not want our pay to be effected by it."

Boone, your stance on this is incoherent. Your proposition is that good tools to evaluate teachers on the scale we need don't exist. Unfortunately, I think this fallacious logic is the same logic underpinning the Chicago strike.

Accept the proposition, and you find yourself in a pool of nonsense. A teacher's resume would be distinguished by nothing but the degrees they've obtained and the years taught. This seems to be about the pay scheme that unions advocate, flying in the face of all logic, and an outright insult to those teachers who really care and are good at their job.

Raising teacher pay doesn't make any sense in this world where they can't be evaluated. You'll increase competition for teachers, but that doesn't make any sense in the absence of evaluation. Say I'm going to compete with you in a game, but this game doesn't have a score. This is nonsense.

It doesn't make sense to say that we can't evaluate them now, but maybe in a few years we'll figure it out either. Well if we don't know how to now, we sure as hell didn't know how to in the 50s. The sheer existence of good schools disproves the concept entirely. How did they prevent being overrun by bad teachers who, according to your proposition, would be entirely indistinguishable from the good teachers.

This is nonsense. Teacher organizations need to propose clear metrics with which to implement incentives, if not, they shouldn't be taken seriously.

I'm not advocating standardized testing. I don't care if the method is having observers visit the class and rate the teaching methods, which I saw when I was in school constantly. I don't care what it is. I'm saying that the fact that you argue against all methods is nonsense.

9/15/2012 6:57:45 PM

I'm not saying that good and bad teachers don't exist, or that we can't figure out who's who.

I'm arguing that value-added models derived from standardized tests don't accomplish this end. What's incoherent about that? I'm literally the only one in this thread to provide evidence for my assertions.

We can evaluate teachers via process-based evaluation from superiors, just like most other professions that don't depend on the production of x widgets per unit of time. It's the way we did it in the 50's, it's the way that's continuing to work in right-to-work states, and it's the way that would work in Chicago if tenure wasn't so ridiculous.

Your post is heavy on desire for quantitative metrics and short on evidence for whether they're ready to hire/fire people

Quote :

"It doesn't make sense to say that we can't evaluate them now, but maybe in a few years we'll figure it out either."

We don't have models that account for all the variables that kids bring to the classroom, yet. This is a fact. I don't know what makes you think we had these models in the 50's. I'm hopeful that VAM's will improve, though.

Quote :

"How did they prevent being overrun by bad teachers who, according to your proposition, would be entirely indistinguishable from the good teachers."

The good and bad teachers were mostly indistinguishable because we didn't care about educating poor/minority students. The onus was on the student, and the teacher wasn't accountable. The average teacher from the 50's would do abysmally in a 2012 classroom.

Quote :

"This is nonsense. Teacher organizations need to propose clear metrics with which to implement incentives, if not, they shouldn't be taken seriously."

What clear metrics do all engineers, everywhere, as a single unit, propose for their evaluations? Do you realize how silly this demand is?

Quote :

"I'm not advocating standardized testing. I don't care if the method is having observers visit the class and rate the teaching methods, which I saw when I was in school constantly. I don't care what it is. I'm saying that the fact that you argue against all methods is nonsense."

Hrm, this paragraph leads me to believe that you misunderstand my position, and misunderstand why Chicago teachers are striking (or are at least unaware of their [i]official rationale). You've clearly skipped my previous posts, and are assuming that I'm not for accountability. I am against accountability via value-added models derived from standardized tests; not accountability in general. A read-through of my posts, starting on page 1 of this thread, will confirm this.

9/15/2012 9:52:17 PM

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2012/09/14/almost-40-of-chicagos-public-school-teachers-send-their-kids-elsewhere-to-learn/

Almost 40% of Chicago’s Public School Teachers Send their Kids Elsewhere to Learn

Quote :

"As the Chicago teachers’ strike continues, we’ve learned that they make $71-76,000 a year and they turned down a 16% pay increase, which amounts to $11,360. They work nine months out of the year, but say that this strike is benefits oriented. However, given that ABC World News didn’t even air this story last Sunday and most of the media, with the exception of CBS, failing to mention the compensation statistics in their broadcast – suffice to say that the media will probably ignore the fact that almost 40% of Chicago’s public school teachers send their kids to private schools."

9/16/2012 12:24:12 AM

This is also very interesting:

9/16/2012 2:48:29 AM

^what kind of garbage source is that and what does the length of the school year have anything to do with quality of education. Chicago is a dangerous city, I wouldn't take $150K to work there. If you would take less than $70K to work there than move your butt over there and work as a teacher.

san antonio is number 3 on that chart...i don't know anyone who is excited to have their kids educated here in san antonio...

