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I didn't say or even imply that 99% of teachers are predators or criminals. Because I point out that there outrageous incidents occurring within APS does not mean that I am required to applaud those who do their job well. Drawing attention to a negative aspect of an organization is not a disservice to positive aspects of the same organization.
First off I want to thank you for a well-thought-out response; seems like so many people nowadays are too thin-skinned to have a discussion where everybody learns something.
While there was no explicit indictment against that 99% in your post, I thought it was implied pretty heavily; I don't have too big a track record of seeing things that aren't there.
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It is reasonable to expect that when a teacher is leading a lesson / project on a given topic, that they will know the basics of the topic.
I agree; the question is how egregious it is and what must be done when that doesn't happen. I could teach a French class out of a book even though I don't speak French. Hopefully you informed the teacher how many legs an octopus has and they'll remember that for future reference if it comes up.
(BTW, if your oldest is in preschool, why were you talking to a teacher about an octopus?)
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You might have a valid point here. The reason I would like to see APS split is so that parents in Albuquerque have more than one option for public education. If one of the districts excelled, parents could move into that district rather than having to leave the city altogether to find better public education.
Albuquerque parents already have a huge slate of options for education. Aside from private and parochial schools, and charter schools, parents can usually send their kids out-of-district (other schools) or out-of-system, or home school, or move them to other teachers within the same grade/subject. When your kid is not getting a good educational experience, you don't need a eighth option before the other seven are considered, particularly when the option proposed is so expensive and one-size-fits-all. Lower-performing clusters like West Mesa and Atrisco Heritage would not become top-tier in their own district.
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I was referring to holding teachers accountable for outcomes with students. If a teacher is ineffective, there needs to be an easier way of replacing them with someone who is effective.
As I understand the current system, union rules make it prohibitively difficult to fire someone simply for being a crappy teacher.
Fire, perhaps, but the worst of the worst are pretty reliably taken out of the classroom setting. I'd rather pay to have the bottom 1% of the barrel housed in rubber rooms than a larger sum on better-paid redundant administrators (or worse yet legal settlements and fees in cases brought by terminated teachers claiming wrongful termination). It's a game every public school system has to play, and nothing new to Albuquerque.
It's not right that teachers unions defend bad teachers, but sometimes schools try to let teachers go because their principal thinks their good performance makes the rest of the school look bad, thinks they don't schmooze enough, or just plain doesn't like their face. The unions do have a role to play even if they don't play it perfectly (and how is a union to determine if a teacher is bad vs. just unlucky?).
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The fact that teachers do far better today than 30 years ago does not mean that they are adequately compensated. There should be an opportunity for teachers to increase their pay based on merit rather than the current system where longevity = pay raise.
I'll repeat the question since you must have missed it- how much is enough?
And again, there is no better way to measure merit other than education and experience; if there was, they'd (maybe not APS but someone would) be using it.
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It's true that it would be difficult or impossible to predict who will be a bad teacher. However if teachers could be fired for being bad teachers, that would help the situation immensely.
How would it help if you could pull the trigger but not know what you're supposed to be shooting at?
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My oldest child is in preschool, and I do shower her teacher with recognition and gifts (can you really put a dollar amount on warm, fresh, made from scratch blueberry streusel muffins?).
I can't put a dollar amount on them, and unfortunately, neither can the teacher's landlord or mortgage holder. While it's generous to offer the teacher anything, I don't think you had fresh muffins in mind as additional incentives for well-performing teachers. If I was a teacher and I got a dozen muffins from the district instead of a $2k bonus for a banner year, well, let's just say I might use those muffins in a manner other than intended, no matter how exquisite they were.
While there was no explicit indictment against that 99% in your post, I thought it was implied pretty heavily;
I can see how it may have come across that way.
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Originally Posted by Zoidberg
I agree; the question is how egregious it is and what must be done when that doesn't happen. I could teach a French class out of a book even though I don't speak French. Hopefully you informed the teacher how many legs an octopus has and they'll remember that for future reference if it comes up.
