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There may be some truth to this, but you never hear a politician calling for specified evaluations of police, firefighters, or the guy who cleans the street. However, maybe locking individuals of rules and guidelines will benefit education?
Teaching & the other occupations you mentioned are apples to oranges. Rescuing a dumb kid from a burning building involves the same training and procedure as rescuing a smart one does.
Scroll down to the chart at the URL below to see how poverty affects the NAEP scores
About poverty --- why do the teacher's unions support politicians who keep people poor so the politicians can assure dependency on them (instead of self-reliance) and thus keep the politicians in office? We know that the US is no longer competitive on the international education front. How has that War on Poverty been working out?
Is there no poverty in Poland (14)? Ireland (11)? UK (6)? Singapore (5)? Hong Kong (3)? The number following each country is their rank in the developed world for education.
"The United States places 17th in the developed world for education, according to a global report by education firm Pearson...The study's findings echo years of rankings that show foreign students outpacing their American peers academically. Students in Shanghai who recently took international exams for the first time outscored every other school system in the world. In the same test, American students ranked 25th in math, 17th in science and 14th in reading...A 2009 study found that U.S. students ranked 25th among 34 countries in math and science, behind nations like China, Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong and Finland."
There may be some truth to this, but you never hear a politician calling for specified evaluations of police, firefighters, or the guy who cleans the street. However, maybe locking individuals of rules and guidelines will benefit education?
I think this is a very broad statement. How can you say that "you never hear a politician calling for specified evaluations of police, firefighters, or the guy who cleans the street." This is something that would be a local issue and yes, there are certainly evaluations of all those jobs. Every job has an evaluation at some level. Teachers, secretaries, Doctors, bank clerks, Engineers, etc. Of course they are evaluated.
Evaluations, are meant not to just uncover the dirt, but to find ways to improve the person's work, make them more productive and set goals for the future. It seems invasive to teachers because they are talked about more publicly and they directly work with our most vulnerable citizens. However, whenever a child slips through the cracks of the social services system and is harmed, there is just as much a hullabaloo and talk of evaluations.
I think this is a very broad statement. How can you say that "you never hear a politician calling for specified evaluations of police, firefighters, or the guy who cleans the street." This is something that would be a local issue and yes, there are certainly evaluations of all those jobs. Every job has an evaluation at some level. Teachers, secretaries, Doctors, bank clerks, Engineers, etc. Of course they are evaluated.
Evaluations, are meant not to just uncover the dirt, but to find ways to improve the person's work, make them more productive and set goals for the future. It seems invasive to teachers because they are talked about more publicly and they directly work with our most vulnerable citizens. However, whenever a child slips through the cracks of the social services system and is harmed, there is just as much a hullabaloo and talk of evaluations.
If you continue to cherry pick individual comments that take my real train of thought out of context what have you done that is positive? This was in response to this:
Actually, I did read it, and think it is a fine example of what happens when politicians meddle in something they don't completely understand. I'm sure some educators were involved, but how many had actual classroom experience. When you consider the Secretary of Education of our country pushing for said evaluations has never taught in a classroom, and too me is an over educated idiot.
Have you wondered why we have such a big push to evaluate our educators? Can you be honest with yourself, and admit that greatest fault within the system is the decay of our societies moral fabric? Too even think about assigning blame for a teachers lack of ability too instill knowledge in ever child that may only be in their classroom for 1 hour a day is insane. The real and true problem exists well outside our schools, but will never be addressed, because you have a right too be as stupid as you want to be in America. Therefore, it is of my opinion that we not micro manage educators, so the good ones are not stifled from ideals outside a politically mandated set of rules.
Example: Where I taught for the Carpenters union we were overseen by a LEA (local education agency), and were a state accredited program. They recently initiated a 9 week non-paid pre apprenticeship that is mandatory to be completed prior to admission to apprenticeship. They get taught some skill building in these classes, but the real focus is life skills for inner city kids. They get drug tested, and taught that their underwear belong cover up by their pants. Yes sir, and no sir like boot camp is required. IMHO, the union has no business using members dues money to teach students that are not members, and may, or may not ever become one. The union is not in the business of teaching life skills that should be instilled through proper parental up bringing. However, now the political figures within the union can brag about what they've done to help our children.
The down side: My experience was that a majority of these inner city kids washed out, and the few that did graduate were those with strong values instilled by numerous different methods, but mainly parental. For some it was a jail term, and I had a cop that didn't want to see that side of life any longer. Point: How many of these people really want to attend a 9 week class in order to qualify for an apprenticeship. Working along side people who are there to continue collecting welfare, court ordered, and or unemployment. Will these people succeed and be a positive, and productive role that benefits all members of society? Personally, I think it is a disservice to those who already have proper morals, and the members paying for education that may never benefit the whole.
