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."

Comments

This is cronyism at its finest

[dada21]

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.

Re:This is cronyism at its finest

[realmolo]

The public education system in this country is pretty broken, I'll give you that.

But letting the "free market" handle it is suicide. You'd end up with multiple "tiers" of schools. Good schools for rich people, bad schools for poor people. Which is exactly how it is now, except that the poor people would be even WORSE off, because they'd be paying more, and wouldn't get any funding from the state to fix things, or any hope of changing the situation through elections.

Or are you one of those idealists that thinks that companies in the "education business" would actually give a shit about the schools in poor areas? Because they wouldn't. They'd run them as cheaply as possible, and simply raise the rates at the schools for rich people. Much better margins on the rich kids, you see. The schools for poor kids aren't where the money is at.

The "free market" isn't good at providing services for the public good, because what is good for the public is rarely good for the bottom-line.

Re:This is cronyism at its finest

[dada21]

That's a pretty ridiculous concept, actually, considering that the free market of competition helps the poor more than it helps the rich.

For example, look at Jiffy Lube. Sure, everyone can probably change their oil themselves, but I get my oil changes for all my vehicles for $17.99 (with coupon) at Jiffy Lube. So do a lot of poor people. And what about Wal*Mart? They take back any returns without many questions, offer incredible price discounts, and pay their long-term employees well. What about the market for cheese? You can get exceptionally good and healthy cheese for a very low cost -- but there is expensive cheese for those who want it. Expensive cheese isn't limited to the wealthy, either.

If a school took advantage of the poor, another school who cares for the income would step up. With independent free market grading companies, you don't have to worry about your teachers -- as long as your student is passing independent testing, you know they're doing great. Also, it makes sense to have teachers who work without the huge bureaucracy of the public education system. Go to your township tomorrow, get a budget of the local education system, and divide it by teachers. Guess what? You'll probably come up with a 70% loss rate -- where'd the money go? To the bureaucrats! Free market education means that poor people might just want enough education to get their kids to a level where they can enter industry and hope to build a future for THEIR children -- they might also pick a school that sticks with the same basic education text books for a few years rather than replacing them every year with little-to-no difference.

You're losing more in your lifetime to public education (see property taxes) than you'd realize, and 70% of that money is going to bureaucrats to keep the system afloat.

Show me one truely competitive market that is bad to the poor -- I haven't found any in all my history of debating this debate.

Re:This is cronyism at its finest

[Anne Honime]

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.

You've never taught, have you ? Grading is by far the most time consuming part of the job, and the most unpleasant. It's so f*cking boring that I'd have rather filtered raw sewage by hand than do it, sometimes. Why ? Because after reading 10 times the same half-learned, half out-of-ass statements, including blatant ripoffs of the immediate neighbours, you're completely fed up, and you know you've still got 30 to go. In my branch, one essay is roughly 15 minutes worth of my time, do the maths.

Teaching is pleasant ; I'd be more than happy to have someone else grade for me. But it's so damn exhausting that it takes a teacher dedication to do it. I can't count how many times I was offered money to grade some private inter-universities competitions between students (sort of extracurricular events to know who's pissing farther) and flatly turned them down. Nobody in his right mind would grade alone, even for money.

Re:This is cronyism at its finest

[Salvance]

Have you ever done taxes for someone who makes relatively little money? I do for quite a few, every year. They pay almost nothing in taxes. A friend of mine made $32,000 in 2005 (I'm actually looking at his tax return right now). He paid $1,400 in federal taxes, $400 in state taxes, and $2,400 in FICA. At the end of the year, he received back $5,000 (due to 100% refund of fed/state + child tax credit) - or $800 more than he paid. There's no possible way that he could afford his 2 children's education if we reduced his taxes any further, since they are already nothing.

Most families with children who make under 30 or 35K per year are in the same boat. If we eliminated property tax for landlords, this would amount to approximately $50-100 per month on an apartment valued at $50K. This would not solve the problem. And if we removed employer paid FICA, this would just kill Social Security and Medicare, which is all most of our poor population has to rely on after 65.

Re:This is cronyism at its finest

[realmolo]

"If a school took advantage of the poor, another school who cares for the income would step up".

I didn't say that a privately-run school would "take advantage" of the poor. I said that they would spend as little as possible, since they would know that their customers couldn't pay very much.

Let's say you had a privately-run school in a poor area. They offer the absolute bare-minimum education, and their margins are very, very low. Eventually, they decide that they aren't making enough money, or possibly are even LOSING money, so they sell the school to a different company. What is that company going to do first? Cut costs in every way. They'd have to. Hire cheaper teachers, buy cheaper equipment, cut every corner. Eventually THAT company will probably give up.