It's true that octopus facts are trivial, and therefore this incident did not qualify as particularly egregious. Although trivial, it was representative of laziness and an attitude of not caring about her job or the students she was teaching. I did inform the teacher that an octopus has 8 arms, to which she replied "Well I have no idea." At that point I gave up and focused on the students.
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Originally Posted by Zoidberg
(BTW, if your oldest is in preschool, why were you talking to a teacher about an octopus?)
Part of my professional training involved spending many hours observing children in various settings.
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Originally Posted by Zoidberg
Albuquerque parents already have a huge slate of options for education. Aside from private and parochial schools, and charter schools, parents can usually send their kids out-of-district (other schools) or out-of-system, or home school, or move them to other teachers within the same grade/subject. When your kid is not getting a good educational experience, you don't need a eighth option before the other seven are considered, particularly when the option proposed is so expensive and one-size-fits-all. Lower-performing clusters like West Mesa and Atrisco Heritage would not become top-tier in their own district.
I am glad you wrote this, as it offered a valuable perspective and may change my opinion. Do you happen to know how difficult / realistic it is to transfer schools or to move a child to a different teacher within a school? It would be comforting to know that these are viable options if needed down the road.
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Originally Posted by Zoidberg
Fire, perhaps, but the worst of the worst are pretty reliably taken out of the classroom setting. I'd rather pay to have the bottom 1% of the barrel housed in rubber rooms than a larger sum on better-paid redundant administrators (or worse yet legal settlements and fees in cases brought by terminated teachers claiming wrongful termination). It's a game every public school system has to play, and nothing new to Albuquerque.
It's not right that teachers unions defend bad teachers, but sometimes schools try to let teachers go because their principal thinks their good performance makes the rest of the school look bad, thinks they don't schmooze enough, or just plain doesn't like their face. The unions do have a role to play even if they don't play it perfectly (and how is a union to determine if a teacher is bad vs. just unlucky?).
How much do schools pay toward union negotiations and other union issues? I was not able to find a dollar amount. It would be helpful to calculate the cost of paying teachers who are too inept to do their job, as well as how much money is poured into union related issues (how many administrators and administrative workers are needed to handle union issues?). I am not convinced that the cost of legal settlements and fees in wrongful termination cases would exceed what unions cost school districts.
Unions have too much potential to grow into bloated, corrupt, self-serving monstrosities. Teachers' unions are indeed helpful for teachers, but not necessarily for students or the educational process. Some argue that unions actually impede progress in schools.
There should be policies in place to stave off political / personal issues that you described with principals going after teachers for inappropriate reasons. The same kind of scenarios arise in organizations without union involvement. This is where documentation, mediation, etc come into play.
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Originally Posted by Zoidberg
I'll repeat the question since you must have missed it- how much is enough?
I did not miss the question in your first post, but chose not to answer it because I wanted to think about it more. Teachers provide an essential service, comparable in importance to the service law enforcement provides. It's fair to say that in Albuquerque, APS teachers should earn a salary equivalent APD officers. This is based on the importance of the service to the public, as well as the level of training and education. An APS officer needs 60 college credits (no degree), and will earn $52,000 one year after graduating from the academy ($40,000 for the first year). APS teachers with a bachelors degree start at $30,000, and go up to $30,001 after one year of service.
There is the argument that teachers do not work as many hours as someone who works 40 hours / week year round. However teachers do (or should) put in enough hours in preparation, grading, meeting with parents and colleagues, etc to justify the pay.
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Originally Posted by Zoidberg
And again, there is no better way to measure merit other than education and experience; if there was, they'd (maybe not APS but someone would) be using it.
When a teacher consistently produces excellent outcomes, there should be a system in place for them to be compensated or rewarded in some way. Performance should be considered in addition to education and experience. On that note, APS starting pay for a teacher with a bachelors degree is $30,000. Teachers with a masters degree start at $30,002, and a PhD will earn $30,006 during the first year with APS. The gap does increase marginally with years of service, but it is not very inspiring for educators who may want to earn an advanced degree.
