Several weeks ago, Robin Washington, editor of the Duluth News Tribune, emailed me that he was helping on the Duluth Budgeteer and that they needed some letters. He wrote that it should be about something in the Budgeteer.
I looked at the Budgeteer again and didn't see anything that I could write about. I thanked Robin and wrote that I didn't have anything in mind. Of course, later I did. Bill Gronseth, Superintendent of the Duluth Public Schools had written a column, and I came up with the letter below.
However, somebody else did write a letter that was published. This week I emailed Robin that if my letter had not been published this weekend, I would post it here, which precludes it being published in the Budgeteer according to its rules about prior publication.
My submission was:
A Duluth school superintendent and board decide that a major investment should be made in school buildings. The decision is contentious with much opposition to its scope and funding. A private company makes a nice profit from the project.
Some of the money for the project has to come from the classroom costs.
The Minnesota Legislature decides that it can't pay all the local school aid that has been scheduled. Now there is even less money for classroom costs.
Many of those who show up to vote on a school funding referendum turn down any increase. The additional property taxes would have made up some of the costs.
Now the Duluth Public Schools have to figure out how to provide some instruction with the funds they do have for operation. To do so, they are increasing class sizes, lengthening class periods, and cutting out music and art which have a proven record in helping boosting learning skills.
The net result will be that fewer students will do as well in school.
Who's to blame? The teachers, of course!
Showing posts with label teacher performance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teacher performance. Show all posts
Sunday, May 06, 2012
Thursday, February 02, 2012
Teacher Performance, can it really be "measured"?
The Duluth News Tribune published my "Local View" with the title "Teacher Performance has always been variable". You can find it at http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/221673/
I wrote it in light of all the bashing of teachers that has been going on and of the notion that you can judge performance at the end of a school year. I really think teachers should be paid like insurance agents - instead of a cut of the ongoing premiums they get a cut of the income taxes their former students pay.
I wrote it in light of all the bashing of teachers that has been going on and of the notion that you can judge performance at the end of a school year. I really think teachers should be paid like insurance agents - instead of a cut of the ongoing premiums they get a cut of the income taxes their former students pay.
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
Let's stop letting ideologues drive the debate
Two of the great mantras of our time are the need to improve test scores and the need for performance pay to satisfy the first.
One article that seemed to make sense was "The Uncertain Impact of Merit Pay for Teachers", Edwin Glaeser, New York Times, 2010-06-08. Even though some studies were not solid on merit pay, Prof. Glaeser still supported merit pay for teachers.
In trying to retrieve this article, I stumbled on "Let's Have Merit Pay for Economists Who Muck Around in Education Issues", Jim Horn, School Matters, 2010-06-08. Horn counters with other studies that showed performance pay doesn't work, including a study presented at the conference that Glaeser wrote about.
See also Horn's "More Research on Teacher Performance Pay for Duncan to Ignore".
What all this clamor for performance pay misses is that schools aren't really about test taking and getting good scores. They are about learning to learn and learning to be creative. I read that East Asian kids may be much better at passing tests than American kids, but they don't seem to have the innovative skills that are far more abundant in the U.S.
A refreshing antidote is "History for Dollars", David Brooks, New York Times, 2010-06-07. He wrote that many students are opting for college degrees in "practical matters" like accounting and that the portion of humanities majors has dropped as much as 50 percent in a generation. He argues that humanities gives communication skills, "a wealth of analogies", and the ability to think in different ways.
Ah! Think in different ways! That certainly beats thinking in differing ways.
One article that seemed to make sense was "The Uncertain Impact of Merit Pay for Teachers", Edwin Glaeser, New York Times, 2010-06-08. Even though some studies were not solid on merit pay, Prof. Glaeser still supported merit pay for teachers.
In trying to retrieve this article, I stumbled on "Let's Have Merit Pay for Economists Who Muck Around in Education Issues", Jim Horn, School Matters, 2010-06-08. Horn counters with other studies that showed performance pay doesn't work, including a study presented at the conference that Glaeser wrote about.