What happens when no company wants to serve a given area with schools, because they can't really make a decent profit on it? Remember, a given corporation/investment group doesn't HAVE to start a school with their money. They can do whatever they want. Why would they invest millions into a school in a poor area if they could invest that same money in to some more profitable venture?

And you want me to show you one competitive market that is bad to the poor? You've never found any, you say? How about health insurance, or healthcare in general. There's a couple of free-markets that have screwed the poor. You really didn't think of those?

Re:This is cronyism at its finest

[Rakishi]

With independent free market grading companies, you don't have to worry about your teachers -- as long as your student is passing independent testing, you know they're doing great.

No, you'd know that they're being taught how to pass some third party standard which is probably going to make them corporate drones. The companies in turn don't give a damn since they're importing all their actual non-drone workers from asia and using visas to keep them in line.

Go to your township tomorrow, get a budget of the local education system, and divide it by teachers. Guess what? You'll probably come up with a 70% loss rate -- where'd the money go? To the bureaucrats!

Since we all know that facilities, supplies, non-teacher workers (janitors, security guards, etc.), field trips, after school programs don't cost anything.

they might also pick a school that sticks with the same basic education text books for a few years rather than replacing them every year with little-to-no difference.

Have you even GONE to a public school in the US or do you just pull all of this out of your ass? I mean, hell in my elementary school we used books from the 70s and 80s due to budget reasons, they only got new ones when the old ones became so inconsistent or plain old as to be unusable.

Re:This is cronyism at its finest

[Copid]

When the poor are so heavily taxes, the poor have fewer choices. We all could do more for ourselves if we were not taxed so heavily. Go back 30 years and the household tax rate was under 15%, and I believe under 8% a decade or two before that. Any wonder that both parents have to work today?

This is for the US? I would dearly love to see your sources on this. Mine indicate that before the 1980s, income tax rates were significantly higher at the higher ends of incomes, although I'd be interested in seeing data for the lower tax brackets. I know that the highest brackets had marginal tax rates of *well over* 50% for federal taxes alone.

Re:This is cronyism at its finest

[Hebbinator]

No way. Not even close.

Public education programs like M2M in Georgia (majority to minority) give kids from downtown atlanta a chance to get a better public education in the 'burbs on the state's dime. Many of these kids are from low income families where education is not exactly an emphasis.

A lot of these kids who I graduated with were insistant on getting formal "college prep" education, and the schools downtown focus on "job prep" degrees.. in a free market, these students would have been lost in the ghetto forever.

As for "no truely competitive markets that are bad for the poor" - the only thing more ridiculous than liberal idealism is economic idealism. There is no such thing as a "truely competitive market," and if there was, the poor would be the last ones to be able to take advantage of it. Poor people are at the disadvantage of not being able to drive around like people with cars and BP cards, so shopping around isnt exactly an option. Maybe you've heard of the "food desert" theory of urban nutrition? People without vehicles have to go where they can walk or where the bus can take them. You would leave a lot of kids out in the cold - the whole American Dream(tm) where a kid from the most humble upbringing can get an education and a good job depends heavily on standardized public education.

Now, our public school system as a whole is very corrupted, but I think that the tenure system put in place by teachers unions is the root of the problem. Young, freshly educated teachers are put in the worst possible situations and have to spend years to get anywhere in the system, while old crotchety dinosaurs climb the ranks and get the raises merely because they have been there the longest... not exactly a good formula for growth and development, eh? Also, it leads to a lot of "I put my time in, I'm getting mine" behavior - there was a scandal around here with teachers 'retiring' and getting rehired immediately so that they could be drawing pensions AND getting paid their salaries.. its stealing, plain and simple. Taking twice the paycheck for doing the same amount of work, taking money away from the education system in the process. SOMETHING needs to change, but I don't feel like a Free Market system would be the right choice.

Im all for a free-market TEACHER system with standardized testing. Maybe try and adjust it with a baseline score to reflect improvement versus just raw scores to avoid punishing educators in less educated-oriented environments.. Give raises to the teachers who TEACH. Just make sure they dont take a dive for the pre-test...

This is all a ramble- its like 3am here and i've been studying medchem all day.. take from it what you will. Remember though, its like grandaddy said:

"if there was an easy answer, no one would have to argue about it, would they?"

Re:This is cronyism at its finest

[shirai]

You've made bad assumptions in the equation.

That the "buyer" of public education is a citizen. But it doesn't have to be.

The "buyer" of public education can remain, as it is now, the government. By this criteria, the government decides how to reward schools for good performance and part of that could be rewarding for improving education in poor areas. In other words, the system breaking down under your analysis assumes that the citizens pay and rich citizens can pay more. This part of the free market system actually already exists. It's called a private school.