Okay, why bring post secondary education into a K - 12 discussion? Because, it is the same type of lack of life skills that public educators are being held accountable for. So, as I've said previously in this thread. A poor teacher in a good school will be rewarded, and a good teacher in a bad school will be remanded for their gallant efforts. It will also make good honorable teachers flock to good districts, and bad ones to stay where the good ones are needed. Sorry, but education is not a political football.
Please feel free to comment on the real point I was trying to make?
I think this is a very broad statement. How can you say that "you never hear a politician calling for specified evaluations of police, firefighters, or the guy who cleans the street." This is something that would be a local issue and yes, there are certainly evaluations of all those jobs. Every job has an evaluation at some level. Teachers, secretaries, Doctors, bank clerks, Engineers, etc. Of course they are evaluated.
Evaluations, are meant not to just uncover the dirt, but to find ways to improve the person's work, make them more productive and set goals for the future. It seems invasive to teachers because they are talked about more publicly and they directly work with our most vulnerable citizens. However, whenever a child slips through the cracks of the social services system and is harmed, there is just as much a hullabaloo and talk of evaluations.
Let me try and spell this out for your comprehension:
Politicians are constantly calling for teachers to be evaluated by students results. Why do they not call for police to be evaluated based on crime rates? Why not evaluate firefighters at a $ value amount per capita of damages? Why not evaluate the street cleaner based on the amount of trash. IMO, because they have no control over what people do, and nor do teachers. You can judge a teacher by methods used, but measuring results by student test scores is wrong.
If you read the post above I re-created for you it is my belief that teachers are a political football, because they gain support, because it's for the children. They don't care about the children, but rather a tool to gain support for their actions.
About poverty --- why do the teacher's unions support politicians who keep people poor so the politicians can assure dependency on them (instead of self-reliance) and thus keep the politicians in office? We know that the US is no longer competitive on the international education front. How has that War on Poverty been working out?
Is there no poverty in Poland (14)? Ireland (11)? UK (6)? Singapore (5)? Hong Kong (3)? The number following each country is their rank in the developed world for education.
"The United States places 17th in the developed world for education, according to a global report by education firm Pearson...The study's findings echo years of rankings that show foreign students outpacing their American peers academically. Students in Shanghai who recently took international exams for the first time outscored every other school system in the world. In the same test, American students ranked 25th in math, 17th in science and 14th in reading...A 2009 study found that U.S. students ranked 25th among 34 countries in math and science, behind nations like China, Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong and Finland."
The article does not mention poverty as a factor in ranking number probably because just by looking at the rankings that would be incredulous.
I'm not going to touch on your initial rant because although what you're claiming is very debatable, it has nothing to do with this thread.
However, no one is making the point that those other countries don't have poverty; What we're saying is the U.S. has greater concentrations of poverty, and since this is not adjusted for, it skews our test scores as a country. For example, if first world Country X has 4.6% poverty rate and we look at a cross-section of U.S. schools with roughly a 5% poverty rate, the odds are very good that those U.S. schools will outscore Country X. You can do this with just about any randomly selected poverty rate and U.S. schools will almost always have higher test scores than countries with similar poverty rates.
The bottom line is that there is no educational crisis in the United States. There may be other crises (cultural, poverty) that affect educational outcomes, but the system here is not broken, and in fact we've been moving up the ladder since international testing began.
If you continue to cherry pick individual comments that take my real train of thought out of context what have you done that is positive? This was in response to this:
Actually, I did read it, and think it is a fine example of what happens when politicians meddle in something they don't completely understand. I'm sure some educators were involved, but how many had actual classroom experience. When you consider the Secretary of Education of our country pushing for said evaluations has never taught in a classroom, and too me is an over educated idiot.
Have you wondered why we have such a big push to evaluate our educators? Can you be honest with yourself, and admit that greatest fault within the system is the decay of our societies moral fabric? Too even think about assigning blame for a teachers lack of ability too instill knowledge in ever child that may only be in their classroom for 1 hour a day is insane. The real and true problem exists well outside our schools, but will never be addressed, because you have a right too be as stupid as you want to be in America. Therefore, it is of my opinion that we not micro manage educators, so the good ones are not stifled from ideals outside a politically mandated set of rules.
Example: Where I taught for the Carpenters union we were overseen by a LEA (local education agency), and were a state accredited program. They recently initiated a 9 week non-paid pre apprenticeship that is mandatory to be completed prior to admission to apprenticeship. They get taught some skill building in these classes, but the real focus is life skills for inner city kids. They get drug tested, and taught that their underwear belong cover up by their pants. Yes sir, and no sir like boot camp is required. IMHO, the union has no business using members dues money to teach students that are not members, and may, or may not ever become one. The union is not in the business of teaching life skills that should be instilled through proper parental up bringing. However, now the political figures within the union can brag about what they've done to help our children.