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Originally Posted by Zoidberg
How would it help if you could pull the trigger but not know what you're supposed to be shooting at?
The focus would be on outcomes. You look at the outcomes of each teacher. If there is a pattern of students finishing a grade without certain knowledge and skills, something needs to change. Either the teacher needs more training, or they eventually need to be fired if the outcomes continue to be poor. People (in particular teachers) often blame parents, and it's true that parents need to be involved, but there are educational models that work even without parental involvement. This is seen in some of the most successful schools around the country, including private, charter, and public. Schools / districts that need improvement should be examining schools / districts around the country and world that are successful, and replicating what makes them successful.
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Originally Posted by Zoidberg
I can't put a dollar amount on them, and unfortunately, neither can the teacher's landlord or mortgage holder. While it's generous to offer the teacher anything, I don't think you had fresh muffins in mind as additional incentives for well-performing teachers. If I was a teacher and I got a dozen muffins from the district instead of a $2k bonus for a banner year, well, let's just say I might use those muffins in a manner other than intended, no matter how exquisite they were.
It's true that I did not have muffins in mind as a form of compensation for teachers, but I also did not have in mind parents directly paying bonuses to each educator who serves their child(ren). It is possible to pay teachers higher salaries, and to offer bonuses or higher pay to teachers who outperform their peers. The money within the district needs to be better managed. Over the decades I have known many APS employees and I would say about 50% were slackers (none of the slackers were teachers btw). One IT person I know spends a significant amount of his time at APS working on side jobs for private pay. There could also likely be cuts at the top. How many administrators, spokespeople, etc does APS need?
My top wish would be for polluters like KAFB, Sandia Labs, and others to clean up their fuel spills and toxic dumps in and around the city.
My next wish would be for motorists to refrain from intimidating and running over bicyclists. Someone in a U-Haul blew through a stop sign and almost ran me over last week. If everyone who could ride a bike got their butts out of their cars and started riding places there'd be more bicycle awareness, less obesity, and better butts to look at.
And I can see how you didn't perhaps mean it that way. Good discussion.
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I am glad you wrote this, as it offered a valuable perspective and may change my opinion. Do you happen to know how difficult / realistic it is to transfer schools or to move a child to a different teacher within a school? It would be comforting to know that these are viable options if needed down the road.
No recent firsthand experience, though I know it happens frequently; usually it tends to be school-to-school changes. Enrolling your middling-APS-school kid into a top-tier-APS school may not be a sure thing if the target school is already overloaded, particularly with out-of-precinct students.
Some school systems (particularly small systems in large metropolises) will pay people to patrol the supposed home addresses of the enrollees and kick them out if they aren't residing in them. Albuquerque is unusually lax in that regard.
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How much do schools pay toward union negotiations and other union issues? I was not able to find a dollar amount. It would be helpful to calculate the cost of paying teachers who are too inept to do their job, as well as how much money is poured into union related issues (how many administrators and administrative workers are needed to handle union issues?). I am not convinced that the cost of legal settlements and fees in wrongful termination cases would exceed what unions cost school districts.
There are people who devote their careers toward solving and keeping up with this set of issues. For me as with many people, when you don't have the depth of experience in a given subject, and don't care to take the time to become an expert, you defer to the consensus in the group of experts. Since you sound interested in the subject, perhaps as you become more learned, you will either change positions or be in a position to shake things up for the better.
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Unions have too much potential to grow into bloated, corrupt, self-serving monstrosities. Teachers' unions are indeed helpful for teachers, but not necessarily for students or the educational process.
True, but no more than school systems. Parents' organizations, taxpayer groups, state and federal agencies, self-interested school board members, and for-profit educational companies can each similarly negatively impact the educational process. It's rather remarkable that things work as well as they do with so many competing interests. The main takeaway is that teachers' unions are not the only dragon in the cave and probably don't deserve 100% of the scrutiny.