What the department of education is doing is creating competition within their suppliers of education (i.e. public schools).

I'd say, if you "objectively" rate education levels and reward based on objective criteria, this system has a chance of working.

Make no mistake, an algorithm for doing this requires some thought, but I think it can be done.

For example, consider this:

Schools earn x-y dollars per student where the actual value is determined by an objective performance measurement

Objective performance measurements are done nationally.

The performance measurement changes year by year based on national averages.

Of course, this does mean that areas pre-disposed to have smarter kids (e.g. rich kids who can afford better education aids, tutors, books, etc.) would tend to have better schools because it is easier to get better results but these schools would also tend to have more competition.

The free market would come up with innovative ways to tap the lower end market with new education ideas. Possibly things like more computer aided teaching so that there could be a lower teacher/student ratio without sacrificing education quality. Never underestimate the power of a free market and the desire to earn a buck.

Imagine if you were an entertainment company and you could sell software to schools that would teach kids how to read at an accelerated pace in a fun environment with less teacher involvement. Make kids want to learn. You'd have an automatic market for your product because the schools would want to buy it to increase their bottom line.

I know there are issues with this model but I also believe that a model can be designed that would ultimately be quite simple that would work and, I bet you almost any amount of money, you'd see amazingly innovative ideas that would give us better education cheaper.

Sunny

Re:This is cronyism at its finest

[bogjobber]

Show me one truely competitive market that is bad to the poor -- I haven't found any in all my history of debating this debate.

How about private police? Private firefighters? Private hospitals? Private schools? All of these were the norm before the government (mostly) took over. And guess what, poor people couldn't afford them. You are assuming that just because education would become cheaper overall that it would still be affordable for poor people. Without a government monopoly these things are extremely expensive. There's a reason why they were brought under state control in the first place. If you can't afford to feed your children, how the hell are you going to afford to educate them, even if it the cost is relatively cheaper than it is now?

The free market does not solve everything, especially for services that are absolutely vital for every person to have. Last time I checked a $20 oil change at Jiffy Lube (when the oil costs less than $5 and takes maybe 15 minutes of your time) wasn't exactly a necessity of life. That is a truly terrible analogy.

Re:This is cronyism at its finest

[caudron]

Schools earn x-y dollars per student where the actual value is determined by an objective performance measurement

Excellent. Schools that suffer the poorest performance, hence need the most help, get the least funding. Bravo. You've managed to reverse engineer the existing problem to perfection while maintaining that your new and fresh 'solution' is a bright alternative. You have a strong future in School Board politics.

Seriously, the vast vast vast majority of people who complain about and make decisions about our educational system know little to nothing about how it works under the hood. If you are serious about offering a solution, study the problem properly and in full, then come up with some ideas. Bounce those ideas off of others who've done the same. If you are not serious about offering a solution, then quit spouting off on chat boards about how 'simple' that solution assuredly is.

Society's toughest problems are not simple. They can't be solved by the average /. reader. They require serious study and research. They require hard work and years of trial and error. Also, they do not need people on the sidelines telling them how easy the problem is if on;y those doing the heavy lifting would just listen to the armchair social policy experts in the audience.

Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/

Re:This is cronyism at its finest

[Dario Molina]

You've never taught, have you ? (...) Nobody in his right mind would grade alone, even for money.

I tought for 12 years in high-school and undergraduate college courses, and fully agree with you in one thing: grading sucks!

In the other hand, in many situations I felt that grading my own students was unfair. As a teacher, you have some freedom at designing tests, or even grading the answers. There's always a gap for teachers' own personal criteria, that can be influenced by it's own performance (extremes like "after all... why should I test that hard if I didn't thought that good", or "I said that a zillion times, that mistake CAN'T be forgiven"). I think that independent graders would be a good solution. They don't need to be teachers: standard tests can be equally well designed by field experts (physicians, historians, etc.), and having no involvment with the teaching process can be designed and used in a less emotional way.

Grading isn't an unpleasant job itself. Mixing grading with teaching is.
Even more: that's an unethical mixup. In real sports, coaches don't referee.

A last think: how much our relationship toward students would improve if they stopped seen us as "graders" and just could see us as "facilitators" in aquiring knowledge. That's a job I really would like to have... don't you?

Re:This is cronyism at its finest

[SwiftOne]

Show me one truely competitive market that is bad to the poor -- I haven't found any in all my history of debating this debate.

Wrong question - Can you find poor areas that don't have Wal-Marts? While I don't know about Wal-Mart itself, I do know that a lot of businesses avoid high-crime, low-income areas, which are generally the areas that are suffering the most from the inadequacies of the current system.

