That's true. Simple statistics says half of all teachers are below average. Value-Added Analysis doesn't change that--it only helps raise the average. And that's exactly what we need.
You also don't seem to understand that the biggest determining factor in a child's success in school is actually not the teacher. It's the parents.
That's why I explained that Value-Added Analysis corrects for such factors outside the teacher's control. Some part of a child's education depends on the quality of the teacher.
If you pay more you'll attract more teachers. Yes most of them will still just be adequate, but you might also lure more rock-star teachers into the education if they don't have to give up more than half their earning power to do it.
And what Value-Added Analysis does is help you figure out which of those teachers are the rock stars so you can find and retain them.
It would be much cheaper and more effective to find better ways of evaluating teachers, weeding out the dead wood and attracting better talent. Value-added analysis achieves this in a way that corrects for factors outside the teacher's control (broken household, poor section of town, etc.).
Consider two teachers. The first teacher's class tests at the 30th percentile at the beginning of the year and at the 40th percentile at the end of the year. The second teacher's class tests at the 70th percentile at the beginning of the year and at the 60th percentile at the end of the year. Although the second teacher's students tested better, they fell behind. Shouldn't the first teacher be commended and the second teacher be put on probation?
Your original claim was "Driving below the speed limit is perfectly safe and legal."
It's perfectly safe and legal, in the absence of lawbreakers. I guess I should have put that in my original message, but when you can't assume that other road users are obeying the law, there's really no way to guarantee your safety no matter what you do.
And you can't possibly think that one study (from almost 40 years ago - 1972!) would disprove the consistent results of "federal and state studies" anyway.
But that's the most recent federal or state study available that your source's source lists. Feel free to find a more recent study.
The 85th percentile rule is a bad way to set speed limits
You can't cherry-pick a study, use its findings to support your theories, and then claim that its conclusion was entirely bogus.
If you don't like the 1981 study I used to support my statement, you're free to use the 1986 study (at the same link), which says that "80% of participants had evaluated themselves as being above the average driver."
Those are the only two studies available at the Wikipedia link. Feel free to find a study that disproves illusory superiority of driving ability. Good luck!
Q. Isn't slower always safer?
A. No, federal and state studies have consistently shown that the drivers most likely to get into accidents in traffic are those traveling significantly below the average speed.
And we're back to "it's perfectly safe as long as circumstances outside of your control don't make it unsafe".
That applies to just about everything, doesn't it? This is why we have laws.
Forget about yourself for once. (I know it's hard.) Are other, law-abiding road users (this excludes tailgaters and speeders) more in danger from you driving below the speed limit or from you driving above the speed limit?
Abruptly stopping, yes, should be avoided. That's why there's a yellow light.
Abruptly stopping is perfectly safe, as long as the person behind you isn't tailgating.
And the yellow light doesn't prevent abrupt stops. It's as legal to stop at a yellow light as it is to go on through. Perhaps it should be illegal to stop at yellow lights?
Are you kidding me? Driving 40 in a 70 IS dangerous.
No, it's only dangerous when those around you aren't paying attention. But then, driving 70 in a 70 is also dangerous when those around you aren't paying attention.
It is by definition impossible for two vehicles to attempt to occupy the same space at the same time without there being a speed differential.
Yet it is possible for two vehicles to have a speed differential without occupying the same space at the same time.
Unless of course the rear-end collision pushes you into an intersection and you get T-boned by someone who's doing 35 MPH and thought they could safely go because their light was green.
So the solution is to avoid slowing down at red lights?
Now do you see why such collisions need to removed from the "speed versus safety" statistics?
And statistically you're less likely to avoid being in an accident if you drive significantly slower than everyone else.
Yes, but driving slowly does not cause accidents, just like driving in front of a tailgater does not cause accidents, even though an accident may be more likely to occur in each scenario.
If you are going slow and the person behind you is going too fast and he hits you, speed differential is what caused the accident.
Only when two vehicles attempt to occupy the same space at the same time does a collision occur, speed differential or not. The speed differential merely magnifies the amount of kinetic energy expended in the collision. Luckily, rear-end collisions are rarely fatal because the speed differential is small. But this is only one type of collision.
Another factor that makes speeding dangerous is the fact that it's easier to lose control of your vehicle the faster you drive.
And yet another is that if you're speeding around a blind curve, you won't have time to stop if there's a hazard in the road.
