"Shark Tank" Competition Used To Select Education Tech

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"Shark Tank" Competition Used To Select Education Tech

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Thursday February 13, 2014 @05:11AM from the would-you-prefer-the-texas-school-board? dept.

theodp writes "With support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the tech billionaire-backed NewSchools Venture Fund, the Silicon Valley Education Foundation used a competition based on the reality show Shark Tank to determine which educational technology entrepreneurs would win the right to have teachers test their technology on students for the rest of the year. 'Ten companies, selected from 80 original applicants,' reports Mercury News columnist Mike Cassidy, 'had three minutes to convince a panel of educators and then a panel of business brains that their ideas would be a difference maker in middle school math classes.' The winners? Blendspace, which helps teachers create digital lessons using Web-based content; Front Row Education, which generates individual quizzes for students and tracks their progress as they work through problems; LearnBop, which offers an automated tutoring system with content written by math teachers; and Zaption, which lets teachers use existing online videos as lessons by adding quizzes, discussion sections, images and text."

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Technology and money are fine by Spy+Handler · 2014-02-13 05:22 · Score: 1, Insightful

but the simple method of firing 10% of the worst teachers and reassigning their students to the rest does more to improve schools than anything else.
Most teachers know who the worst of the worst are. Principals know.
If union rules make such an act impossible, keep these 10% worst teachers on payroll and have them sit around watching youtube, but send their students to better teachers.
1. Re:Technology and money are fine by serviscope_minor · 2014-02-13 05:28 · Score: 2
  
  but the simple method of firing 10% of the worst teachers and reassigning their students to the rest does more to improve schools than anything else.
  If such a simple method always worked then you could apply it recursively to improve results further. Clearly, many schools need more than 9 teachers therefore the reality must be more complex than you claim.
  
  --
  SJW n. One who posts facts.
2. Re:Technology and money are fine by CanHasDIY · 2014-02-13 05:44 · Score: 2
  
  If union rules...
  Ah, yes, because in a field where most of the workers are barely scraping by on $30 - 40K a year, not to mention spending a fair amount of their own money on school supplies that their employer should be buying, obviously unions are the problem.
  Dude, get real - this ain't the AFL-CIO, protecting the $75/hr rate of guys who rivet 1 body panel into a Chevy. Maybe if folks such as yourself spent more time trying to help teachers, rather than bitching about the fact that "OMG they have a union," education wouldn't be in such a piss-poor state.
  
  --
  An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
3. Re:Technology and money are fine by ranton · 2014-02-13 05:45 · Score: 1
  
  If such a simple method always worked then you could apply it recursively to improve results further.
  That is a very odd statement. If eating 10% of a box of cereal with make me full and content, doing that recursively will not improve results. It will make me stuffed and very uncomfortable.
  
  --
  -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
4. Re:Technology and money are fine by aicrules · 2014-02-13 05:52 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Hey the fact is union contracts do prevent VERY bad teachers from being fired. And the net result can be very GOOD teachers get let go instead. Just because one teacher has worked for 20 years doesn't mean they should be automatically kept instead of the 2nd year teacher. Especially if the 20 year teacher is TERRIBLE.
5. Re:Technology and money are fine by retchdog · 2014-02-13 05:59 · Score: 1
  
  That's all true, but on the other hand, Americans give a shit about cars whereas we really don't care about education. If put to direct vote, I'm fairly sure that the majority would vote to get rid of education completely and just replace it with daycare, if it would save a couple of bucks.
  
  --
  "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
6. Re:Technology and money are fine by serviscope_minor · 2014-02-13 06:05 · Score: 2
  
  If eating 10% of a box of cereal with make me full and content
  That's the thing though it won't. Not always. If you're already full, eating that won't work. If you're really hungry you'll need to repeat several times.
  That's the whole point.
  The OP claimed it was simple. It's not because blind application of the rule does not work. In your restating of the rule, you've implicitly introduced two more conditions: that you are hungry before and theat you are not after. You understand the more complex reality so deeply that you've not even realised that you've taken it into account.
  Translating what you said back would yield "if the school has 10% bad teachers, remove 10% of the worst ones".
  TL;DR reality is too complex for a simple rule as proposed by the OP.
  