Competitive markets are based on two things: profit margins, and that some companies will fail. Regularly and often. While we have failing schools today, they are still the exception. I don't want a system that presumes that school A can fail and it's OKAY. School B might come along, but the two years it can take for a new business to take over a market represents a significant chunk of the education of a child. That's half of an american high school experience, and 2/3 to 1 junior high/middle school experience. Once you fall behind, you tend to stay behind.

Competitive markets are a strong, good system. Nonetheless, there's a reason people entrust the government with certain duties rather than markets -- they tend to be duties where reliability is valued over efficiency. Not to say that the current public education system doesn't have serious issues, but scrapping the system will simply get you a new set of problems, and in this case the new system's problems are inherent to the system.

Re:This is cronyism at its finest

[tbannist]

Actually, when the private corporation gives up, a government would have to step in to take over running the school. Eventually, there'd be enough schools being run by local governments that they'd demand state and federal funding. And eventually they'd have to establish a department of education to regulate all the schools, and they'd start a program to ensure that all children have access to schooling, because an uneducated adult has very, very limited opportunities.

In other words, privatizing the education system will whiplash you right back to where you are right now within 2 generations (my predicition), and then you'd have to deal with a million extra uneducated adults who fell between the cracks of the private system. That likely means higher crimes rates, and a lower economic output for the country as a whole.

Re:This is cronyism at its finest

[planetmn]

Nothing is inherently wrong with standardized testing, but the implementation of the test matters greatly. I believe just about every state has examples of their standardized tests online, take a look at them and judge for yourself whether they actually test knowledge and understanding. For the most part, they don't. Math is a pretty easy one, addition is addition, but reading comprehension is not black and white.

The school district in my community is in a tough situation. They've been teaching elementary school science by using hands on experiments. The problem is that the test wants to make sure that students have memorized a textbook, and not understand the scientific process. I could care less if a fifth grader knows the genus of a frog or camel, I'd rather they understand how science is performed and learn to enjoy it, so that we have more scientists, not fewer (as is the current trend). So the district must now teach science out of a text book, rather than hands on.

Have you taken the SATs? How much of that was useful in college, and later in life? Virtually none of the verbal portion. Why do you think there are SAT (and other standardized test) prep courses. It's not teaching you knowledge or application, it's teaching you how to take the test.

In addition, some people just don't test well. Some people get nervous. Others succeed at tests, but fail in other areas such as writing reports or presenting materials. Standardized tests, when created properly, and when combined with others methods of verification, can be a useful tool. On their own, and poorly written, they mean next to nothing.

-dave

Re:This is cronyism at its finest

[gfxguy]

You could have the best of both worlds with vouchers. That way parents get to choose the schools, and schools become competitive for the voucher dollars. Surely there would be schools that charged more than the vouchers, but then that's why we have private schools today anyway - there will always be better schools for people with enough money to afford them.

One of the problems a lot of people seem to have is that there will be disparity between the education of the wealthy, and the education of the poor. But it doesn't matter what system you come up with, this will ALWAYS happen except in an extreme totalitarian state where private schools and home schooling are illegal.

What people are offering with the idea of private schools and vouchers and other systems are a way to improve schools almost universally across the board - but the best schools will still be the best schools, and the worst will still be the worst. People will need to simply get over that.

IMO, a step towards improving our education

[Salvance]

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.

great, my degree means even less now

[Broken scope]

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.

Why this is a corrupt and BAD ideas.

[Archeopteryx]

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.)

Re:Why this is a corrupt and BAD ideas.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I submit to you that basing his pay on the number of A's is corrupt in the extreme."

Why do you think that's what they're doing? It seems more like they're paying bonuses for something like number of students with SAT scores over 1200. I.e. an *external* test, not a test created and graded by the teacher.

The cooking the books issue is about doing things like answering questions during the test.

This reminds me...

[feepness]

...of the story where the clueless manager gave out $50 for each bug a programmer fixed.

Easier Exams On The Way

[zefram cochrane]

In theory this is a great idea, give bonuses to teachers that are doing their jobs well. However, in practice....I fear that we will only see exams getting easier and the children being taught less and less. We will see classes being taught to the children at the bottom of the bell curve rather than the middle...and instead of screwing up the gifted children's education....everyone will suffer. Isn't it bad enough that we are teaching classes to prepare the children for standardized tests, and then don't cover a lot of information that isn't on those tests just for the sake of raising test scores?

Do first things first!

[bogaboga]

Nothing will be possible without instilling discipline in American schools. One only needs to visit schools even in the 3rd world to see how much discipline there is in schools over there. No wonder the products of those schools come over here and excel, leaving American kids behind!

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.

Re:Do first things first!

