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Originally Posted by itshotinvegas
I don't know where you are getting merit based pay, especially after I clarified.
From this:
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Originally Posted by itshotinvegas
I'm all for paying teachers more, but I'm adamantly opposed to paying teachers more without that pay being tied to results.
If you meant something different and/or you clarified since and I missed it, my apologies. You've further clarified now, thanks.
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Originally Posted by itshotinvegas
I'm talking about getting rid of bad teachers. The return/results of the money the US spends on education is abysmal. Are you are telling me there is no reasonable way assess good/bad teachers? If so, I call bullshit on that.
No, I'm not saying that, but it can be tricky to say the least, especially when you try to apply one standard across the board. There are SO many complexities that determine why students succeed or struggle, and to use any kind of standardized assessments as a way to determine who is a bad teacher (or even worse, how much funding a school or district should receive) is a really bad idea. Perhaps you're not suggesting that, but it's often where the "we need to get rid of the bad teachers!" discussions go. Teachers need to be assessed on a much more local and individual level.
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Originally Posted by itshotinvegas
Finally, the process to fire a teacher in many places is wrinkled with red tape.
Sure. I think this aspect is often overplayed; I hear the "a teacher has to kill someone before they get fired!" rhetoric here sometimes, but no question that there is what some would consider a lot of process involved in labour relations. It's good that some of it is there, but there are times when it can be frustrating from an employer point of view.
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Originally Posted by itshotinvegas
On another note, in the US, contracts with unions are not national, they are local, and there are hundreds of them.
Yeah, here it used to be district by district, and you'd get a lot of whipsawing. About 30-40 years ago they shifted to a collective agreement for the entire province. There are pros and cons to each, but overall I feel it's better.
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Originally Posted by itshotinvegas
There is no way anyone can say with any degree of seriousness that better teachers should not be a focus (which means getting rid of bad teachers).
A
focus? I can. I'd be pretty surprised if there was an educational jurisdiction that is struggling where bad teachers are in the top 3 problems. I think Godgers said it well:
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Originally Posted by GodgersWOAT
You’re treating a symptom, not a cause.
And I would expand on his further points and ask if there truly is a problem with bad teachers, why is that? Do they have the training and support they need? Our district recently started working with the union on a better mentoring program, so teachers don't find themselves coming from university, dropped into a classroom, and left on their own. Of course such a program has existed for decades, but we've made a concerted effort to substantially improve it, and we're seeing good results. This wasn't done because our district is struggling, but because there's always lots of room to improve.
I don't want to come off as suggesting teachers can do no wrong. Every profession has some shitty members; teaching is no exception. But I think that the problem is frequently exaggerated, and as quoted above, often a symptom of something deeper.
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Originally Posted by nucleardonkey
Most assessment of teaching is based on a mix of results (grades given)(but often not controlled for student background, heterogeneity, etc) and polling (students). There is not much evidence that these metrics detect good teaching. They do clearly detect really bad teaching (so lots of false positives, few false negatives).
(But how do you define good teaching even operationally?)
Unfortunately, really bad teaching is not the fundamental problem with bad schools. Usually it's really bad organization and institucional culture.
Well said.
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Originally Posted by nucleardonkey
The systems with the best results (worldwide) are generally those that distribute resources most homogeneously. The US fails very badly on this point.
Agree completely. And on the occasions when there needs to be an uneven distribution, it should be because extra support is needed in some areas. The whole idea of giving less resources to schools or districts that struggle is completely backwards.
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Originally Posted by GodgersWOAT
Bad teachers don’t exist because of unions.
I agree with your post, but am going to add a little nuance to this point. There are times when a very politicized union will make it difficult to take very justifiable action. The union's mandate is to support their membership, and there are times when that runs contrary to the best interest of the students. Of course, that doesn't render any of your points less valid.