Very good point (the parents influence). Funny nobody touched on that earlier in the thread.
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How does the general public feel about...
- Thread starter MakiSupaStar
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Very good point (the parents influence). Funny nobody touched on that earlier in the thread.
I recall when I was in elementary school (back in the 60's!!) the teacher introduced this smartly-dressed chap who squeezed himself into a vacant desk in the back row of the classroom...
"Class, this is Mr. So-and-so....He'll be watching our class for the next 50 minutes. Its time for my evaluation". .... or something like that.
What ever happened to this method of evaluating a teachers' performance?
"Class, this is Mr. So-and-so....He'll be watching our class for the next 50 minutes. Its time for my evaluation". .... or something like that.
What ever happened to this method of evaluating a teachers' performance?
I'm currently in University to become a History Teacher, my friend and I both came to the the opinion that it is very unfair for the teacher to evaluate them on test scores. In general they should be average since the majority of kids want to get good grades. However, people know about these ones, there are students who do bad because they don't care, they fail everything, get 0's on tests and eventually drop out. I can understand that they use test scores to see if the teacher is teaching well. Although, this does have a huge impact, certain schools will have lower average GPA's this shouldn't affect teachers. Instead, they should have a principle, another teacher, anyone step in and observe the classes. That show's whether they are or are not a good teacher. If they want surprise the teacher it'll be a little more actual than teachers telling kids that they need to be good for their evaluation.
I don't want to go into this career when if some of my kids are failing and I could possibly get fired.
My old highschool still does that and I've been out two years now. They do tell the teachers in advance though.
Management-by-the-numbers doesn't work for business. Why should it work for education? All it does is to encourage people to game the system in every conceivable way.
How has standardized testing helped my kids? It's made school easier for them, but more boring. The teachers are effectively discouraged from challenging the kids with more difficult and interesting material, if it isn't on the test.
How has standardized testing helped my kids? It's made school easier for them, but more boring. The teachers are effectively discouraged from challenging the kids with more difficult and interesting material, if it isn't on the test.
+1. but there are some teachers out there that suck, and/or don't care if the kids actually learn anything or not. how do we identify and hopefully retrain or fire those teachers? got to test em somehow.
One question is how you test teachers without creating such a cut-throat work environment that you lose the best teachers along with the worst?
Grasping for fads from the business world is a mistake. Those fads don't work, yet they are declared to be a success anyway, because famous business leaders tend to have a heroic self image. Our society has somehow latched onto the idea that the way to improve things is to make life more cutthroat for everybody. It is also referred to as the "race to the bottom."
Grasping for fads from the business world is a mistake. Those fads don't work, yet they are declared to be a success anyway, because famous business leaders tend to have a heroic self image. Our society has somehow latched onto the idea that the way to improve things is to make life more cutthroat for everybody. It is also referred to as the "race to the bottom."
skychief said:
Because of this grant I get observed every year. Normally, with my amount of experience it would be every 2years. With that said, I'm getting observed informally all the time. Had one today actually.
Presumably, these individuals are qualified to objectively evaluate a teachers performance in the classroom environment.,,i.e.,, the expectations of a teacher's performance in urban Chicago might differ somewhat from that of a teacher in rural North Dakota.
As it should be.
I suppose we should just accept that there will always be different criteria to judge a teacher's overall performance.
But the students' test scores? Uh-uh.
As it should be.
I suppose we should just accept that there will always be different criteria to judge a teacher's overall performance.
But the students' test scores? Uh-uh.
1958Bassman said:
Hmmm some one has to explain to me how 3%+2%+2%+2% = 16%. The contract is a 4 year contract. I have crunched the numbers over and over can not get it to come out to 16%.
As far as evaluating teachers based on test scores it seems like a bad idea. But the worst part is it is not the same measurement for all the teachers. Yes they want it to be 25% of the criterion on which the teacher is graded on, but what goes into deciding if a teacher is effective is subjective. All the teachers in the same school could have widely different expectation placed on them by the principle. To me that makes the whole rating system worthless.
Presumably, these individuals are qualified to objectively evaluate a teachers performance in the classroom environment.,,i.e.,, the expectations of a teacher's performance in urban Chicago might differ somewhat from that of a teacher in rural North Dakota.
As it should be.
I suppose we should just accept that there will always be different criteria to judge a teacher's overall performance.
But the students' test scores? Uh-uh.
Is the answer to 3X5= ? different in Chicago than it is in North Dakota?
Do they have different nouns, verbs and adjectives there?
Yes.nortonrider said:
In many of the inner city neighborhoods words you and I use as a noun or a verb are used very differently there. So teachers have to get these kids to understand English before they can teach them the syntax you and I take for granted. And yes 3x5 can have more than one meaning. You see it as a math problem whereas some one else could see it as something different.