[Mard]

The reason there is no discipline in American schools is because we live in a nation where even if you skip classes and cheat on the exams, you'll get a job that pays enough to live comfortably. Most countries you would likely cite for discipline have actual competitive markets if you want a job that will keep you out of relative poverty. The solution is not simple, and would likely require a reform of our nation's entire education system. One idea that comes to mind is a two-tiered high school degree. One basic high school diploma, and one advanced high school diploma which is awarded to students to excel in standard courses or does average in advanced placement courses.

I have some experience which proves that Americans can learn discipline in school: here in Niceville Florida, some high school students are allowed to attend what is called a "collegiate high school." What this means is that they are taking college level courses with other high school and college students at Okaloosa Walton College. They are given high school credit AND college credit, and after two years taking a college work load they are given a high school diploma AND a two-year AA degree, which transfers 100% to any Florida university or college. Obviously this explanation is greatly simplified, but the system works and the students are far more disciplined than those at any high school I ever attended. Note that I'm just a college student at OWC, so I don't have much info on the college high school system, but I'm sure you could find more on their website: http://www.owcollegiatehigh.org/ . I believe the system is funded by state taxes and the students pay absolutely nil, but they are dropped from the system if they do not maintain a reasonable GPA, and attendance is as strict as high school.

Re:Do first things first!

[Ibag]

I agree that fixing the discipline problem is probably the single most important thing that can be done in schools, but I don't think that it is something that can be done alone. You can't get kids to be disciplined about their work unless they either feel it is important or they feel there are consequences to doing poorly. This won't happen unless there is a dramatic shift in American culture. Parents need to be involved, teachers need to be competent, students need to stop viewing being knowledgeable as being uncool. Unfortunately, all these have to be addressed simultaneously. My guess is that it will take a decline of American hegemony followed by a surge in nationalism to get people to care about this stuff, but I hope I'm wrong.

Freakonomics

[Lars83]

The chapter in Freakonomics about cheating teachers deals with this. If you have any interest in learning about how they detect such behavior, give the book a read.

Statistics catches bad treatment of kids?

[Anthony Boyd]

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.

<sarcasm>
Yes, I'm sure their system will catch this stuff, too. How? Magic, maybe.
</sarcasm>

Re:Statistics catches bad treatment of kids?

[indraneil]

Actually I have no idea if the case that you pointed out is something that can be caught statistically (I would think not!)
However I read this interesting chapter from the book Freakonomics [PDF] where they identify the teachers who might be trying to fudge the system to make their students score better! Read the chapter called "What Do Schoolteachers and Sumo Wrestlers Have in Common?" to identify how the economist Levitt is identifying the people.
Having said that, I am not sure it helps doing this at all! Some professions like nursing and teaching are better off not being measured in terms of incentives. Some acts like blood donations are not even paid for in most countries. Incentives can only help trivialise these things. I do not mean that the people should be paid peanuts (infact they should be paid a lot more than they are paid - especially in India, where I have stayed for the most part of my life!).
However, creating a competition of who throws out patients from thier wards faster or who makes most students pass with higher grade will do serious damage to the patients and the students!
Somethings should be sacrosanct - education and human lives are two of them!

This is probably not wise.

[KKlaus]

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.

Freakonomics & CPS

[phatvw]

Levitt's Freakonomics does a nice piece on these same Chicago public schools studies. Here is a discussion of Levitt's ideas

Learn for tests, that's all you need it for.

[gunny01]

This is a really bad idea. It will only encourage teaching for the test. I think the whole school culture has to be changed. You should be teaching to learn, not for tests. You need to make school enjoyable, not a torture system where you are forced to peform or else your teacher goes hungry? This idea total ignores the fact that your whether you get an A or not in a 8th grade science test will most likely not affect the rest of your life. If teachers are putting pressure on kids to perform, it will make school less enjoyable.

Also, this whole system is flawed into thinking that every class has an equal potential for results. Sadly it isn't. The whole thing will be like a lottery, seeing which teachers get the smart kids rather than the less smart ones.

It takes more than money to fix the system.

Re:Could Be Useful

[Nexus Seven]

Actually, this is a perfectly acceptable use of an apostrophe.

There's an interesting response regarding this subject on Google Answers. You'll even find a very pertinent example:
Regina received four A's on her report card.

supply the teachers

[opencity]

In NYC the Public Schools are broken. Teachers have to buy their own supplies. Mayor Bloomberg's (like the company, not the mayor) corporate management style has resulted in elementary school students being taught nothing except taking tests. I'm a private music teacher and I try to sneak some math in, especially for the younger kids. When I ask them about what they're learning in math or science they used to discuss it with me for a while (giving us both a break from scales and theory) - for the past year they just shrug and say 'studying to take the test.' The overpaid Bloomberg cronies at the Board of Ed actually spy on the teachers to make sure they aren't deviating from the 'lesson plan'.