  --
  SJW n. One who posts facts.
7. Re:Technology and money are fine by ranton · 2014-02-13 06:27 · Score: 1
  
  If eating 10% of a box of cereal with make me full and content
  That's the thing though it won't. Not always. If you're already full, eating that won't work. If you're really hungry you'll need to repeat several times.
  But I said that eating 10% of the box will make me full. I defined a theoretical situation where that is true. So I don't know what sense it makes to say that it wouldn't make me full.
  You defined a hypothetical situation where removing the 10% worst teachers would improve schools. You then tried to say that if this was true, removing another 10% MUST also help improve schools (implying that if this isn't true, then removing the first 10% didn't really improve schools). My hypothetical situation was used only to show that repeatedly performing an action that solves a problem does not always continue to improve the situation.
  
  --
  -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
8. Re:Technology and money are fine by ranton · 2014-02-13 06:34 · Score: 1
  
  but the simple method of firing 10% of the worst teachers and reassigning their students to the rest does more to improve schools than anything else.
  If such a simple method always worked then you could apply it recursively to improve results further. Clearly, many schools need more than 9 teachers therefore the reality must be more complex than you claim.
  Just because a problem is complex doesn't mean that you have to throw out simple solutions. Many complex problems can be helped with simple solutions. Usually not 100% fixed, but certainly improved. We can't let perfect be the enemy of good.
  
  --
  -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
9. Re:Technology and money are fine by brunes69 · 2014-02-13 06:46 · Score: 1
  
  Its not as easy to figure out who the "best teachers" are though.
  What do you base it on? Standardized testing? We all know that is garbage. Student surveys? Then the most "popular" teachers would walk and the least "popular" ones would get canned... effectiveness is not always a popularity contest.
  It is hard to define what a good teacher is other than someone who really cares about students and puts in genuine effort. You know it when you see it but coming up with a way to measure it objectively would be difficult.
  Of course, as someone who does not live in the USA I can tell you right now what your countries biggest problem in education is - teacher salaries and how you fund schools. The amount you pay your teachers in the US is shameful. No wonder you get so many bad teachers - what respectable, educated professional would want to teach and give up their whole future livelihood, it is an awful big ask to say we want the best but are unwilling to pay them for their effort.
10. Re:Technology and money are fine by alexander_686 · 2014-02-13 06:51 · Score: 1
  
  You are asking the wrong question. The question you want to ask is: For each dollar spent, what has the higher marginal effect, 1. Hiring a few high quality teachers or 2. Hiring more low quality teachers. (Or you can ask the question in reverse.).
  You want to ask the question at the margin because if you do a regressive approach either way you are going to get nonsensical results – either 1 highly qualified teacher for a entire school or a school staffed with a bunch of minimum wage teacher’s aids.
  From the studies that I have read on the US adding more teachers (i.e. reducing class size) does not have much impact – it is the quality that we should be forcing on – so I am with the OP on this.
11. Re:Technology and money are fine by Charliemopps · 2014-02-13 06:53 · Score: 1
  
  Barely scarping by? where I live that's an excellent wage, the average wage for a teacher in my state is $55k... AND they get summers off!!!
12. Re: Technology and money are fine by ranton · 2014-02-13 06:55 · Score: 1
  
  Both of your reputations are flawed.
  
  To adapt your cereal example: Say your favorite sugar cereal has 100 different types of marshmallows in it. But you don't like some of them. So you pick out the 10% that you like the least. But wait, there are still some that aren't as good as others! Okay, take out some more. And more. You can eventually proceed to the point where your cereal no longer fulfills its original purpose (there isn't enough of it to fill you).
  Yes, go ahead and adapt my example in any strange way you want and then use that strange example to somehow say that my original argument was strange. Why didn't you add some unicorns into your adaptation and then argue that unicorns aren't real so my example doesn't hold water?
  I agree that he was using a form of the slippery slope fallacy. That is exactly what I was pointing out. I figured just saying it was a slipper slope fallacy wouldn't help at all since he pretty obviously thinks that using this tactic is useful and wouldn't take it as a criticism.
  