^ that's a load of crap!
There is no way you can make the argument that a "inner city" kids education should be any different that a "rural" kids or a "suburban" kids.
Correct grammar is just that - correct. everything else is wrong!
Correct math is just that - correct. any other answer is wrong!
davkane said:
Yea I'm
Not seeing it either,
10x 1.03 x 1.02 x 1.02 x 1.02 = 10.93
10.93/10 = 9.3%
I wouldn't consider myself to be the "general public" as my wife is a public school teacher (8th grade special education, primarily in language arts). If her pay is attached to test scores - that affects me & our household finances. Now its serious.
The first problem I have is that there is ALWAYS a distribution of performance and ability. All students are not equal in performance. There will always be the honors-level, the "college prep", special education, and basic skills kids. Some will pass a standardized test, and others will not. This will happen EVERY YEAR. When school districts & departments of education realize this - we will be better off. Not every student needs to pass the test. Some of them might be *gasp* a gas station attendant.
So, how to make them pass? Either dumb down the test so everyone passes (which effectively makes it meaningless if everyone passes), or change the style in testing.
Why can they not pass? One reason is that they come into her class not reading on an 8th grade level. She has had students reading on 3rd grade reading levels, or 5th grade reading levels. These kids have NO CHANCE on an 8th grade standardized test - they simply will not be able to read the content & respond accordingly. Sure, in their "IEPs", they get extra time for testing and some other aids other students do not, but it is a herculean task to execute the test. Of course - this means that the schools UP TO 8th GRADE merely passed the students without concern for their ability to perform at the necessary level.
Compare this with the kids in the honors sections, who will pass every test thrown at them, possibly even a grade or two above them. When the honors teacher has a whole class of kids who pass the test - does she deserve more pay because of that?
What if they were tested on their individual level? If an 8th grade student can only read on a 3rd grade level, he/she should take a 3rd grade test. He/she might stand a chance of passing it (or not, but at least the chance is higher).
The best method (IMO) is a series of computer-based tests she has to administer 4X/year ("MAPS" testing). Allegedly, it allows her to assess the initial condition of the students & then determine improvement or degradation or stagnation over the course of the year. This seems to be an effective way to gauge a teacher's effectiveness, as that is the primary change over the course of a school year.
Don't get me wrong - I *really* like merit-based pay. As long as the metrics are clearly established and there is a uniform set of performance standards. Perform well & get paid. Perform poorly & don't get paid so much. It makes a lot of sense to me.
My problems are that my wife will be judged for things she has ZERO control over. In a given class, most of the kids come from single-parent homes. Some of them live with grandparents or aunts & uncles. Some of them have to cut school to watch their 2 year old brothers. As mentioned above - some come to school without having eaten. With her demographic (special ed students) - she has told me many times that it is easier to misbehave than to be viewed as "dumb". She regularly has fights, shouting matches, the odd sexual assault, and general disruptive behavior towards learning. How the **** can she force these kids to get perfect scores on the "writing prompt" on the standardized test? (she is also 'highly qualified' to teach math & the same is true there also - kids in 8th grade who don't know how to multiply numbers, etc.) Is she less of a teacher because of it? Are we going to miss out on a financial bonus because of deadbeat parents, crappy teachers in previous years, etc.?
TLDR - I am for it and against it because it affects my wife's income.
The first problem I have is that there is ALWAYS a distribution of performance and ability. All students are not equal in performance. There will always be the honors-level, the "college prep", special education, and basic skills kids. Some will pass a standardized test, and others will not. This will happen EVERY YEAR. When school districts & departments of education realize this - we will be better off. Not every student needs to pass the test. Some of them might be *gasp* a gas station attendant.
So, how to make them pass? Either dumb down the test so everyone passes (which effectively makes it meaningless if everyone passes), or change the style in testing.
Why can they not pass? One reason is that they come into her class not reading on an 8th grade level. She has had students reading on 3rd grade reading levels, or 5th grade reading levels. These kids have NO CHANCE on an 8th grade standardized test - they simply will not be able to read the content & respond accordingly. Sure, in their "IEPs", they get extra time for testing and some other aids other students do not, but it is a herculean task to execute the test. Of course - this means that the schools UP TO 8th GRADE merely passed the students without concern for their ability to perform at the necessary level.
Compare this with the kids in the honors sections, who will pass every test thrown at them, possibly even a grade or two above them. When the honors teacher has a whole class of kids who pass the test - does she deserve more pay because of that?
