Nonsense.
The union can't use regular dues to block a proposition, or for any other campaign sort of purpose. They collect a separate, voluntary fee for that purpose. Members are encouraged to pay into that fund, but not required to do so in order to remain a member. When there is pending legislation that might affect schools, the union asks for money to lobby and campaign. Most members donate voluntarily.
Most of the stuff being used to lambaste unions is plucked out of thin air, made up of whole cloth, and then passed on as fact. What happened to the post above saying that teachers were being paid to do nothing since they can't be fired? I never did see any back up to that one. Maybe I missed it.
Are you accounting for the fact that nearly all schools track students according to their perceived ability levels?The student population would follow a normal distribution. This means you could compare and contrast teacher averages relatively easily; you could also eliminate students who fall several standard deviations outside the mean from the data set; that way, the statistical outliers wouldn't skew the results.
Are you accounting for the fact that nearly all schools track students according to their perceived ability levels?
I'm saying that not all teachers teach a cross section of the student population--they teach students tracked by ability level. And ability levels are a) subjective, and b) not distributed evenly among the distribution curve. There isn't one g that will account for abilities in all areas. And those "ability" levels are often significantly influenced by socioeconomic background, family culture regarding learning, etc. And some teachers are better with some sorts of students than with others.I don't follow.
I understand that. There still can be any number of reasons that entire classes of students are doing better or worse: New computer lab for instance, will only benefit the type of teachers who will make use of it. Those who are traditional will be at an disadvantage.
Lightdemon said:Class sizes being reduced for disabled and English learner students, will impact classes are that are mainstreaming and those who are not mainstreaming will be at a disadvantage.
Lightdemon said:Classes are not ALL the same like how you describe. How do you figure in all of these confounding variables? Dozens of schools in LA in the last year are going through increased class sizes, expanding campuses, teacher lay offs, charter schools taking the brightest students from the public schools, etc etc, how are you suppose to calculate these factors into that formula?
Lightdemon said:There are too many things going on for you to isolate teachers as THE variable. There are MANY variables and it does not effect all students, it affects different groups of students. The mere fact that your foundation is just a mere correlation, all the confounding variables destroys your entire premise.
Lightdemon said:You missed my point. Please refer to my earlier example in this thread where I talk about about my colleague who was waging a war with the administration. The administration can give a teacher 6 periods of hell, make every class horrible, all it takes is 5 or more problem students.
Lightdemon said:These problem students can drive the entire class down in terms of performance, structure, and discipline. This is a tactic that the administration use to "discipline" teachers who do not cooperate and who are untouchable because of the union.
Lightdemon said:Under the merit pay system, the teacher would suffer a dip in their salary because s/he was standing up to the administration (who was then implementing NCLB). Many teachers who opposed NCLB would have been silenced or driven out of their careers under the merit pay system. How well would that have turned out?
Lightdemon said:Lots of confounding variables in a school year. Class make-up changes, you get new students, you lose a few students, some classes you only take 1 semester. How will I know whether or not I should make adjustments?
Lightdemon said:How will I know that my students will be tested on the material that I teach them?
Lightdemon said:I only get one chance to prove myself every year? If I get bad luck one year and get crappy classes, I'll have to wait 1 whole year to fix it?
I'm saying that not all teachers teach a cross section of the student population...
...they teach students tracked by ability level.
And ability levels are a) subjective, and b) not distributed evenly among the distribution curve. There isn't one g that will account for abilities in all areas. And those "ability" levels are often significantly influenced by socioeconomic background, family culture regarding learning, etc. And some teachers are better with some sorts of students than with others.
I'm just saying its more complicated than you may believe.
Okay--not sure I get this, but okay.It depends on how you define "population". Within the US? Within the State? Within the region? The county? The district? The school?
The more specific you get, the more relevant the "population" becomes.
A class of students for any given teachers is not a cross section of a population in terms of distribution. It's skewed by several, often conflicting factors. There are very few classrooms where the performance of students matches the performance of a wider population. And the groupings are not consistent over time, either, since students switch among classes and ability groupings.I'm sorry, but this doesn't make any sense. What does this mean?
I'm not suggesting that it is, but you would at least have to track student performance longitudinally for several years and not just examine a cross section of a population's one-year performance. That's because "holding things constant" is very hard to do when students are selected into specific classrooms via any number of (often subjective) variables.You're just trying to make it complicated. Statistical analysis has a number of ways to correct for outliers and disparities between demographics. It's a simple matter of holding things constant and observing averages. Math is not nearly as limited as you make it out to be.