  --
  -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
13. Re:Technology and money are fine by rdelsambuco · 2014-02-13 07:00 · Score: 1
  
  Source? If so, why not fire the bottom 10% of all occupations? What's your plan for those folks?
  
  --
  I comment occasionally so that I can mod others -1 overrated or -1 offtopic.
14. Re:Technology and money are fine by CanHasDIY · 2014-02-13 07:14 · Score: 1
  
  Hey the fact is union contracts do prevent VERY bad teachers from being fired. And the net result can be very GOOD teachers get let go instead. Just because one teacher has worked for 20 years doesn't mean they should be automatically kept instead of the 2nd year teacher. Especially if the 20 year teacher is TERRIBLE.
  Fair enough, I just get fed up with the constant union-bashing by people who have no idea what they're on about - they just heard a politician they think they agree with say "dur, unions bad" and parrot that line to the end.
  
  --
  An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
15. Re:Technology and money are fine by CanHasDIY · 2014-02-13 07:16 · Score: 1
  
  Where do you live that $30K/yr qualifies as an "excellent wage?" Because I live in one of the most wage-depressed parts of the nation, on the Ozark Plateau, and I can tell you for a fact that 30 grand ain't shit after Uncle Sam takes his cut.
  Then again, who am I to argue with the man that brought us hops?
  Sorry, but I've been wanting to use that one since I first saw your screen name.
  
  --
  An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
16. Re:Technology and money are fine by The+Cat · 2014-02-13 07:47 · Score: 1
  
  Why not send the 10% of teachers to training where they can learn to be better teachers?
17. Re:Technology and money are fine by alexander_686 · 2014-02-13 08:08 · Score: 1
  
  You don’t want to ask if the pay you are offering is sufficient for a middle class lifestyle, the question you want to ask is if the pay is drawing candidates that meet your qualifications.
  High quality teachers can often make more in the private sector. Teachers tend to be drawn from the bottom half of the college graduates. This tells me something. Also, most teaching positions offer high benefits, such as generous pensions, tenure, and salary advances, which tend to be back loaded - which tend to draw in the risk adverse.
18. Re:Technology and money are fine by CanHasDIY · 2014-02-13 08:19 · Score: 1
  
  You don’t want to ask if the pay you are offering is sufficient for a middle class lifestyle, the question you want to ask is if the pay is drawing candidates that meet your qualifications.
  High quality teachers can often make more in the private sector. Teachers tend to be drawn from the bottom half of the college graduates. This tells me something. Also, most teaching positions offer high benefits, such as generous pensions, tenure, and salary advances, which tend to be back loaded - which tend to draw in the risk adverse.
  Got any source citation for those claims, or am I supposed to take your word for it?
  My sister was a teacher, see, and although she graduated at the top of her class, she chose to take a lower paying position as a special education teacher in a public school, so my experience is probably colored a bit differently than yours.
  
  --
  An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
19. Re:Technology and money are fine by ediron2 · 2014-02-13 08:27 · Score: 1
  
  Sorry, not even that is 'fact'. It's a conservative contention that has plenty of disagreement.
  Also, I'm immediately suspicious of any round numbers, so where did this magical
  'Firing 10% helps' plan come up with that 10%? Another conservative meme: fire some people = save money, make everyone else work harder out of fear, and claim success.
  As for resenting a factory worker getting $75 an hour, I vaguely recall that being bullshit, too. Something akin to the anti-USPS accounting tricks conservatives like: the shopworker gets far less, plus overtime bonuses, decent benefits and a pension, which with some seriously questionable math tricks is ginned up to a thrice-questionable estimate.
  Last of all, if a union lead (decades experience plus management plus education, in other words) before reaganomics was getting $30 an hour, they SHOULD be getting $75, just due to the more-than-double cost of living increases over 40 years.. That people aren't ever seeing that sort of money nowadays is not his fault. Everyone else is getting screwed. Dozens of studies show wage stagnation problems.
20. Re:Technology and money are fine by alexander_686 · 2014-02-13 08:54 · Score: 1
  
  Let’s see – you sister graduated at the top of her class and was a teacher? What is she doing now? And why are extrapolating from a single data point? That could be dangerous. But since you wanted evidence.
  