See also Horn's "More Research on Teacher Performance Pay for Duncan to Ignore".
What all this clamor for performance pay misses is that schools aren't really about test taking and getting good scores. They are about learning to learn and learning to be creative. I read that East Asian kids may be much better at passing tests than American kids, but they don't seem to have the innovative skills that are far more abundant in the U.S.
A refreshing antidote is "History for Dollars", David Brooks, New York Times, 2010-06-07. He wrote that many students are opting for college degrees in "practical matters" like accounting and that the portion of humanities majors has dropped as much as 50 percent in a generation. He argues that humanities gives communication skills, "a wealth of analogies", and the ability to think in different ways.
Ah! Think in different ways! That certainly beats thinking in differing ways.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Those who can…
Most of us know the saying, "Those who can do; those who can't teach."
Given all the legislation being written to micromanage education, I would like to add to the saying, "Those who can't teach, enter politics."
Given all the legislation being written to micromanage education, I would like to add to the saying, "Those who can't teach, enter politics."
The irregularity of the Irregular Blog
Regular subscribers to the feed of my Irregular Blog and those who read it directly surely have noticed that I may write two or three entries in a day and then none for a few days. It is not because I've run out of ideas, I have a long list.
It is more because of time and/or energy, especially on weekends. When I go to our cabin, I spend a lot of time preparing firewood, clearing brush (I wonder if George W. Bush would like to help me now that he has free time), and chipping it to put on trails. If I go without my wife, I have to work three times as hard with these tasks, meal preparation, fire-building for cabin or sauna, and many other little chores.
When I come into the cabin to sit a spell, I often would rather do a Sudoku puzzle on my iPod or read a novel than do anything that even resembles work.
On top of all else, the patience-trying speed of 24Kbps internet access, makes even checking my bank balance a long chore, the same for uploading a new blog entry.
When I started the Irregular Blog, I recognized that I wouldn't have daily entries and named it accordingly. I started it partly because I had more ideas than I could put in a bi-weekly Reader Weekly column. Of course, I couldn't put what I planned for the column in the blog; that would be stealing my own thunder.
Once I stopped writing the Reader Weekly column, then I was free to write what and when I wanted to for the blog. I also was not constrained by size, I could write two words or two thousand words.
Like a regular column, a blog writer has his or her regular fans, and one writes as much for these fans as oneself. It is to these fans that I apologize for the irregularity of the Irregular Blog. Even when there are only about twenty fans of this blog instead of the probably over two hundred there were for my "Party of One" column in the Reader Weekly.
Please keep checking and let others know about this blog. I do have a long list of ideas, including about a bilingual three-year granddaughter who is proof that it is difficult to rate teachers on their performance.
It is more because of time and/or energy, especially on weekends. When I go to our cabin, I spend a lot of time preparing firewood, clearing brush (I wonder if George W. Bush would like to help me now that he has free time), and chipping it to put on trails. If I go without my wife, I have to work three times as hard with these tasks, meal preparation, fire-building for cabin or sauna, and many other little chores.
When I come into the cabin to sit a spell, I often would rather do a Sudoku puzzle on my iPod or read a novel than do anything that even resembles work.
On top of all else, the patience-trying speed of 24Kbps internet access, makes even checking my bank balance a long chore, the same for uploading a new blog entry.
When I started the Irregular Blog, I recognized that I wouldn't have daily entries and named it accordingly. I started it partly because I had more ideas than I could put in a bi-weekly Reader Weekly column. Of course, I couldn't put what I planned for the column in the blog; that would be stealing my own thunder.
Once I stopped writing the Reader Weekly column, then I was free to write what and when I wanted to for the blog. I also was not constrained by size, I could write two words or two thousand words.
Like a regular column, a blog writer has his or her regular fans, and one writes as much for these fans as oneself. It is to these fans that I apologize for the irregularity of the Irregular Blog. Even when there are only about twenty fans of this blog instead of the probably over two hundred there were for my "Party of One" column in the Reader Weekly.