These are among the reasons why speeding is always illegal, but driving slowly usually isn't.
federal and state studies have consistently shown that the drivers most likely to get into accidents in traffic are those traveling significantly below the average speed
And it depends on the prevailing speed, not the speed limit. Speed limits are supposed to be set at the 85th percentile, i.e. a properly-set speed limit will be exceeded by 15% of the traffic.
It would be equally dangerous if they were puttering along at 40 MPH on a downhill slope where the traffic coming from behind them doing 70 MPH couldn't see them until cresting the hill, which isn't a merge at all.
In your scenario, the traffic going 70 mph despite a limited line of sight is breaking the Basic Speed Law, just as if they were driving the speed limit on a foggy or icy day.
Therefore, in the absence of lawbreakers, driving well below the speed limit is just as safe as driving the speed limit.
Apparently you've never seen a minimum speed limit sign...
If it's dangerous to drive "below the speed limit +/- 10% ish", then this minimum speed limit sign must be dangerous!
...or had traffic backed up or seen an accident that was caused because some jackass didn't use the ramp to accelerate up to the speed limit like he was supposed to and instead tried to merge into 65 MPH traffic at 40 MPH.
That's an improper merge. We aren't talking about improper merges.
People travelling above or below the speed limit +/- 10% ish are the ones who cause traffic jams and accidents.
Absolutely false! Driving below the speed limit is perfectly safe and legal. Otherwise, it would be illegal to drive farm equipment on public roads.
What isn't safe is tailgating, which is "driving on a road too close to the vehicle in front, at a distance which does not guarantee that stopping to avoid collision is possible."
That's right. It isn't the people who legally drive under the speed limit who are dangerous, but the ones who illegally tailgate and plow into them.
But now I'll have to remember if my first workday of the week is the one that's partly on Sunday but mostly on Monday, or that's partly Monday and mostly Tuesday.
Do you often have problems remembering whether to go to work on Sunday or on Monday?
What this proposal fixes is the ambiguity that occurs when someone says, "call me at 1pm". Right now, you have to guess which time zone they're talking about, and if it's theirs, you have to convert that to your local time zone. With this proposal, you don't have to guess or calculate anything.
Once again, precipitation does not remove the water vapor from the atmosphere. It only removes the suspended water and ice particles ("clouds") from the air.
Clouds are made from water vapor in the atmosphere, and then the droplets or crystals get heavy and fall to the ground and the water is removed from the atmosphere.
Precipitation removes the clouds, not the water vapor, from the atmosphere. In fact, precipitation usually increases water vapor in the atmosphere. Have you ever noticed how the humidity level rises when it rains?
The reason CO2 has such a big effect despite being less concentrated in the atmosphere than water vapor is because water vapor is a feedback, not a forcing, and the warming effect of CO2 kicks off the vicious cycle by inducing more water vapor into the air. (Remember, warm air holds more water vapor than cold air.)
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Another argument for replacing the sales tax with property taxes is that property taxes encourage cities to make land-use decisions that bolster property values...Sales tax just incentivizes you to put up big-box stores.
All else being equal, I for one prefer higher property values to big box stores.
That's true. Simple statistics says half of all teachers are below average. Value-Added Analysis doesn't change that--it only helps raise the average. And that's exactly what we need.
That's why I explained that Value-Added Analysis corrects for such factors outside the teacher's control. Some part of a child's education depends on the quality of the teacher.
And what Value-Added Analysis does is help you figure out which of those teachers are the rock stars so you can find and retain them.
It would be much cheaper and more effective to find better ways of evaluating teachers, weeding out the dead wood and attracting better talent. Value-added analysis achieves this in a way that corrects for factors outside the teacher's control (broken household, poor section of town, etc.).
Consider two teachers. The first teacher's class tests at the 30th percentile at the beginning of the year and at the 40th percentile at the end of the year. The second teacher's class tests at the 70th percentile at the beginning of the year and at the 60th percentile at the end of the year. Although the second teacher's students tested better, they fell behind. Shouldn't the first teacher be commended and the second teacher be put on probation?
One can't eat land.
We can use (limited resource) to create fuel to transport ourselves, or to produce food to feed ourselves.
Is the answer the same no matter what (limited resource) is?
It's perfectly safe and legal, in the absence of lawbreakers. I guess I should have put that in my original message, but when you can't assume that other road users are obeying the law, there's really no way to guarantee your safety no matter what you do.
But that's the most recent federal or state study available that your source's source lists. Feel free to find a more recent study.
