What happens now is that teachers are given a big list of state standards, and they know that only X % of them will actually be on the test. Not every standard is tested.
Grading the Teachers!
- Thread starter Masada
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What happens now is that teachers are given a big list of state standards, and they know that only X % of them will actually be on the test. Not every standard is tested.
JohnRM
Don't make me destroy you
I may answer this question once you explain the relevance of it.
JohnRM
Don't make me destroy you
That is the whole point. You succeeded and learned because you wanted to and you put the effort into it. The Educational Prison System can't force children to be successful or learn anything. Its seems to get in the way more than it helps. I believe that there is a much better way of going about this than that which we have currently in place. We will probably get a much better result with a fraction of the cost.
Oh yeah, whats your brilliant idea.
Well, the kids came back to class today. I really burned some calories. All but one of my classes are over crowded. Our school did real good on the standardized tests last year, so we lost some at-risk funding, which means our classes are going to be larger this year.
I'm gonna get a big fat performance based bonus check this year. Woo-hoo! Fortunately for me, it's pretty durn easy teaching kids how to do well on the standardized tests. I sure hope after they graduate they all get some jobs where they're paid to take standardized tests all day... cause my students are all pretty good at that.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go fill out a mountain of gratuitous paperwork.
I'm gonna get a big fat performance based bonus check this year. Woo-hoo! Fortunately for me, it's pretty durn easy teaching kids how to do well on the standardized tests. I sure hope after they graduate they all get some jobs where they're paid to take standardized tests all day... cause my students are all pretty good at that.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go fill out a mountain of gratuitous paperwork.
Shouldn't you be rewarded with funding for doing well on standardized testing?
While standardized testing isn't everything I do find i disturbing how casually the teacher unions attacked the field of statistics when it disagreed with their platform. In general though I think many of the platforms relate to something else entirely nobody mentions.
I was "unschooled" for most of my childhood years, this means by I was home schooled and then allowed to do whatever I wanted (but not TV or video games). When I was 9 my Mom taught me how to read and then when I was about 11 my parents started making me do math. I had a textbook and I worked in it around half an hour a day. Gradually as I got older I was given more structured things to do but still far less than any child in public school. At 15 I started doing online classes, then got a GED at 17 and started college. Now I'm 19 and a math major at the local public University with a 3.81 GPA, I'm nothing too special I mean not in Harvard after all, but I'm way ahead of most people even within my math program.
Now after comparing my history with those of people I know I have come to a few conclusions.
1. Schooling on children creates burn out and causes them to permanently attach learning to being hard. Most people in college are counting hours till they can graduate, I think not having been in such a school environment my whole life has resulted in me being be excited, interested, and engaged.
2. Children learn better by living than by studying. When was younger I was encouraged to read or play in the dirt, etc. Basically I was free to read what I wanted and my Mom sacrificed one of her flower gardens for me to dig in. I'm not sure I learned any skills from it per say, but I think it aided my development in some way because when it became time to do actual school work I essentially dropped in at grade level.
3. Theory can be learned much faster when you are older, kids spend 8 grades doing arithmetic. That's 8 years to learn arithmetic while something much harder like Calculus is a year and a half of University. That's because kids suck at learning abstract things, so we shouldn't try to make them.
All in all I don't homeschooling is a great alternative since it results in kids developing minimal social skills. I think the answer is to put off starting school a bit further say 8 instead of 5-6, and then have dramatically expanded research and "play" activities. Schools should have free learning hours where students can choose what they want to do. Games like Chess, checkers, Risk, etc. should be encouraged and played by students. Students should be encouraged to read, but always allowed to choose their own books. In fact English classes shouldn't assign books but let students choose them, etc.
The point is students should be in control of their own learning and should be prodded in good directions but not told do this, do that. However unfeesable, I think that is the only way to keep children interested in learning since they just aren't naturally cut out for the type of study they do now.
I was "unschooled" for most of my childhood years, this means by I was home schooled and then allowed to do whatever I wanted (but not TV or video games). When I was 9 my Mom taught me how to read and then when I was about 11 my parents started making me do math. I had a textbook and I worked in it around half an hour a day. Gradually as I got older I was given more structured things to do but still far less than any child in public school. At 15 I started doing online classes, then got a GED at 17 and started college. Now I'm 19 and a math major at the local public University with a 3.81 GPA, I'm nothing too special I mean not in Harvard after all, but I'm way ahead of most people even within my math program.
Now after comparing my history with those of people I know I have come to a few conclusions.
1. Schooling on children creates burn out and causes them to permanently attach learning to being hard. Most people in college are counting hours till they can graduate, I think not having been in such a school environment my whole life has resulted in me being be excited, interested, and engaged.
2. Children learn better by living than by studying. When was younger I was encouraged to read or play in the dirt, etc. Basically I was free to read what I wanted and my Mom sacrificed one of her flower gardens for me to dig in. I'm not sure I learned any skills from it per say, but I think it aided my development in some way because when it became time to do actual school work I essentially dropped in at grade level.
3. Theory can be learned much faster when you are older, kids spend 8 grades doing arithmetic. That's 8 years to learn arithmetic while something much harder like Calculus is a year and a half of University. That's because kids suck at learning abstract things, so we shouldn't try to make them.
All in all I don't homeschooling is a great alternative since it results in kids developing minimal social skills. I think the answer is to put off starting school a bit further say 8 instead of 5-6, and then have dramatically expanded research and "play" activities. Schools should have free learning hours where students can choose what they want to do. Games like Chess, checkers, Risk, etc. should be encouraged and played by students. Students should be encouraged to read, but always allowed to choose their own books. In fact English classes shouldn't assign books but let students choose them, etc.
The point is students should be in control of their own learning and should be prodded in good directions but not told do this, do that. However unfeesable, I think that is the only way to keep children interested in learning since they just aren't naturally cut out for the type of study they do now.
So giving to the Haves instead of the Have Nots? What are you, some kind of education Republican?
A lot of other countries do this actually, like Japan and Finland (their early grades more closely resemble the American Montisori program, and don't start reading instruction until later).
Also, again, the Ed establishment doesn't really chafe at any statistics, just when they are used incorrectly. The head of the NEA has endorsed merit pay programs this year, most famously in New Haven, but also in Louisiana and other places.
It's quite a conundrum. When you test, you don't want to pay teachers for how well their kids do, because then all the best teachers are competing for jobs where they teach those kids least in need of the best teachers. After all, anyone can teach a smart kid. Half the teachers of self-motivated children could be replaced by books.
What the pay bonuses attempt to do is measure teachers for what we call "value added" instruction. Statistically, you expect a cluster of students to improve their learning X amount in the course of a year's instruction. Teachers who get their kids to perform better on their standardized tests by X+1 get a slightly bigger bonus for hitting their targets; those with kids who out-improve the standard measure of growth by X+2 should get a significantly bigger bonus.
Obviously there's a lot of room for number-playing, gamesmanship, and even corruption in all that. What I've learned how to do is get a lot of students to do really well on the tests. That's what I'm paid to do.
When I'm not prepping them for their all important test-taking skills, I try to sneak in a little bit of actual history, maybe even a little bit of historical thinking about patterns of why people do what they do. But that monkey don't pay the bills. Test taking performance does that and I'm not going to eat even my piddly little bonus over some mere principle.
Ayatollah So
the spoof'll set you free
No.
By the way, I am stealing your signature for use outside of CFC.
Seconded. With the addition that hands-on learning should be encouraged - something like "bring your kid to work day" (with safety limitations - learning how to build a skyscraper is probably out of the question). Only it shouldn't be just one day. Nor just work.