  The countries where pupils do best, such as Singapore, Finland and South Korea, draw all their teachers from the top third of the academic pool. In America three-quarters of teacher-training colleges accept students who graduate in the bottom half of their class.
  
  http://www.economist.com/news/...
  By the way, I have a pretty good idea what Special Ed teachers do, and I greatly appreciate what they do, but of the 40 or so that I have meet none of them graduated from the top of their class or from top schools. That’s my antidotal evidence.
21. Re:Technology and money are fine by CanHasDIY · 2014-02-13 09:26 · Score: 1
  
  Let’s see – you sister graduated at the top of her class and was a teacher? What is she doing now? And why are extrapolating from a single data point? That could be dangerous. But since you wanted evidence.
  She's no longer on this plane of existence, but I get your point about small data sets.
  
  The countries where pupils do best, such as Singapore, Finland and South Korea, draw all their teachers from the top third of the academic pool. In America three-quarters of teacher-training colleges accept students who graduate in the bottom half of their class.
  http://www.economist.com/news/...
  By the way, I have a pretty good idea what Special Ed teachers do, and I greatly appreciate what they do, but of the 40 or so that I have meet none of them graduated from the top of their class or from top schools. That’s my antidotal evidence.
  Here's the problem: I looked up the group who did the "research" cited on that page, the National Council on Teacher Quality, and their credentials are shady at best. Some resources:
  http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind...
  http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
  An excerpt from the second link:
  
  Several months ago, U.S. News & World Report announced that it planned to rank the nation’s schools of education and that it would do so with the assistance of the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ).
  Since then, many institutions announced that they would not collaborate. Some felt that they had already been evaluated by other accrediting institutions like NCATE or TEAC; others objected to NCTQ’s methodology. As the debate rated, NCTQ told the dissenters that they would be rated whether they agreed or not, and if they didn’t cooperate, they would get a zero. The latest information that I have seen is that the ratings will appear this fall.
  Rating schools as a zero because they refused to co-operate? Way to screw up your own results, NCTQ.
  
  --
  An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
22. Re: Technology and money are fine by Ultracrepidarian · 2014-02-13 09:34 · Score: 1
  
  You're probably better off without the marshmallows anyway.
23. Re:Technology and money are fine by alexander_686 · 2014-02-13 10:29 · Score: 1
  
  My condolences on your sister. Special Ed is one of those fields where it is hard to retain high quality teachers.
  As for the NCTQ, I think you criticism are slightly off point. There are 2 separate issues here. The first is the objective fact that most teachers are drawn from the bottom half of their class. If you don’t like NCTQ I can find other sources. That is a input – not a result. Your point is that some colleges don’t want to be evaluated is a different question - and is a different bucket of data.
  While you might not find it fair to treat nonparticipating colleges with a zero, the report does break out those colleges so you can do your own analyst.
24. Re:Technology and money are fine by CanHasDIY · 2014-02-13 10:39 · Score: 1
  
  Fair enough. I guess my experiences with bad, intentionally-skewed-as-to-produce-the-desired-result "research" over the past couple decades has left me quite jaded and unable to trust any research group to not show some sort of confirmation bias.
  