What if they were tested on their individual level? If an 8th grade student can only read on a 3rd grade level, he/she should take a 3rd grade test. He/she might stand a chance of passing it (or not, but at least the chance is higher).
The best method (IMO) is a series of computer-based tests she has to administer 4X/year ("MAPS" testing). Allegedly, it allows her to assess the initial condition of the students & then determine improvement or degradation or stagnation over the course of the year. This seems to be an effective way to gauge a teacher's effectiveness, as that is the primary change over the course of a school year.
Don't get me wrong - I *really* like merit-based pay. As long as the metrics are clearly established and there is a uniform set of performance standards. Perform well & get paid. Perform poorly & don't get paid so much. It makes a lot of sense to me.
My problems are that my wife will be judged for things she has ZERO control over. In a given class, most of the kids come from single-parent homes. Some of them live with grandparents or aunts & uncles. Some of them have to cut school to watch their 2 year old brothers. As mentioned above - some come to school without having eaten. With her demographic (special ed students) - she has told me many times that it is easier to misbehave than to be viewed as "dumb". She regularly has fights, shouting matches, the odd sexual assault, and general disruptive behavior towards learning. How the **** can she force these kids to get perfect scores on the "writing prompt" on the standardized test? (she is also 'highly qualified' to teach math & the same is true there also - kids in 8th grade who don't know how to multiply numbers, etc.) Is she less of a teacher because of it? Are we going to miss out on a financial bonus because of deadbeat parents, crappy teachers in previous years, etc.?
TLDR - I am for it and against it because it affects my wife's income.
I think that these last few posts show exactly why we need standardized testing.
If a kid in the 4th. grade can not demonstrate (through testing) that they have acquired the requisite skills to be promoted to the 5th. grade........
then they don't get promoted!
There is absolutely NO reason why a kid should be promoted to the 8th. grade while only being able to read at a 3rd. grade level. That's just ridiculous!
On the same note, a "honors" kid that can demonstrate the ability to perform at an advanced level should be promoted to that grade and taught at that level.
Standardized testing would put the students where they need to be. (classified by ability).
If a teachers entire class was unable to pass the required tests, then that would be a pretty good indicator that the teacher may not be effective.
If a kid in the 4th. grade can not demonstrate (through testing) that they have acquired the requisite skills to be promoted to the 5th. grade........
then they don't get promoted!
There is absolutely NO reason why a kid should be promoted to the 8th. grade while only being able to read at a 3rd. grade level. That's just ridiculous!
On the same note, a "honors" kid that can demonstrate the ability to perform at an advanced level should be promoted to that grade and taught at that level.
Standardized testing would put the students where they need to be. (classified by ability).
If a teachers entire class was unable to pass the required tests, then that would be a pretty good indicator that the teacher may not be effective.
Chebass88 said:
You did a great job of portraying the reality of what goes on day to day and at best, a test, is a snap shot or even a series of snap shots of what often amounts to a lifelong struggle. For special Ed students, this struggle is particularly difficult. I've been teaching honors the last couple of years and believe it or not, in my school's neighborhood, these kids struggle too, and even though they might test well they've often got a lot on their plate. Sometimes performance in school is their coping mechanism, allbeit, a fairly healthy one. I've had to make more CPS calls in these last two years than I have in the previous four years teaching gen Ed. Everything from acute depression agitated by incestual rape, homelessness, abuse, OCD, hairpulling, and destructive home lives with meth and prostitution. Yet despite this, these kids manage to turn in quality, thought provoking work, day in and day out, and they crush the test. So even for some of the honors kids, a test is just this small insignificant event that is not even a blip. I'm not trying to downplay what you're talking about with the struggles of special Ed kids, I'm just trying to point out how absurd an evaluation based simply upon one of these tests are at both ends of the spectrum.
But on the flip side of this coin, I will say this. Almost every job that requires a cert, license, coursework, or training there will more than likely be standardized tests. If a kid wants to go on to get a degree of any sort, there will be standardized tests. So these things, even though they are not an accurate measure of skill, knowledge or comprehension, they are a part of business because business has bought into them and uses them as filters (especially in the current job market). While we might say we value other attributes and skills, but until we start dropping these types of tests as they pertain to particular areas of industry, we have to teach our students how to take these things if we want them to have a fighting chance. But we need balance, and we need to incorporate other types of evaluations to accurately assess where our students are at in terms of overall comprehension of what they're learning and in turn how we're teaching.
A lot of this is moot, because these tests are being phased out and replaced with new tests on new national standards. These new tests incorporate skills and presentation, but from what I've seen so far, further perpetuate the biases that were so apparent in the tests they're replacing, so...