Between the pharmaceutical companies and the bureaucrats kids today are being used as test subjects. I'm considering home schooling.

What degree?

[Inoshiro]

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.

The Real Solution

[kisanth88]

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

Re:The Real Solution

[argStyopa]

I'd agree in principle, but with a few caveats.

1) The United States is a democratic republic. There are plenty of reasons that power needs to remain at the state levels, not least because different regions have different feelings for the value of education. Rather than universalize the funding (across the US) I'd agree that such a plan is both more palatable, and more consistent with the original vision of the US by doing it on a state-by-state basis, dividing up the 'pot' of tax money paid within a state.

2) Your idea does disregard the burden placed on certain area schools bearing the non-homogenous brunt of immigrant or 'special needs' students. I don't disagree with it, but it's an observation which must be made. Schools which are located in areas with heavy immigrant populations are going to have a higher educational burden (cost per student average) than a small rural school district. Then again that rural district is going to have higher busing costs...does it all come out equivalent? I don't know, but I doubt it.

3) I think it's no coincidence that Fredrick the Great had an extraordinarily skilled military, and was the first to implement universal public education. I'd argue that not only does it DIRECTLY affect our economic success, it also bears directly on our military strength to have a well-educated populace, especially when our military philosophy depends on small-unit initiative and decisionmaking (particularly in a country which relies on a small cadre army and callups for the bulk of military numbers). Thus I'd say that a goodly chunk of the defense budget should ALSO go toward education...however, I would also say that this means that there isn't anything wrong with the military recruiting in schools (PC anti-military types, piss off!), nor is there anything wrong with spending more time/resources on physical fitness, camping, mapreading and geography, even shooting if the kids want to - all things that are disappearing from the curriculum (for lack of funding, usually), but which can be both fun for the kids and useful later in life in a military context.

Great Idea, but with one change

[Heir Of The Mess]

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.

They're going the wrong way

[davmoo]

They've got it backwards. Instead of rewarding teachers for good grades, they should tax the parent(s) for poor grades. A teacher can only do so much, and they can't do a damned thing without the parent(s) taking an interest. Behind the majority of kids doing poorly in school is a parent that doesn't give a damn.

How about...

[David_Shultz]

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.

Re:How about...

[planetmn]

We already are paying most public school teachers $50,000 and up for 2/3 year of work.

This is a lie that keeps getting repeated as fact. My wife, who, while following my moves, has worked in three different school districts. In each one, she was required to work for 10 months out of the year (between classroom instruction and required continuing education). In addition, her average day was 10 hours long. She works more hours in an average year than the average american worker. This also doesn't count the grading that goes on in the evenings and weekends.

We already provide some of the best health benefits out there.

While teachers generally do get good benefits, that's less and less true with the budget crises that have been hitting local communities. For instance, my employers health insurance is much better than the one offered through my wife's teacher's contract.

The unions that teachers belong to do not allow merit raises

This is a problem that needs to be addressed. I like Tim Pawlenty's idea in MN to create "super teachers". Basically these are teachers who perform well in the suburbs, move to teach in the inner cities, and if they still perform well and get the students to perform, they receive high pay (upwards of $100k). But standardized tests are not the way to judge a teacher's performance.

they do not allow the school to fire poor performing teachers

This is another lie that keeps getting repeated as fact. While it is not easy to fire poor performing teachers, it's possible, and done. What the unions require is that you can show the teacher is actually performing poorly. The problem is that parent's of C children, don't like that, and want there children to get A's. It's much easier to blame the teacher and urge the school board and local politicians to fire the teacher, than it is to accept the fact that junior isn't performing very well. My concern is that if the union wasn't there to help the teacher, that teachers would have to be even more careful about the children of the rich and powerful, and that's not a good thing.

School budgets are out of control, spending is through the roof.

But this spending is going towards testing and not towards attracting and keeping good teachers, and not towards supplies for the classroom (believe me, I have a huge file of receipts for items that my wife has bought for her classroom with our money).

substantially decrease State interference into the curriculum,

Exactly, education should be a local issue. The state and federal dept's of education should make sure that success stories are available to other districts to utilize.

and get rid of all of the staff that just loves throwing around money for magic beans.

I'm not sure if I'm inferring correctly, but the spending comes from the administration and school board, not the teachers.

-dave

Re:How about...

[planetmn]

If you were to settle into one area, and your wife took one teaching job, it she would have her lesson plan stable.

Yes and no, it would be more stable, but not stable. The lesson plans need to change some every year, maybe not completely, but if you look at the new material being forced down from above (NCLB - written by a bunch of folks who don't send their kids to public school), it is not stable.