  --
  An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
25. Re:Technology and money are fine by nmr_andrew · 2014-02-13 10:58 · Score: 1
  
  Hey the fact is union contracts do prevent VERY bad teachers from being fired.
  I'll ignore the issues implied by the rest of the quote which are somewhat valid, but this is flat out wrong.
  What the contracts do is make it difficult to fire bad or very bad teachers, but it 100% can be done. The trick is that administration has to actually make the effort to document the bad performance and make at least some attempt to allow that teacher to improve. But if a teacher is bad, firing them is mostly an issue of dotting the is and crossing the ts, plus being willing to stand up in the nearly inevitable hearing and provide the documented proof.
  This isn't limited to teachers either, btw. My dad used to, as one aspect of his job, have to run disciplinary hearings for civil servants that could result it suspension, loss of pay, or firing. If the supervisor recommending discipline had good records and had followed the correct procedures, there was little problem with any of this. If not, the supervisor usually got chewed out for not doing HIS job properly and wasting everyone's time.
26. Re:Technology and money are fine by alexander_686 · 2014-02-13 11:32 · Score: 1
  
  Fair enough. A intelligent man knows that ½ of what he is told is false, a wise man knows which half. I trust the Economist but I recognize that is a bias. Always good to check out the primary source data and evaluate it for yourself.
27. Re:Technology and money are fine by cbeaudry · 2014-02-13 14:02 · Score: 1
  
  dur, unions bad... from personal experience.
  Unions, had a place, and still do, but not in their current form.
  They are a plague on public finance and a plague on private productivity nationwide.
28. Re:Technology and money are fine by serviscope_minor · 2014-02-13 23:53 · Score: 1
  
  You defined a hypothetical situation where removing the 10% worst teachers would improve schools.
  No, I didn't. The OP claimed that in reality removing 10% of the worst teachers would help, unilaterally. He gave no conditions that are required for this to be successful.
  
  --
  SJW n. One who posts facts.
What a Surprise by sexconker · 2014-02-13 05:43 · Score: 2

All the winners are things that let teachers shit out more auto-generated homework, quizzes/tests, lessons, and tutoring.
Here's a solution: Hire teachers who know the subject and are willing to teach children. Pay them decently, and fire the teachers who can't teach. Tell the unions to fuck right on off.
While you're at it, fire the students who screw over other kids because they can't behave like a human being for a few hours a day. Tell their parents to fuck right on off, too. "You're child was expelled for being a fucking nuisance. Correct the behavior or have fun homeschooling the little shit yourself." And hold all the stupid kids back, too. "Your child failed to learn anything and will not advance to the next grade."
It's fucking simple and it'll fucking work, so it'll never fucking happen.
1. Re:What a Surprise by jhujoe · 2014-02-13 06:01 · Score: 1
  
  Exactly. All of this stuff just distances teachers from students even more and makes education less humane. There should be NO computers in classrooms. They are a huge distraction. If "education" is about filling up brains with facts, we don't need teachers at all. The public school system is broken. Children need role models and human teachers who look them in the eye and care about them as human beings. Public school teachers haven't done anything like this in decades. This is just the next nail in the coffin.
2. Re:What a Surprise by werdnam · 2014-02-13 06:31 · Score: 1
  
  I think you're being a bit unfair towards some of the ideas. I see a lot of potential, for example, in being able to generate randomized, individualized, instantly-graded homework sets for students. A lot of these systems are pretty "smart," and can identify a student's individual weaknesses and give them more practice where they need it. They can also let students zip past the parts they already understand and so get to harder material as appropriate. The teacher plays an important role in being able to provide assistance to the students that are stuck. With a classroom of 30 students, expecting a teacher to generate this level of individualized work for each student on their own is impractical.
3. Re:What a Surprise by jhujoe · 2014-02-13 06:41 · Score: 1
  
  I agree with your premise (that it's impossible to expect a teacher to individualize education for 30 students) but disagree with your proposed solution (technology). The real solution is the CHANGE THE SYSTEM. 30 kids to one teacher is a horrible system. 20 kids to one teacher is a very bad system. 10 kids to one teacher is BARELY workable. That's if we care about children getting a good education. Clearly, we don't.
4. Re:What a Surprise by sexconker · 2014-02-13 06:46 · Score: 1
  
  Here's a solution: Hire teachers who know the subject and are willing to teach children. Pay them decently, and fire the teachers who can't teach.
  Who's deciding who can't teach? If you do it by teacher popularity, the result will not really represent ability to teach. If you do it by grades, good luck with even worse grade inflation.
  
