Oh and I will put up a rant I have against Obama.
Merit Pay for teachers? As long as its not based on students test scores and something else then fine. There are just too many variables outside the control of the teacher concerning student scores that our pay should not be based on them.
Teaching is one of the very few professions where the argument “there are variables outside of our control” is an accepted excuse for failure.
I’ve been through the public schools system, and I’ve seen the difference between the quality of people teaching in primary, secondary, and post-secondary levels.
The first problem is the amount of time teachers spend learning to teach. They should become experts in their fields, instead.
Of all the teachers I’ve encountered, while nearly all of them were nice and cared about the students, about 1/3 were inept, almost 2/3 were capable but not excellent, and a bare handful (two or three in K-12, total) were actually intelligent experts.
That’s sad.
The advantage of merit pay is that it attracts more people to the position, and puts the schools back in the position of power to select the best of the best.
Eliminate tenure. Punish failure (with plenty of local oversight to ensure that good teachers are not punished for things that truly are beyond their control), and reward success. True competition is the best way to make any industry better.
I like the idea of merit pay for teachers, but I agree that basing it on test scores would be a total fuck up. All that would do is compell teachers to teach exams, not material. Kind of like what happens now with all the standardized test scores.
+1
So why not tell the department of education to go pound sand?
I don’t understand how conservativism, in respect to gevernment, and liberalism, in respect to social issues don’t go hand in hand.
I don’t give a fuck how people live their lives as long as they aren’t hurting anyone else. Politics are a joke nowadays. Republicans don’t want smaller government. Smaller government would mean no big brother enforcing moral issues.
Look at Marxist communism, the state was supposed to dissolve. Now there’s a good thing. Almost conservative? And everyone worked, none of this hand out shit now. Democrats are the farthest thing from communism, and republicans are far from conservative(as far as meaning small government.) I hate republicans, and I hate democrats, they are fucking this country hard, but it really pisses me off that no one knows any history or anything about different forms of government and economy. The fact that most of them got fucked when they went from theory to actual use might provide some insight. Republican support for censorship and big business lends the title of facism. And Democrats are afraid to tell things the way they are because someone might get offended, and are afraid of letting people fail and getting back up of their own.
:tinfoilhat:
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I’m not against trying to keeps teachers accountable, but we don’t have enough control on the study habits and abilities of our students. It like basing a dentists pay on how many cavities his patients have. It not fair.
Based on what you’re saying, the students who failed are there because of choices that they made, such as not studying or doing homework. The people that lose out are doing so on their own free will. What is wrong with that?
Honestly you don’t need merit pay at all. Simple accountability can be done by administrators doing their job by regularly observing teachers, checking lesson plans and so forth.
Here are the following things that need to be considered when looking at Merit Pay based on student achievment:
Of the eight things I’v put down only one of them are in direct control of the teacher, yet under the current understanding of merit pay we would be responsible for all of them.
Thats not fair.
Because I would have my pay docked because of that student even though I may have done everything possible to help them succeed. Why should I be punished because of a lazy student?
I was referring more to the students that you were calling failed products.
But yeah, I don’t agree with incentive pay based on grades, especially when grade inflation is bad enough as it is across all levels of education.
Umm, this is the Republican rant thread.
1953-first year for Health Education and Welfare - USA ranked #1 in math and science.
55 years under their(HEW) reign - USA ranked #23 in math and science.
I see the problem. Do you?
Don’t get me wrong, we need regulation, otherwise kids in Kansas are going to be learning about Creationism in Biology class. I’m just talking about how we treat professional educators.
It’s a logical fallacy to claim that because a solution is imperfect that it should not be implemented. It would be an improvement if really good teachers got compensated for their ability and dedication, and really poor teachers were accountable up to and including termination for excessive failure.
I’m not saying that it needs to be cut-throat, or authoritarian, but we do need to make a change. The tenure system and standardized pay scales that the Unions have brought have affected teachers’ motivation.
Too short of a school year, too short of a school day, not substantive enough of a curriculum, too much teaching to the test. To start with.
Did you know Nunavut in Canada is a self-ruled providence that doesn’t contain parties?
People actually run as individuals.
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It’s a logical fallacy to claim that because a solution is imperfect that it should not be implemented.
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Actually its a logical fallacy to implement a solution that does not solve the problem for the sake of saying you’ve implemented a solution, which is what we have here. This solution will not work, it will drive good teachers away and will make remaining teachers teach to a test.
While that’s not a solution, that’s not a fallacy. Mine was. And they’re not mutually exclusive. A solution that’s imperfect, but achieves some goal, may be worth implementing. That’s precisely my point here.
It would be an improvement if really good teachers got compensated for their ability and dedication, and really poor teachers were accountable up to and including termination for excessive failure.
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The thing you don’t understand is, that there are plenty of situations where your ability and dedication still won’t make up for the obstacles that many kids, especially in the inner city face, which leads to excessive failures. Yet you would still punish teachers for what they can not control.
Having been in an education program, and participated in student teaching; having discussed this issue with teachers and giving it significant amounts of thought, I do understand. You’re putting words in my mouth, though; implementing standards and holding teachers accountable does not necessarily mean to an absolute standard, or that one cannot take reasonable steps to control for those factors that you (rightfully) indicated as outside of the influence of the teacher.
I’m not saying that it needs to be cut-throat, or authoritarian, but we do need to make a change. The tenure system and standardized pay scales that the Unions have brought have affected teachers’ motivation.
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Tenure system should be reformed but the standardized pay scales should stay, its not like new teacher make that much money anyway. With such a huge turnover in teachers finding more lucrative jobs you need to have some monetary reasons to stay.
I’m torn on new teachers having standardized pay (we should attract real experts to the field; almost everywhere else, experience and capability can get you a higher starting salary, why not here?). As you advance, though, I think that it should be merit based, not based on the negotiated rate from the union.
I understand that you want experts in the field of study but there is actually more to teaching than simply being an expert in your field. As I stated, college professors would make terrible teachers in primary and secondary education.
Don’t get me wrong, I have a BS in education and a Masters in History. I know that value of knowing more in your field but you also need to know how to teach, having all that knowledge won’t mean a damn thing if you can’t get it across to your students.
As far as merit pay vs negotiated rate. Can you please give examples of what would justify a pay increase and would that pay increase continue if you continued to repeat that practice year in and year our, or would you pay just flatline?
There’s a lot to Education education that’s not about becoming an educator. There’s a lot of coursework wasted there.
And some of the most talented teachers I’ve ever come across were in college.
I agree that perhaps Elementary Education demands more experience in teaching and less coursework mastery, but we should be striving to eliminate the need for post-secondary education in landing skilled jobs. Our economic and educational climate was once such that a High School graduate could get a good job with just the diploma. Now, a Bachelor’s degree is a rough equivalent to an old-school diploma.
We need the kind of teachers who can push students hard, and help them master material quickly and thoroughly - quite, the best teacher of a specialized subject is the one who has the greatest mastery of that subject.
I haven’t decided how I feel about evaluation for the merit based pay, but I don’t believe that bad teachers should be compensated on the same plan as good teachers.
Bad teachers should be fired. But again what do you define as a bad teacher, I know what a bad teacher looks like but how do you define it for policy?
How do you determine who is a bad teacher, what rules do you use?
And again how do you determine good teaching and base pay off it?
How do we not make this the most subjective way to get paid?
Merit Pay for teachers is nothing more than a political bumper sticker for politicians trying to say that they are going to do something for education. It sounds like its a good idea but looking at ALL of the facts it just doesn’t make sense and is not fair to people who work so hard to become a teacher only to have the career in the hands of their students.