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More A's, More Pay
theodp writes "Little slashdotters may find teacher a tad more upset when they screw up on a test. The Dept. of Education just launched the first federal program that uses bonuses to motivate teachers who raise test scores in at-risk communities, awarding $42M this month to 16 school systems. Any fears that teachers might cook the books to score a typical $5,000 payoff? Not to worry, says Chicago's school chief, there are statistical analyses in place that spot testing irregularities, presumably better at catching Cheaters than those used in the past."
This is unbelievable and one of the reasons I've always "lobbied" against public education where teachers are also graders. It is my firm belief that you don't grade your own work. If you're a programmer, do you get to grade your programming?
In any public job, allowing the employee to grade their output is going to end up with the grades falling into the average level as much as possible. If a public employee has too many failing students, they'll get fired. If they have too many students doing above average, they don't have a reason to ask for more money. With mostly average students (say, grade C or so), you can always say you can do better with more money. Since most teachers don't have a student for more than a few years, this can go on ad infinitum.
I'm against publicly funded education entirely, but I would be 100% satisfied with TRUE free market grading systems. The ACT and SAT are not realistic scoring systems -- even though the ACT says they are a private organization. We need REAL grading companies who settle the knowledge of students. Why should a 12 year old always be in the 6th grade? Shouldn't various students of various abilities be judged to their level by what the market needs? Shouldn't education be partially based on what will be required of the student if they were to enter the industry at a certain knowledge level?
To me, this feels like more teachers' union cronyism and preferential treatment to keep private industry out of the education system. What we need is more competition and less paternalism in this very-important market. Let us see what would happen when real competition creeps into the system -- not more regulation.
I for one, am a huge proponent of this type of approach. In almost any corporation in America, there are bonuses that are offered when someone performs well. Teachers (and many other Union jobs) don't have such performance bonuses in place. Why not? Sure, you have to worry a little about cheating, but I have to (maybe naively) believe that teachers will not be slipping students answers to achievement tests while school administrators are monitoring test taking progress. Plus, the statistical analyses referred to in the article should catch teachers that are this egregious.
We expect our teachers to put more and more hours in (most work tons of nights and weekend hours) for "the love of the children", and without any incremental pay. Shouldn't we reward them for their good work? Instead, we treat all teachers the same, and then provide tenure after 5 years (or so, depending on the school/state) that protects even the poor performing teachers. This is detrimental to our children, our future, and to our teachers.
The only problem I see with the program is that it only addresses at-risk schools. While school teachers in more affluent areas often get paid more (in my area, the difference is ~$15,000 between the wealthy and inner city school teachers), saying they shouldn't be compensated for good performance is like saying our "at risk" students matter more than everyone else. Rolling out the bonus program to all school districts could be a huge win for our education system.
Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
Great. just what i wanted, my grades and my work to mean even less. Thank you god for people who cheapen the entire system and ruin my credibility as a student.
You mad
Chicago schools are nowhere near equal to one another. Some are fine. Others are worse than what you would imagine conditions are in third world countries.
My friend taught science and math in a Chicago school in a poor neighborhood.
In all the years he taught there; they NEVER had books, they NEVER had lab supplies, they SELDOM had working AV equipment, they NEVER had a computer.
Not that this effected the average grades, because any grade he assigned that was below a C was magically changed to a C by the principal.
How the fsck can you teach school without books?
I submit to you that basing his pay on the number of A's is corrupt in the extreme. (Though, thankfully, he is retired now.)
Dog is my co-pilot.
What hurts me most is the fact that these kids excel at written English and write much better essays yet they have to learn the language in addition to their vernaculars. American kids, who [mostly] speak English from childhood have horrible English, so solve the discipline question then we can go from there.
Maybe the submitter wouldn't have put an apostrophe in "As" if his teacher had an incentive to teach him some grammar?
Probably not a smart idea. Even at first glance, either 1) tests will not be standardized and all this will do will distort what constitutes an "A" or 2) tests will be standardized and this will create widespread "Teaching to the Test."
In scenario 1, this is bad because it creates an obvious incentive to grade very kindly. People can try to test for that influence to prevent it all they want, but if they create a market out of good grades, the market is going to react.
Scenario 2 doesn't fair much better, as anyone who has seen first hand the results of teachers teaching to, for example, the AP tests. Test scores will improve, knowledge will actually tend to decrease as original and creative thinking is discouraged in favor of simply being told the types of answers testers are looking for, rather than having to learn how to get there yourself. It's sort of the opposite of the Socratic teaching method.