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There should be policies in place to stave off political / personal issues that you described with principals going after teachers for inappropriate reasons.
I have no doubt there are. But who enforces them, and who keeps the enforcers honest and even-handed if there is no one to support the teachers?
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The same kind of scenarios arise in organizations without union involvement. This is where documentation, mediation, etc come into play.
Since there isn't much legal precedent for firing or fining elected officials the way there is for private companies, unions arguably have a bigger role to play. Documentation is only as useful as the person deciding the case's willingness to consider it, and mediation only as useful as the parties' desire and ability to make it work.
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An APS officer needs 60 college credits (no degree), and will earn $52,000 one year after graduating from the academy ($40,000 for the first year). APS teachers with a bachelors degree start at $30,000, and go up to $30,001 after one year of service.
Thanks for coming up with some numbers, though it bears mention that teachers can be AT1, AT2, or AT3 schedules, earning up to $50k their first year. Which one they fall on I believe has to do with their licensure.
Police officers also have physical standards they have to meet and maintain, which reduces their possible applicant pool.
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When a teacher consistently produces excellent outcomes, there should be a system in place for them to be compensated or rewarded in some way.
The focus would be on outcomes. You look at the outcomes of each teacher. If there is a pattern of students finishing a grade without certain knowledge and skills, something needs to change. Either the teacher needs more training, or they eventually need to be fired if the outcomes continue to be poor.
I gather you measure the knowledge and skills by some manner of standardized testing?
If children were factory-made widgets, and they all looked like the same bar of steel when they went into the school system, this would make sense. The problem involves the different innate abilities and home situations of different children. The world's best teacher would underperform an average teacher if the best teacher was teaching ESL special ed at a failing school and the average teacher was teaching a gifted class at a top-tier school.
If you could control for the baseline (similar groups of students), you may could adjust for this, but I don't think any statistician would have any confidence in numbers on that basis (how do you determine what's similar?). So I think that approach wouldn't improve the system and would probably make it worse (rewarding teachers who land plum teaching jobs).
Colleges frequently run end-of-term "teacher evaluation" surveys which are voluntary and anonymous, though they aren't always helpful. Effective teachers who are stern and ugly would underperform ineffective teachers that are overly permissive. So I think that's out as a meaningful method of determining merit.
That leaves us with experience, accreditation, and education, which is the system currently in use.
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People (in particular teachers) often blame parents, and it's true that parents need to be involved, but there are educational models that work even without parental involvement. This is seen in some of the most successful schools around the country, including private, charter, and public.
Example? This goes counter to my understanding.
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Schools / districts that need improvement should be examining schools / districts around the country and world that are successful, and replicating what makes them successful.
Definitely hear this phrase used frequently, but I think when you look under the hood, the most successful projects cherry-pick both teachers and students without looking like that's what they're doing. I look forward to those examples.
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It's true that I did not have muffins in mind as a form of compensation for teachers, but I also did not have in mind parents directly paying bonuses to each educator who serves their child(ren).
Maybe it's a thought worth pursuing. Always funny how people will throw a lavish bonus at their babysitter for staying an extra hour once, but not the teacher who spends far more effective time with their kid when their kid needs it.
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It is possible to pay teachers higher salaries,
How's that?
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and to offer bonuses or higher pay to teachers who outperform their peers.
I think I've demonstrated that part's not possible, because you can't tell who outperforms.
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The money within the district needs to be better managed. Over the decades I have known many APS employees and I would say about 50% were slackers (none of the slackers were teachers btw). One IT person I know spends a significant amount of his time at APS working on side jobs for private pay. There could also likely be cuts at the top. How many administrators, spokespeople, etc does APS need?
The public consensus is fewer than it has. Funny that no one I know actually knows how many it has now. I tried poring through their 2011 budget PDF but gave up (it's not brief or easy to navigate).
Knowing how many there is now is essential to forming an opinion on how many there should be.
Since you sound interested in the subject, perhaps as you become more learned, you will either change positions or be in a position to shake things up for the better.