9/16/2012 3:22:55 AM

^ the issue was that the strikes started partially because Emanuel the mayor wanted to increase the days in the school year. Chicago has a significantly shorter school year and all I have heard was how horrible it was to make the teachers work longer school years on CNN.

Fact of the matter is they work very very short school years.

The source is Illinois Institute of Policy.

BTW, I never said this had any impact on education standards or quality of education.

[Edited on September 16, 2012 at 4:10 AM. Reason : f]

9/16/2012 4:05:16 AM

^^^^

Those numbers are meaningless without a comparison to their peer group.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

9/16/2012 4:54:49 AM

Quote :

"What clear metrics do all engineers, everywhere, as a single unit, propose for their evaluations? Do you realize how silly this demand is?"

Who in the school has the ability to say "this teacher is doing such a terrible job we need to get rid of him/her", because that certainly exists for Engineers. Engineers have performance reviews, teams, supervisors. I agree, teachers are more difficult to pin down because they spend most of their time with the students who are not exactly reliable sources for performance reviews.

I think the reason we're talking about VAT is because it's mechanical/standardized. I'm also speaking about just general management. If you're accepting the proposition that schools are unmanageable, then it's completely obvious why they're failing. That's what I'm saying. Unions in many places have fought to make the teachers basically un-firable. Someone has to deliver bad news at some point, or else you'll be an organization in decay.

9/16/2012 11:40:53 AM

^^ LMAO... the Chicago Public School system was the one that brought up these figures. They determined based off the number of days of school per year and the length of the school day. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out.

[Edited on September 16, 2012 at 11:41 AM. Reason : g]

9/16/2012 11:40:53 AM

All this is great, but how do you curve the scores so that the teachers that get assigned to the remedial classes get a fair shake against those who teach the honors/AP classes? Any curve would be subjective, but an across the board "meet this percentage or else" isn't fair either. Also, at least in Maryland, there are not standardized tests for every subject. In fact, only Algebra I, Biology, English 10, and US Gov't are tested in high school. Does that mean that standardized tests need to be created for every subject, including PE, music, and art for this to work, or is it only the unfortunate teachers that get assigned to the tested topic are the only ones under the gun that year? I am all for being able to get rid of the awful teachers, but I don't think that the system to do it is as easy as some on here believe it is.

Oh, and to whoever it was that said anyone with a degree can teach, they need to look more at the link they posted. Yes, some (most?) states will let you teach without a teaching degree, but you have to take all of the education classes before you can become a full on teacher. In MD, I taught for my first 4 years as a provisional teacher ($5k less pay, no tenure). I needed seven classes that taught you the skills to be a teacher. I was able to pick up teaching fairly easily, but in those 4 years, I saw numerous first year teachers wash out because they could not figure out how to get the material across to the kids. Can you teach without an education degree? Yes. Can everyone with a 4 year degree be a successful teacher? Absolutely not.

9/16/2012 12:29:33 PM

Standardized testing as a measure of teacher performance is seriously flawed.

I can agree with the outrage in terms of how teachers are evaluated. The thing I don't agree with is how the unions were fighting back against increasing the number of hours of the school year. They increased the length of the school day... it will be interesting to see if it stays that way or if the Union will be able to get the school board to revert to the old length of days.

9/16/2012 12:56:50 PM

Teacher performance should be based on lesson plans, execution of lesson plans and execution of professional development strategies in the classroom. Put cameras in if you have to.

Don't just hire teachers because they are licensed. Screen their ability to teach prior to hire and you won't hire so many bad teachers. Then you won't have to fire them unless they don't do what they are supposed to do. You can't use the kids as a measure because kids are too inconsistent.

Kids can know the information and completely blow off the standardized test because it does not affect their grade. Classes where passing depends on the grade are the biggest cancer to our education system because all the "great teachers" do is teach their kids how to do well on that specific test. This means teachers who actually teach end up looking bad.

I know getting things across to the kids is important but you have to Evaluate the teacher, not the kids.

9/16/2012 1:18:16 PM

Quote :

"Who in the school has the ability to say "this teacher is doing such a terrible job we need to get rid of him/her""

Principals and peers. NC is actually going about integrating VAM in what's probably the most sensible way they could while still being able to snag millions from Obama's Dept. of Ed. Our new evaluation process is a jumble of principal reviews, peer reviews, and test scores.

Basically, we have a waaay too long form that assesses to what extent we're meeting all of the criteria for being a "good teacher." The criteria is met via evidence-- that can be reviews, testing data, or failing that, "artifacts" produced by the teacher.

But the supply of qualified labor isn't so deep that we can fire all but the best. What we can do is fire the stinkers (bottom 5%) that drag schools down. Everyone in the entire school knows who these people are, and we don't need to spend hundreds of millions to develop evaluations to achieve this end (yes, we've spent that much on this).