When you take this into account regarding Chicago, it makes me wonder how this can even be a part of these strike negotiations because the test that they're being evaluated on, will be replaced part way through the new contract, which hardly seems fair. This in turn makes me wonder, if this concept of evaluating teachers by standardized tests (which I think can be worked out at some level) is now becoming nothing more than a political wedge used to split apart the teacher unions. When you couple this with this campaign of breaking the union because of all the 'bad' teachers, and how suddenly our retirement is the reason the country is bankrupt (not the banks and their decades-long campaign for deregulation so they could merge with their investment arms to create this false derivative markets based upon bad mortgage debt) you can easily see how it can be manipulated to sway public opinion.
I don't know man. Maybe it's better to be dumb.
nortonrider said:
Retention doesn't work either. Plus NCLB renders it nearly impossible, because it requires a parents' permission, who almost never sign off on retaining their child. Of the children that get retained (mostly for things like prolonged illness, family disruption, or some other event that caused them to get behind) the majority drop out before high school. The model you're describing is called tracking and that has been proven ineffective as well. Mostly because it focuses the funding and attention on the top, and there is not a lot of opportunity to move up to the higher tracks if you're on the lower tracks. Plus the goal of NCLB is ALL children test proficient, so it instantly became out dated.
Oddly enough, I wrote my masters thesis on school models so I've done considerable research on this stuff.
A few questions from a non-Parent.
1) I don't get the problem with teaching to the test, at least not in Core subjects. When I see HS kids that can't give back change at a Burger King, I suspect they needed to be taught to the test.
While I realize kids need to be taught to think and should leave school with the ability to evaluate material themselves. They have to have basic skills to even begin that process. A kid that leaves school believing that 2+2=5 will never be able to make good decisions based on evaluating data. Because their basic data is always wrong or incomplete.
A classic example of this is reading. I love reading, but no amount of ability to think for myself will help me if I can't read past a third grade level. I'm having enough trouble getting through Gibbon with a couple of years of college reading skills.
2) How else would you evaluate teachers? I certainly agree that the test shouldn't be the only criterion, and certainly the level of the child coming in should be considered. In other words, level of improvement is probably a better evaluator than overall level.
But how does a kid get to Eighth grade with third grade reading skills? Seriously, what criminal signed off on that kids promotion?
3) Where does the money go in our educational system? The only nations that spend more per child to educate are like Luxembourg and some Oil Sheikdom, and yet the rest of the world is kicking our proverbial butts in performance.
4) Are we demanding enough of our kids?. I went to a small Christian HS with resources that were comparable but at the time not exceeding the local PS. But I was shocked at how much easier the requirements were in my first couple of years of College. And I got far better grades in College. I suspect that most six graders in Asian societies would embarrass HS seniors in most American public schools.
I do suspect that little Johnny, Suzy, Juanita, or Tyrone is shocked when they leave school and realize their boss at the store is not worried about their self esteem and does actually grade on performance on a test called "work" every day. There are only so many jobs available at the DMV, some of them will actually have to have skills and know how to use them to make a living.
1) I don't get the problem with teaching to the test, at least not in Core subjects. When I see HS kids that can't give back change at a Burger King, I suspect they needed to be taught to the test.
While I realize kids need to be taught to think and should leave school with the ability to evaluate material themselves. They have to have basic skills to even begin that process. A kid that leaves school believing that 2+2=5 will never be able to make good decisions based on evaluating data. Because their basic data is always wrong or incomplete.
A classic example of this is reading. I love reading, but no amount of ability to think for myself will help me if I can't read past a third grade level. I'm having enough trouble getting through Gibbon with a couple of years of college reading skills.
2) How else would you evaluate teachers? I certainly agree that the test shouldn't be the only criterion, and certainly the level of the child coming in should be considered. In other words, level of improvement is probably a better evaluator than overall level.
But how does a kid get to Eighth grade with third grade reading skills? Seriously, what criminal signed off on that kids promotion?
3) Where does the money go in our educational system? The only nations that spend more per child to educate are like Luxembourg and some Oil Sheikdom, and yet the rest of the world is kicking our proverbial butts in performance.
4) Are we demanding enough of our kids?. I went to a small Christian HS with resources that were comparable but at the time not exceeding the local PS. But I was shocked at how much easier the requirements were in my first couple of years of College. And I got far better grades in College. I suspect that most six graders in Asian societies would embarrass HS seniors in most American public schools.
I do suspect that little Johnny, Suzy, Juanita, or Tyrone is shocked when they leave school and realize their boss at the store is not worried about their self esteem and does actually grade on performance on a test called "work" every day. There are only so many jobs available at the DMV, some of them will actually have to have skills and know how to use them to make a living.