True.
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Originally Posted by Zoidberg
True, but no more than school systems. Parents' organizations, taxpayer groups, state and federal agencies, self-interested school board members, and for-profit educational companies can each similarly negatively impact the educational process. It's rather remarkable that things work as well as they do with so many competing interests. The main takeaway is that teachers' unions are not the only dragon in the cave and probably don't deserve 100% of the scrutiny.
This is a good point, and as many dragons as possible need to be slayed.
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Originally Posted by Zoidberg
I have no doubt there are. But who enforces them, and who keeps the enforcers honest and even-handed if there is no one to support the teachers?
Human resources should handle these issues. You could ask the same questions about who keeps the enforcers honest about any organization, with or without unions. Many organizations avoid mistreatment / exploitation of employees without the help of unions. Teachers are not more vulnerable to mistreatment than any other profession.
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Originally Posted by Zoidberg
Thanks for coming up with some numbers, though it bears mention that teachers can be AT1, AT2, or AT3 schedules, earning up to $50k their first year. Which one they fall on I believe has to do with their licensure.
All teachers begin at AT1. The earliest they may apply to advance to AT2 is after three years at AT1. AT3 requires 3 years of service at the AT2 level, plus a master's degree. No one begins with $50,000 annual salary as a teacher in APS; it is possible to earn that salary after 6 years of service and completing a master's degree.
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Originally Posted by Zoidberg
I gather you measure the knowledge and skills by some manner of standardized testing?
Yes. Either criterion-referenced testing, where students are expected to meet certain standards in each grade level, or norm-referenced testing, where a student's performance is compared with his/her peers.
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Originally Posted by Zoidberg
If children were factory-made widgets, and they all looked like the same bar of steel when they went into the school system, this would make sense. The problem involves the different innate abilities and home situations of different children. The world's best teacher would underperform an average teacher if the best teacher was teaching ESL special ed at a failing school and the average teacher was teaching a gifted class at a top-tier school.
If you could control for the baseline (similar groups of students), you may could adjust for this, but I don't think any statistician would have any confidence in numbers on that basis (how do you determine what's similar?). So I think that approach wouldn't improve the system and would probably make it worse (rewarding teachers who land plum teaching jobs).
A child in an ESL special ed class should not be measured by the same standard or tested in the same manner. A child who is not speaking English fluently and is in an ESL class may be where they are supposed to be educationally, but may perform poorly on a standardized test because of the language issue. Special education includes students with a broad range of abilities and is another topic entirely. Also, if a teacher is in a gifted class, that would need to be taken into consideration.
Special populations aside, I disagree with you that an average teacher at a top tier school would outperform a great teacher at a failing school. There are schools in underprivileged areas that produce amazing outcomes with children who have many obstacles (poverty, crime, etc). Two examples, which both happen to be charter schools, are Agassi Prep and KIPP schools.
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Originally Posted by Zoidberg
That leaves us with experience, accreditation, and education, which is the system currently in use.
These are indeed very important. A US Dept of Education study found that students whose teachers have a master's degree score higher on standardized tests than students whose teachers have a bachelor's degree.
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Originally Posted by Zoidberg
Example? This goes counter to my understanding.
Two examples above. I am not saying that parent involvement is irrelevant. There is overwhelming evidence that parent involvement benefits a child's education. The point is that children who lack parental involvement need not be doomed to failure.
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Originally Posted by Zoidberg
Definitely hear this phrase used frequently, but I think when you look under the hood, the most successful projects cherry-pick both teachers and students without looking like that's what they're doing. I look forward to those examples.
Finland comes out on top for public education. To my knowledge there is no cherry-picking when it comes to students. They are selective when it comes to teachers. They only allow people who graduate in the top 10% of their class to be teachers, and all teachers must have a master's degree. This means that ALL students are likely to get good teachers. This leads me to point out another problem within APS (and other districts no doubt). During annual contract negotiations, teachers with seniority are given priority in choosing where they will teach. They often want to teach at the best schools, which tends to leave the most inexperienced teachers for the failing schools.