If you don't like the 1981 study I used to support my statement, you're free to use the 1986 study (at the same link), which says that "80% of participants had evaluated themselves as being above the average driver."
Those are the only two studies available at the Wikipedia link. Feel free to find a study that disproves illusory superiority of driving ability. Good luck!
False. The involvement rate was found to be approximately the same for high and low speed deviations after deletion of accidents involving turning vehicles.
That applies to just about everything, doesn't it? This is why we have laws.
Forget about yourself for once. (I know it's hard.) Are other, law-abiding road users (this excludes tailgaters and speeders) more in danger from you driving below the speed limit or from you driving above the speed limit?
Abruptly stopping is perfectly safe, as long as the person behind you isn't tailgating.
And the yellow light doesn't prevent abrupt stops. It's as legal to stop at a yellow light as it is to go on through. Perhaps it should be illegal to stop at yellow lights?
No, it's only dangerous when those around you aren't paying attention. But then, driving 70 in a 70 is also dangerous when those around you aren't paying attention.
Yet it is possible for two vehicles to have a speed differential without occupying the same space at the same time.
So the solution is to avoid slowing down at red lights?
Now do you see why such collisions need to removed from the "speed versus safety" statistics?
Yes, but driving slowly does not cause accidents, just like driving in front of a tailgater does not cause accidents, even though an accident may be more likely to occur in each scenario.
Only when two vehicles attempt to occupy the same space at the same time does a collision occur, speed differential or not. The speed differential merely magnifies the amount of kinetic energy expended in the collision. Luckily, rear-end collisions are rarely fatal because the speed differential is small. But this is only one type of collision.
Another factor that makes speeding dangerous is the fact that it's easier to lose control of your vehicle the faster you drive.
And yet another is that if you're speeding around a blind curve, you won't have time to stop if there's a hazard in the road.
These are among the reasons why speeding is always illegal, but driving slowly usually isn't.
Correlation is not causation. For example, crashes involving turning vehicles accounted for 44 percent of all crashes observed in the study of slow moving vehicles. Does that mean slowing down to turn is dangerous? No, of course not. It only means someone behind them was driving recklessly. Similarly, the studies you cite don't prove that driving slowly and predictably is dangerous, only that tailgating and overdriving your stopping distance is dangerous.
The 85th percentile rule is a bad way to set speed limits, because 93% of Americans think they are better than average drivers. Why should we allow people with poor judgement to set speed limits?
In your scenario, the traffic going 70 mph despite a limited line of sight is breaking the Basic Speed Law, just as if they were driving the speed limit on a foggy or icy day.
Therefore, in the absence of lawbreakers, driving well below the speed limit is just as safe as driving the speed limit.
If it's dangerous to drive "below the speed limit +/- 10% ish", then this minimum speed limit sign must be dangerous!
That's an improper merge. We aren't talking about improper merges.
Absolutely false! Driving below the speed limit is perfectly safe and legal. Otherwise, it would be illegal to drive farm equipment on public roads.
What isn't safe is tailgating, which is "driving on a road too close to the vehicle in front, at a distance which does not guarantee that stopping to avoid collision is possible."
That's right. It isn't the people who legally drive under the speed limit who are dangerous, but the ones who illegally tailgate and plow into them.
You have to remember these anyway. Not everyone keeps to the same schedule.
Do you often have problems remembering whether to go to work on Sunday or on Monday?
What this proposal fixes is the ambiguity that occurs when someone says, "call me at 1pm". Right now, you have to guess which time zone they're talking about, and if it's theirs, you have to convert that to your local time zone. With this proposal, you don't have to guess or calculate anything.
When the best argument you can come up with is an insult, it's time to reconsider your position.
Why can't they continue to track time in relationship to their day as they experience it?
Why can't we continue to sleep when the sun is down?
Once again, precipitation does not remove the water vapor from the atmosphere. It only removes the suspended water and ice particles ("clouds") from the air.
Precipitation removes the clouds, not the water vapor, from the atmosphere. In fact, precipitation usually increases water vapor in the atmosphere. Have you ever noticed how the humidity level rises when it rains?
Yes, it does. Clouds aren't made of water vapor, they're made of water droplets and frozen ice crystals.
The reason CO2 has such a big effect despite being less concentrated in the atmosphere than water vapor is because water vapor is a feedback, not a forcing, and the warming effect of CO2 kicks off the vicious cycle by inducing more water vapor into the air. (Remember, warm air holds more water vapor than cold air.)