If someone wanted to raise salaries to increase the size of the pool of teacher candidates, fine. But if a bonus is what's really changing someone's attitude, I think we all know greed isn't conducive to working with people well (and yes kids are people). Despite the flaws in our school system, I'm pretty sure I feel better knowing my kids teachers are there to educate because that's what they enjoy, and not there to try to get a certain set of letters or numbers associated with them so they get a bunch of cash, regardless of the actual amount of knowledge attained.
Relax I just want some peanuts.
Your "degree" in elementary, or your "degree" in high school?
This has nothing to do with post-secondary education, which is still the only place you get a degree.
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The only real solution to our American education system is to figure the average amount nationwide that all schools have for their budget.
Double that number and then increase all corporate american taxes to get an amount of money equal that doubled number. (Corporations benefit from well educated workers, so should be willing to pay to get them)
Then distribute this amount of money evenly to all schools nationwide based upon the number of students that were enlisted in the previous year. Beyond that the federal government should have no say other than that money should be spent by the school district it was allocated to ONLY. Let the states manage their educational systems. Increase this number and the tax amount by the previous year's inflation numbers published by the federal reserve and you have a well funded local educational system.
This has the dual effect of increasing nearly all school's budgets (and rich parents can still donate money in rich areas if they want an elite school) and at the same time reducing the dependence on local property values for school income (and theoretically reduce local taxes) This is Democratization of American Education.
And to the critics that say doubling the amount spent on average in American public schools - public education is the ONE thing that this nation can throw money "away" on or "spend money frivilously on".
John B
The teachers should get a bonus according to the amount that they have improved the student's level of education over the year that they spent with the teacher. You look at their grades for the year before they were with the teacher, and the grades for the year after, and the teacher gets a bonus according to the improvement. That way the teacher is making an investment in their own future by improving the student's education.
This elimates some of the cheating problem.
Australian running a company that does C# / C++ / Java / SQL / Python / Mathematica
How about... giving more money to all teachers and attracting better talent? It is obvious and uncontroversial that offering more money gets you more skilled people. However, for some reason, when it comes to education people ignore this fact. If you want to provide incentives to get better teaching, raise salaries! Offering a prize for performance is just an underhanded way of trying to save money on your incentives -you are giving all the teachers a lottery ticket instead of cash. Worse than that, it clearly encourages cheating.
I love the way we are taking education these days. I am currently in college and I notice that the institution is not at all what I expected. No one goes because they want to learn more about their field and want to be educated about it, they go because it is a certification they can put on their resume, which will determine if they get hired or not, or determine if they make $35K a year or $75K a year. I don't even know who I am angry at, the managers of the corporations that use college degrees instead of work experience to determine a candidate's worth, or the universities that take in tuition and try to pump out degrees with little idea at whether the student is actually "educated" or if they just learned "how to replicate the process" for the test and then forgot the information the next day. .I guess standardized testing is just the best solution at the moment.
This applies here too. Essentially they are assessing worth by attaching a numerical value to "intelligence" or "education". Most of the time if you just went to these schools and sat down in the classes you would get a better idea than assigning some standardized test. Then again, the costs associated with that would be astronomical and end up taking away from what the schools have. .
I don't care what you mod me (if at all) this was just a stupid rant, I just wonder if its me or if others out there agree.
If you are about to mod me down, keep in mind that this post was most likely sarcastic.
Education is important, people know this and will pay anything they can muster to get the best education for their children. Companies know this. If you leave education to the forces of the free market, prices of education will just rise ad infinitum, as their is not a point that parents will say 'this education thing is too expensive, little Joe doesn't need any'. The companies will just bleed em dry.
... there's isn't a point where people say 'curing this cancer is too expensive, forget it'. So what are you left with? The most expensive system in the world with the least actual care and the highest number of uninsured citizens for any first world country.
Same basically as the American healthcare system
I think you really need to rethink your 'let the free market sort it out' kind of philosophy.
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"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
Health care is not, and never will be a gree market for 2 very important reasons:
1) Most people are not qualified to comparison shop. To truly coparison shop between drugs, treatments and hospitals you need lots of information and some knowledge of statistics. Most people just can't do this type of analysis. Therefore you need to rely on the opinions of health care providers and licensing boards. It is not like shopping for clothes and comparing Wal-Mart to Target.
2) Even if you are qualified to do this, in emergency or other high priority medicine there is often no time to do detailed reviews. If you are bleeding and in pain you are not going to comparison shop. All you would want to do is stop hurting.
Free market forces simply do not work in health care, except perhaps for elective procedures such as plastic surgery.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+