Please keep checking and let others know about this blog. I do have a long list of ideas, including about a bilingual three-year granddaughter who is proof that it is difficult to rate teachers on their performance.
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
If you can read this, thank a teacher
This week is "Teacher Appreciation Week". I didn't know it until I saw the Huffington Post article "Teacher Appreciation Quotes: Famous Sayings For Teachers And About Teaching".
My favorites was
"In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day's work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years." - Jacques Barzun
If this isn't a rebuke of merit pay and the idea of easily measurable teacher performance, I don't know what is.
However, one of the commenters (LeoWong) to the article wrote that Barzun didn't write this, but about the artistic or intellectual life.
I looked and looked for a more direct attribution but could only find the same quote over and over again with no source citation other than Jacques Barzun.
So, I wrote a WikiQuote entry to ferret out some more information. We shall see what happens. [It was deleted. I won't go into the reasons here.]
My favorites was
"In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day's work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years." - Jacques Barzun
If this isn't a rebuke of merit pay and the idea of easily measurable teacher performance, I don't know what is.
However, one of the commenters (LeoWong) to the article wrote that Barzun didn't write this, but about the artistic or intellectual life.
I looked and looked for a more direct attribution but could only find the same quote over and over again with no source citation other than Jacques Barzun.
So, I wrote a WikiQuote entry to ferret out some more information. We shall see what happens. [It was deleted. I won't go into the reasons here.]
Thursday, April 29, 2010
If you think teacher's should be paid for performance…
I have a little exercise for you.
Take 30 critics of education and give them each 30 1/4-inch diameter bolts with 20 threads per inch. From a mixed assortment of 1/4-inch nuts with 20 threads per inch and 28 threads per inch, give each critic 30 randomly-drawn nuts. Give them, say, 10-minutes each to put the nuts on the bolts. They will each be paid according to the number of bolt-nut pairs they can successfully assemble.
Knowledge is not bolts and students are not nuts. In fact, we tend to treat either the students who have difficulty absorbing the knowledge or the teachers who cannot match the knowledge to the students as dolts.
On a more practical level, consider a history teacher's task and a chemistry teacher's environment. If the school requires all students to take history but only a self-selected few students are going to take chemistry, which teacher do you think is more likely to have the better performance?
Take 30 critics of education and give them each 30 1/4-inch diameter bolts with 20 threads per inch. From a mixed assortment of 1/4-inch nuts with 20 threads per inch and 28 threads per inch, give each critic 30 randomly-drawn nuts. Give them, say, 10-minutes each to put the nuts on the bolts. They will each be paid according to the number of bolt-nut pairs they can successfully assemble.
Knowledge is not bolts and students are not nuts. In fact, we tend to treat either the students who have difficulty absorbing the knowledge or the teachers who cannot match the knowledge to the students as dolts.
On a more practical level, consider a history teacher's task and a chemistry teacher's environment. If the school requires all students to take history but only a self-selected few students are going to take chemistry, which teacher do you think is more likely to have the better performance?
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
A sensible discussion about education
Bob Herbert wrote a thoughtful op-ed about Deborah Kenny who has started three charter schools in Harlem, "Where the Bar Ought to Be", New York Times, 2010-02-22. She has achieved astounding results, but even more thoughtful are the highlighted comments. They get into the nitty-gritty of trying to educate students who come from a non-supportive environment.
It was a joy to read these comments. They had none of the mudslinging that makes reading comments a chore. I think the New York Times is to be lauded for making this selection.
I wanted to say more about the comments, but the New York Times seems to be overwhelmed by readers and I can't get pages to come up. I hope you have better luck.
It was a joy to read these comments. They had none of the mudslinging that makes reading comments a chore. I think the New York Times is to be lauded for making this selection.
I wanted to say more about the comments, but the New York Times seems to be overwhelmed by readers and I can't get pages to come up. I hope you have better luck.
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