Quote :

"Does that mean that standardized tests need to be created for every subject, including PE, music, and art for this to work, or is it only the unfortunate teachers that get assigned to the tested topic are the only ones under the gun that year?"

It used to be the case that only a few subjects were tested. For instance in social studies, Civics and US History were tested and World History wasn't. So the better teachers would be assigned Civics and US, and the rest taught World. This was the case in every state; it's something to keep in mind when reading testing data.

That's changing now with Race to the Top. In a semester or two, NC will replace its EOC's with MLS's, and will be testing most subjects. Or at least more subjects-- it's still up in the air.

What's different about these new tests is that they won't actually count toward the students' grades.



[Edited on September 16, 2012 at 2:08 PM. Reason : ]

9/16/2012 2:05:12 PM

Quote :

"But the supply of qualified labor isn't so deep that we can fire all but the best. What we can do is fire the stinkers (bottom 5%) that drag schools down. Everyone in the entire school knows who these people are, and we don't need to spend hundreds of millions to develop evaluations to achieve this end (yes, we've spent that much on this)."

Well I certainly agree with this, and this is kind of what I was looking for from you.

9/16/2012 4:11:10 PM

Quote :

"But the supply of qualified labor isn't so deep that we can fire all but the best. What we can do is fire the stinkers (bottom 5%) that drag schools down. Everyone in the entire school knows who these people are, and we don't need to spend hundreds of millions to develop evaluations to achieve this end (yes, we've spent that much on this)."

It is extremely frustrating that as you mention, everyone knows crappy teachers when they see them. Even if we don't have mechanical, objective and easily measurable mechanics, everyone can spot a lousey teacher. So why is it that, again as you say, we have to spend millions to come up with evaluations, so that we can begin the process of getting rid of these lousy teachers.

[Edited on September 16, 2012 at 4:26 PM. Reason : Stupid auto correct]

9/16/2012 4:25:53 PM

You'll never raise systemic problems of student underachievement by focusing solely on teachers.


There are a myriad of factors plaguing Chicago. From institutional segregation, isolation, and high concentration of poverty and crime in the city, the city is suffering from access inequality.

Any discussion about education that views student's results and teacher quality in an isolated vacuum is a worthless exercise.

9/16/2012 4:55:49 PM

Why bother discussing things that no one can do anything about? No doubt parents suck. No doubt the culture sucks. No doubt Chicago is full of racists. But short of violating their rights, there is nothing we can do about those things. But, what we can do is work on fixing the visibly broken government run education system. After-all, the government runs the damn thing and has all the authority it needs to do something about it.

9/16/2012 5:23:52 PM

Quote :

"So why is it that, again as you say, we have to spend millions to come up with evaluations, so that we can begin the process of getting rid of these lousy teachers."

Beats me. Ask the Gates Foundation and Arne Duncan; their agenda rarely makes sense to me. I imagine they see it as a tool to break open tenure in unionized states. It's being used as such in this case.

In right to work states, it's not laws or unions keeping lousy teachers in schools. It's either because the principal genuinely can't find someone better, or is keeping the lousy teacher because they're a good coach. Or cronyism.

Quote :

"Why bother discussing things that no one can do anything about?"

Those things are worth bringing up when I'm scapegoated for their effects.

9/16/2012 5:45:50 PM

Compulsory attendance is an issue, but one that no one will agree to eliminate, and one that probably shouldn't be eliminated as much as I dislike it as a concept.

With the amount we're spending per student we could easily scrap government run education and give out vouchers to attend whatever school you want (which is what they do in Sweden) or do, fuck, anything else than what we're currently doing.

Honestly, stuff like this teacher strike just further illustrates how broken public education is as an institution, but it's so deeply embedded in our culture that any change at all is viewed as a crazy proposal and fought tooth and nail by those with a vested economic interest in maintaining it no matter the cost to the children.

9/16/2012 5:52:20 PM

Quote :

"With the amount we're spending per student we could easily scrap government run education and give out vouchers to attend whatever school you want (which is what they do in Sweden) or do, fuck, anything else than what we're currently doing."

Our education system is a pretty good one, really. When you account for poverty rates, the fact that we test a higher percentage of our students than other countries, and that the difference between 1st and 21st on international test rankings is often within the margin of error, our children do pretty well. And they've never been doing better.

If you're interested in not repeating falsehoods about our schools, read part 3 of this study:

http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/newsletters/0216_brown_education_loveless.pdf

This is a good review of the literature, as well:

http://ajr.org/Article.asp?id=5280




[Edited on September 16, 2012 at 6:23 PM. Reason : ]

9/16/2012 6:21:35 PM