The down side: My experience was that a majority of these inner city kids washed out, and the few that did graduate were those with strong values instilled by numerous different methods, but mainly parental. For some it was a jail term, and I had a cop that didn't want to see that side of life any longer. Point: How many of these people really want to attend a 9 week class in order to qualify for an apprenticeship. Working along side people who are there to continue collecting welfare, court ordered, and or unemployment. Will these people succeed and be a positive, and productive role that benefits all members of society? Personally, I think it is a disservice to those who already have proper morals, and the members paying for education that may never benefit the whole.
Okay, why bring post secondary education into a K - 12 discussion? Because, it is the same type of lack of life skills that public educators are being held accountable for. So, as I've said previously in this thread. A poor teacher in a good school will be rewarded, and a good teacher in a bad school will be remanded for their gallant efforts. It will also make good honorable teachers flock to good districts, and bad ones to stay where the good ones are needed. Sorry, but education is not a political football.
Please feel free to comment on the real point I was trying to make?
Do you think I'm a teacher basher or anti union?? I brought up the new PA evaluation system just because it's a bit more balanced. I didn't "cherry pick" your comment. That was the only sentence in that post. Cherry picking means you pull out one statement from a slew of others.
I am not a fan of standardized tests to evaluate students OR teachers. However, it's unrealistic to think that teachers are not going to be evaluated, it's just a matter of trying to do it the fairest way possible. I too doubted that this evaluation had a lot of actual teacher input, but that's what this says: http://teampa.com/2012/07/new-teache...efit-students/
Quote:
Team PA coordinated this teacher evaluation committee whose diverse representation included teachers and administrators as well as union and PDE representatives. The group developed a set of principles showing that there is strong agreement on the direction that Pennsylvania should move in evaluating its teachers.
One key area that the group emphasized is that relying solely on test scores is not an effective measure of quality teaching.
OF COURSE parents and family life are the main influence of children.
Do you think I'm a teacher basher or anti union?? I brought up the new PA evaluation system just because it's a bit more balanced. I didn't "cherry pick" your comment. That was the only sentence in that post. Cherry picking means you pull out one statement from a slew of others.
I am not a fan of standardized tests to evaluate students OR teachers. However, it's unrealistic to think that teachers are not going to be evaluated, it's just a matter of trying to do it the fairest way possible. I too doubted that this evaluation had a lot of actual teacher input, but that's what this says: http://teampa.com/2012/07/new-teache...efit-students/
OF COURSE parents and family life are the main influence of children.
I do not think you are a teacher basher, or anti union. I do think you have succumb to an evaluation standard that is lacking proper structure. Funny, the article that talks about this evaluation reform is written by a board member, and NOT an educator. The problem with evaluation by results is it forces (whether directly, or indirectly) the teach to the test method, rather than a for the real benefit of the student and what that can gain and use in the real world. As teachers, we are all different, and will leave a different imprint on our students, and teaching to the test minimizes this.
I was very successful in presenting information to the 3 main types of learners. I, and or we could read and discuss what we'd be doing. Then I could show a video presentation, so they see what we'd be doing, or simply demonstrate it in front of them. Then we could go in to a shop and allow them to hands on perform it themselves. The whole time promoting peer to peer interaction, and how they will benefit from this lesson in the real world. Keeping the students engaged is the single biggest challenge. If they're engaged they are learning, and most will retain the information being presented.
Teaching to the test may gain the in the teacher evaluation, and give the student a temporary sense of satisfaction, but in the long run is a disservice to the student. If I as a simple carpenter who took basic vocational courses at San Jose State can see this why can't trained educators?
Ahh, but they do! In this thread people have said unions do not like merit pay. Merit pay is just like evaluations based on student testing, because it is subject to a possible method of biased measurement. Teachers should be evaluated by several people that each measure different aspects of the craft. It should (for the most part) always be kept in a positive way for support of the betterment of teachers, so that the students receive the benefit. Also, while outside input may be considered, education should be left to educators.
I will always be opposed to test based evaluations, and or merit pay systems where someones relative turns out to be the best teacher. It is my belief that all teachers are different, but if supported properly can be the teacher a student remembers for a lifetime. Unions will always be required as long as their support benefits the common good of the membership. I just wish I could have had an English teacher that could have related why later in life I needed to understand it.
Last edited by HansProof; 02-18-2013 at 08:37 AM..
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I brought up the new PA evaluation system just because it's a bit more balanced. I didn't "cherry pick" your comment. That was the only sentence in that post. Cherry picking means you pull out one statement from a slew of others. 