  While you're at it, fire the students who screw over other kids because they can't behave like a human being for a few hours a day.
  If a group of children are messing around, how do you know who is the main cause? If you fire them all, you end up with collateral damage.
  Who's deciding? How about the administrators who are already tasked with evaluating teacher performance?
  It's like you've never dealt with children. It's trivial to determine which kids are the troublemakers. You look at them. Class clowns, bullies, etc. aren't exactly subtle. It's also plainly obvious that Amanda likes Chris, but Chris likes Denise and that's why Amanda and Denise are fighting.
5. Re:What a Surprise by neo-mkrey · 2014-02-13 07:04 · Score: 1
  
  Yes! Yes! and YES!!!
6. Re:What a Surprise by ranton · 2014-02-13 07:06 · Score: 1
  
  If "education" is about filling up brains with facts, we don't need teachers at all.
  Children need role models and human teachers who look them in the eye and care about them as human beings.
  It looks like we agree on almost everything, except perhaps the solution. I agree that the filling up of brains with facts and skills does not require as much teacher interaction as it does now. I also agree that teachers should be spending more time understanding students, motivating them, guiding them, and supporting them. Instead of just lecturing facts.
  But my solution is to use more automated technology to impart facts so teachers can be freed to be more like personal coaches to the students. Why do we need 50,000 unique 5th grade math lectures on fractions each year, each taking up 50,000 man-hours per day to perform, when a few dozen lectures should handle many ranges of learning techniques and methods? I would love it if in 20 years teachers forgot that in the past teachers were actually expected to waste their time lecturing instead of having more human and personal interactions with their students.
  
  --
  -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Re:business by sexconker · 2014-02-13 05:46 · Score: 1

One does have to ask in purity of education as a discipline--why involve business? I know businesses can be a important stakeholders in education, but are we losing sight of education as a whole when we involve businesses to defining principles for educators--I mean businesses' sole purpose is financial, which isn't exactly the same purpose of education (or according to Silicon Valley... it is).
The public school system doesn't give a flying fuck about education. It cares only about enrolling a many kids as possible, making sure they attend every day, and then shitting them out the door ASAP by coaching them on the various required standardized tests. (Protip: They care about these things because they secure their funding.)
Need to drop the College for All idea and have by Joe_Dragon · 2014-02-13 06:34 · Score: 1

More trades / tech schools
Or even a bigger push to go to Community College
Re:Stack Ranking by ranton · 2014-02-13 06:36 · Score: 1

A one time firing of the worst teachers in a school is not stack ranking. It is acknowledgement of past failures in hiring and incentive policies and an attempt to solve that problem.

--
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Re:salary by quetwo · 2014-02-13 06:54 · Score: 1

$36k is pretty measly for what they have to do. When I was teaching, I ended up having to buy about $1,200 to $1,500 in materials and stuff for the kids in my class each year. About $200 of that is tax deductible. Turns out, not many kids are fed when they show up to school. And their parents would rather go gamble than buy them the required things -- like pens, paper, folders, etc. Each one of my class periods had at least three or four kids that didn't have the basics -- yet I'm still responsible for them to pass. The school didn't provide any of this. Hell, at the end of the term I was forced to buy copy paper to print quizzes on because I ran out of my allotment of 500 sheets of paper per month. For 160 students.
I also had to pay into health insurance, and I missed the pension system by a few years (they offer a 403(b), but no matching for the first 10 years).
And sure, they work "10.5 months", but they also put in well more than 12 hours per day, plus weekends. It averages out to 12 months of work of 8-5 crammed into fewer months. I was usually in by 7am and left no earlier than 6. Then I still had to correct papers, do my lesson plan, speak with parents, etc.
And you are lucky if you get a 1% raise. Scratch that, you are lucky if you kept the same salary as you had the year before.
Did someone say... by carrier+lost · 2014-02-13 07:23 · Score: 1

...Shark Tank?

--
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
Much better than the original idea... by turrican · 2014-02-13 14:30 · Score: 1

...being "Shart Tank".