Teaching is not the only career that you are expected to work overtime without additional compensation. Take a look into research, IT, or programming, for example, and you see the same thing.

You are absolutely right, which is why this whole comment about 2/3rds of a years work is bull.

Those careers don't give you 20 holidays and two to four months off a year, either.

And neither does teaching. Most days that students have off are professional development days, which means the teachers must be at the school and must participate in what it is that the district decides to do for that day. She does not receive 20 holidays a year. In addition she receives two months off in summer (not 4, I know of no state that has four months off in the summer). Some of this time is required to take additional coursework that varies from state to state. Like I said above, if you total my wifes hours for a year, they exceed the average workers by a fair bit.

In addition, teachers are restricted as to when they can use vacation or personnal time. Union contracts require that the days before and after a break for instance, cannot be taken off. Last time I checked, most people in research, IT or programming were able to take vacation when they wanted.

You keep calling things lies.

I'm sorry, they aren't lies, they are more like great perversions of the truth that critics like to crow about because it helps their cause.

I've personally read teacher contract; I've personally watched tactics used by their unions, and personally seen the budgets involved. I know the waste the occurs, and the horrible methods that are used to prop it up.

You are right, there are bad tactics used by their unions. But guess what, those are the minority. Do you know why when a teacher's union goes on strike or has a sick-out it makes national news? It's because it's so rare. Another post somewhere in this article had the numbers, 0.09% of teachers unions strike in a year. Because one union uses tactics you don't like, doesn't mean that that is the norm. I'll give you an anecdotal example. The town I live in currently has an expired teacher's contract. The union has agreed that the teachers will continue working at the current wages and benefits until a new contract is agreed upon. At that time, the contract will become retroactive to the date of the previous contract expiration. Some tactic huh? That's downright reasonable.

Yes, there are bad teachers and there are bad unions. But they are the minority. Although I must say I am truly curious as to whether I live in the same world as a lot of people who crow in the media and here on slashdot about the declines in our public schools. Every public school I have attended and every district in which I have lived, have been highly achieving, well run schools. Yet from reading here, I must just have had more luck than anybody else.

What I was trying to say is that teachers can be paid what they deserve, but between incompetent administration, ignorant voters, and unfair union practices, it doesn't happen. More money assigned to school systems will not fix it, because the amount of money is not the problem; the allocation of that money is. I want to see teachers get paid what they deserve, too, but other things have to get fixed before "give school money so we can pay teachers more" will ever work.

I agree with you here. Though I think the problem is in the order of: ignorant voters, incompetent administration and lastly the union practices. B

Re:How about...

[sideswipe76]

I completely second this. I was a student teacher for just less than a year and I can tell you all of what Dave says it true in just my short time. I got to school at 7am and generally didn't leave until 5pm. Then I would spend half a day Saturday grading papers. And although it's not "required" it's expected that you will join all sorts of teacher/kid/parent clubs. But let's not forget that for your money you are: 1) Always in a fishbowl -- wait until you get hammered with your friends in a bar only to see the parents of some of your kids. 2) Go to the mall with your pals/gf/whoever and engage in a swear-a-thon only to get called on the carpet for it on Monday because some parent overheard you while they were out with their kids/your students. Everything you do and say is watched and listened to at every moment even when you don't 'work'. Misspell something and be ridiculed. And, my personal favorite: You get to live the childish highschool social competitions all over again -- now it's from the other side of the desk. You are caught half-way between administrators anxious to look good and parents who swear their little susie could not possibly have done XXX. On top of that, you are criminally responsible for reporting all signs of child abuse, which of course the parent will NEVER become belligerent with you when social services pays them a visit, and you have to live daily with the guilt of lettings great kids go home to shitty parents and there isn't much you can do. Teachers are given exclusive care (and responsibility) of societies most prized posession. On an immediate scale you risk jail time and lawsuits -- always a background hum -- and in the long run, your risk failing your community, country and humanity by not using everything in your power to better those kids -- despite having them for a limited time for 1 year. the future of the world rides on what we teach kids today. And if you think it's easy consider this: I got my undergrad in Elementary Education and given the above experiences (yes, they either happened to me or people I knew) I found that I was much more comfortable and capable with computers and got a MS in CS -- I make double what a comparable teacher would make. Sure, believe teachers are over paid for their work -- until you see them working some menial job in their "spare" time to make ends meet. You fuck your kids up at home with lack-of-love, drugs of all kinds (even prescription ones), and who knows what else, drop them off at school, and expect them to be the next president or Larry Ellison. More A's more Pay is some bean counter looking for ROI on teaching.

Certification vs. Education

[ookabooka]

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.
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 guess standardized testing is just the best solution at the moment.
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.

Obligatory Dilbert

[kevmo]

http://sixpop.com/images/images/83267365.gif

Free market: like in your healthcare system?