That's fair game. If new computer labs actually help kids learn better, then the teachers who make use of those facilities ARE better teachers than those who don't.
Most schools assign students to classes randomly, in roughly equal proportions (after taking into account abilities of course). It's rare that you'll find a school that has a history class with 40 students and another history class that's exactly the same with 10 students.
Personally I'm very excited for the next 5 years, because I think we'll finally get some answers to long standing education questions, like how much things like smaller classes and new computer labs actually improve education. We've only had the information technology to measure it for a couple years now, so as it becomes more widespread we'll finally be able to measure the impact of those things precisely, and take them into account when measuring teacher performance.
As for some of those other things (e.g. increased class sizes, charter schools taking best students), they should affect many classes within a school equally. The idea of measuring teacher performance isn't to compare teachers BETWEEN schools (although I suspect it could be used for that as well). It's to compare teachers WITHIN a school. That way the administration will have a standardized measurement of performance when it's making its salary/hiring/layoff decisions.
Let's say Mr. Young teaches 10th grade US history. Let's say that Ms. Arnold also teaches 10th grade US history at the same school. And let's say that there is no advanced or remedial section for this specific class, so all the students are randomly assigned to one of the classes.
All variables other than the teacher will affect the student populations in roughly equal proportions, since they were randomly drawn from the same population.
I've never heard of an administrator handpicking the problem students to give to a certain teacher (unless, of course, that teacher is specifically in charge of remedial/problem students). But needless to say, I don't think they should be able to do that. Students should be randomly assigned to whatever classes they're taking (after factoring in their ability) to prevent that sort of thing from happening.
All the more reason that there shouldn't BE teachers who are untouchable because of the union.
All of those other variables are measurable. So Mrs. Jones thinks she got screwed by the administration in her class schedule? We can measure the average student performance in her class, versus the average performance of those SAME students last year. We can measure the average student performance in her class, versus the average performance of every other teacher in her school last year. We can compare Mrs. Jones' relative performance to HER relative performance last year, to see if it's just an anomaly and she did indeed get screwed somehow.
Maybe she thinks her entire class was unteachable because of Joe The Class Clown. But guess what? We can now track the average performance of everyone in that class, with everyone in Joe's class LAST year.
The purpose of the test is to track teacher and student performance, not to train the teacher to make adjustments. If your results in the first year are disappointing, you can make the adjustments in your second year.
If you teach them everything they need to know it shouldn't be a problem. Most teachers don't test students on every single thing they mention in class anyway.
Don't let the facts mess with your wishful thinking or anything.
In 2005, the California Teacher's Association raised the rates of all members by $180, specifically to build a $54 million dollar war chest to fight against Schwarzenegger's proposed educational cuts. The teachers had absolutely no say whatsoever in either the increase, nor in what it was used for. In fact, many teachers spoke out to the media against both the increase and it's usage.
Just one more reason for a separation of school and state.
You mean SOME teachers in places that have no teacher's union are treated rather badly - right?Teachers in places that have no teacher unions are treated rather badly--badly enough that some talented teachers don't want to work in such places. Those who do are often tied to spouses whose jobs keep them there.
Actually, I think his point was that it IS in the state's interest to have an educated citizenry.so, in your view, it is not in the state's interest to have an educated citizenry?
Actually, I think his point was that it IS in the state's interest to have an educated citizenry.
But he doesn't like what the state is interested in teaching them.
please point out the part of his statement which evidences the state actually seeks an educated citizenry when it abdicates its role in educating that citizenry
Perhaps I should rephrase.please point out the part of his statement which evidences the state actually seeks an educated citizenry when it abdicates its role in educating that citizenry
Perhaps I should rephrase.
"Actually, I think his point was that it IS in the state's interest to have an educated citizenry."
And that this interest is a negative thing.
Not a positive.
Thus, his desire for some separation between the education system and the government.
But, I have no real idea as to what his reasons for the statement were - I'm just guessing.
No.using that approach, if we saw a deadly epidemic on the horizon, then the state, while being interested in mitigating it, would have no role in doing so
notice how that approach makes no sense. same thing if the state abandons an interest in the education of its people
please point out the part of his statement which evidences the state actually seeks an educated citizenry when it abdicates its role in educating that citizenry
“When schoolchildren start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of schoolchildren.'”
-Al Shanker (AFT Union President 1964-1997)
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?