I've yet to find a human resources department anywhere who answered to the needs of the employee (unless they hadn't been hired yet).
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Teachers are not more vulnerable to mistreatment than any other profession.
Than any other, no. Than most others, yes.
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Either criterion-referenced testing, where students are expected to meet certain standards in each grade level, or norm-referenced testing, where a student's performance is compared with his/her peers.
Criterion-referenced is not helpful; the statistics show teaching a large group of far NE heights kids will likely produce better test results than a large group of S valley kids. So why teach (or stay) at a S valley school even if you are making a bigger difference with those kids, if it's going to penalize you financially?
Norm-referenced presupposes an accurate set of peers can be established, and I submit an accurate one can not.
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A child in an ESL special ed class should not be measured by the same standard or tested in the same manner...Special education includes students with a broad range of abilities and is another topic entirely. Also, if a teacher is in a gifted class, that would need to be taken into consideration.
This makes my point. You've already established three echelons of exceptions to both your test criteria. I submit that there's a wide continuum of student potential and performance and that you would have so many exceptions (particularly when you consider these different levels of kids frequently get mixed together and interact) that it'd be easier to fill out a 1040 than to come up with a teacher evaluation, fairer, and probably easier to make sense of as well.
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Special populations aside, I disagree with you that an average teacher at a top tier school would outperform a great teacher at a failing school.
All populations have special components, which is why yours is a special case.
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There are schools in underprivileged areas that produce amazing outcomes with children who have many obstacles (poverty, crime, etc). Two examples, which both happen to be charter schools, are Agassi Prep and KIPP schools.
Accomplished through cherry-picking more than any other reason. This isn't to say they don't accomplish any good (some cherries need to be picked).
When you select teachers through stringent hiring practices, or put them through intensive training they know about going in, there's going to be a fair amount of self-selection; further, both school approaches have high attrition rate for bottom-tier students. The parents may be poor but they opt in whereas less involved and poor parents don't. What makes these charter school systems successful is their lack of scalability. If they had to grow to encompass the entire pool of students and teacher candidates, odds are they wouldn't be any better than the current school systems in place.
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During annual contract negotiations, teachers with seniority are given priority in choosing where they will teach. They often want to teach at the best schools, which tends to leave the most inexperienced teachers for the failing schools.
I don't think "often" equates to most of the time, but this is a definite issue. Still, you risk driving away your best talent if you don't afford them opportunities like this. They could just take a sabbatical and roll the dice on a better school assignment after a year or so away, leaving you short of a teacher in the meantime.
1. Tougher DWI/Crime laws.
2. A new arena that can host big music acts and events
3. More movie theatres
4. In-N-Out
5. Baja Fresh
6. Culver's
7. Fresh & Easy Market
8. IKEA
9. Great (better/improved)public schools.
10. More direct flights to places
11. Crate and Barrel
12. Expanded Rapid Ride with later hours
13. See the homeless problem go away.
14. More rain and snow
15. Affordable solar power
16. Better mass transit, specifically connecting the East Mountains to town. (east-west Rail Runner branch?)
17. Movie theater in East Mountains
18. Container Store
19. Fry's store
20. Spec's Liquor Warehouse
21. Second tram line coming down the east side from the Crest
22. Road tunnel connecting Sandia Park with Montgomery, Academy, or Paseo
23. Urban gondolas
24. Win by the Lobos over 16th ranked SDSU tonight at The Pit!!!
25. Comprehensive attack on DWIs
26. More tickets to bicyclists that don't obey the laws.
27. More tickets to automobile drivers who don't obey the laws.
28. KAFB, Sandia Labs, and others to clean up their fuel spills and toxic dumps in and around the city
29. Motorists to refrain from intimidating and running over bicyclists.
Next wish gets to add final entry #30 and then we vote, write down the #'s of your top 5.
(sorry, was bored and got tired of the arguments )
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Good discussion.
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