[YeeHaW_Jelte]

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.

Same basically as the American healthcare system ... 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.

I think you really need to rethink your 'let the free market sort it out' kind of philosophy.

we have this in the UK. it doesn't work.

[Fross]

in the UK, we have "league tables" of A-level and GCSE results (the exams you take before attending university, and two years previously respectively, for those not familiar with them). these are published nationally every year.

this has lead to a race of "dumbing down" of examinations. while the exams are not set by the schools, there are several examination boards for each subject, and the schools can pick and choose which ones to set. the schools want higher results, obviously, so they gravitate towards the easier curriculums and examinations. the exam boards try to create the easiest courses they can while still operating within their guidelines (i'm not sure how their regulation works), as the more popular they are, the more money they earn. it's worth noting if you get an A-level in Geography, for instance, it is just that, not an A-level in Geography from xxxx exam board.

continue this for 15 years, and you end up with vast numbers of students passing. consult http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/2193169.stm for some statistics. this only covers until 2002, it's continued to rise - 96.2% of entrants passed in 2005. the problem is in effect at the top of the scale too, somewhere around 20% of entrants achieve the top grade, an A or A*. universities are ending up being unable to discern top candidates, and complain about A-grade students lacking skills they used to arrive with in the past. they are considering bringing in their own examinations to grade students' aptitude, a move that would completely undermine A-levels.

qualifications are meant to sort the top candidates from everyone else, they are elitist by nature. they are not meant to be all-inclusive "gold star for everyone who takes part" affairs where all but the dumbest 4% are awarded a qualification. aiming for higher pass rates shifts the standard down for everybody, and, perhaps most importantly, challenges the best candidates less, leaving them behind their counterparts in other countries who get pushed harder.

Obviously

[Shivetya]

you have never even looked into the subject of school funding. Let alone looked at why some schools do better than others. I have as many others here have.

Guess what, it isn't money that makes a school better. If so you could not have systems that spend 10k doing worse than those spending 6k per student by your logic.

The only good point you had was getting the feds out of education. Everything they touch turns into a mess. You must also get the unions out of education. The various teacher unions must not have the control they do over schools. Don't think they do? Your only fooling yourself. Most changes that occur are because of the unions. The DoE in your county and state? Most likely union members or so indebted to them that their decisions are basically bought.

Oh, lets dispell one more myth. CORPORATIONS PAY NO TAXES.

Its an indirect tax on you and me. Tell me, just where does the money that GM, IBM, or Amazon, gets to pay their taxes comes from? Huh? Please? Do they have a magical machine that prints out money just for taxes? Oh, but I forget its so much easier to assign the "burden" to someone else, especially "eveel" corporations. Moron. "We the people" pay ALL the damn taxes. "We the people" are constantly shafted by politicians because of idiots like you who bought into the idea that "corporations are eveel and not paying their fair share"

Shit, don't ask for a better education system when you don't use the education you were provided.

You got part of it right

[plopez]

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.

Re:You got part of it right

[DavidShor]

I disagree. consider Lipitor is the classical example of a preventive drug, it is taken over a indefinite amount of time until the person dies, all for a tremendous amount of money.

Besides, you are confusing the pharmacutecal industry with the health service industry. they are not related, and do not work in tandem. Doctors tend to have indipendant practices, and would love to practice preventive care, as it maximises billable time. Doctors do not sell drugs, nor do they profit off selling drugs.

The problem with the "more money" solution

[Solandri]

Is that the intent of the additional money is to bring in higher value. You have a poorly performing system, let's say it's a car repair shop. You pay them $X on average for repairs. They do a poor job and your car is repeatedly breaking down. So you decide to solve the problem by throwing more money into repairs. Lets say you're now willing to pay on average $X+$Y for each repair. Do you now go back to the same repair shop and say "I will give you $Y more money, now please do a better job fixing my car"? No, you go to a different, better repair shop, one who refused to fix your car for $X but is willing to do it for $X+$Y.

Now, translate this back to the education problem. You have a bunch of teachers who are willing to work for $X. If you decide that lack of pay is part of the problem, the solution isn't to give the current batch of teachers $X+$Y in pay. The solution is to fire the current batch of teachers, and hire new ones who weren't willing to work for $X but are willing to work for $X+$Y. Unfortunately the teachers' unions want to hear nothing of the sort. In other words, it's not enough to throw more money at the system, you have to be willing to create major changes within the system with that money.

The idea of selective pay bonuses for measurable achievement is just a variation on this principle which avoids the huge negative of the "fire everyone" step. You're trying to find the teachers who are working for $X but are probably worth $X+$Y, and selectively increase their pay. So in a way, this idea is increasing the education budget.