Teacher Impact

[fuji]

It depends on how you measure success, the devil is in the details.

Are you going to consider in your measure of success:

1. Student assessments of the teacher
2. Parent assessments of the teacher
3. Performance relative to demographic
4. Performance relative to socioeconomics

Standardized test scores and admission rates would seem to be the least objective factors. A teacher with a class full of ESL students in a poverty stricken catchment area who gets half the students into post secondary education might be doing a stellar job, while a teacher with primarily upper middle class English speaking students might be an abject failure if only 75 percent get accepted into colleges/universities.

 

[onthebottom]

But you admit that all a teacher would have to do to get the results they would need, would simply be to teach the test.. So what's the fucking point?

If the tests are designed to measure the required learning for a grade level I think it's exactly the fucking point.

 

[onthebottom]

It depends on how you measure success, the devil is in the details.

Are you going to consider in your measure of success:

1. Student assessments of the teacher
2. Parent assessments of the teacher
3. Performance relative to demographic
4. Performance relative to socioeconomics

Standardized test scores and admission rates would seem to be the least objective factors. A teacher with a class full of ESL students in a poverty stricken catchment area who gets half the students into post secondary education might be doing a stellar job, while a teacher with primarily upper middle class English speaking students might be an abject failure if only 75 percent get accepted into colleges/universities.

I don't care about any of those 4, nor frankly do I care about teachers (have many friends that are teachers, lovely people), what I care about is students learning the skills they will need to succeed. The first step in any journey is knowing where you are (testing), the only way you know if you're making progress is measuring how close you are to your destination (testing). We need absolute (not relative) measures and standards. This isn't no teacher left behind, it's no child left behind.

 

[fuji]

If the tests are designed to measure the required learning for a grade level I think it's exactly the fucking point.

Have you ever met any of those Chinese students who scored nearly 100% on their English proficiency test, but who can't have a real conversation in English if their life depended on it?

They spend months memorizing every possible test answer including memorizing a number of generic essay answers.

Tests are often a poor measure of learning compared to more intensive and subjective measures like grading project work, interactive discussion, and so on.

I know that even industry doesn't get this right. In my industry there are numerous certifications people can get that are supposed to indicate proficiency, and a lot of completely clueless idiots walking around with those certifications. I can tell in five minutes of conversion more about whether someone gets what we do, than that certification tells me.

 

[onthebottom]

Have you ever met any of those Chinese students who scored nearly 100% on their English proficiency test, but who can't have a real conversation in English if their life depended on it?

They spend months memorizing every possible test answer including memorizing a number of generic essay answers.

Tests are often a poor measure of learning compared to more intensive and subjective measures like grading project work, interactive discussion, and so on.

I know that even industry doesn't get this right. In my industry there are numerous certifications people can get that are supposed to indicate proficiency, and a lot of completely clueless idiots walking around with those certifications. I can tell in five minutes of conversion more about whether someone gets what we do, than that certification tells me.

Tests are imperfect, but at the end of the day you can do multiplication or you can't - some skills are easier to test for than others.

 

[AdamH]

If the tests are designed to measure the required learning for a grade level I think it's exactly the fucking point.

But that's all based on the idea that the teacher won't just go ahead and teach the test.. Which the teacher would do if their future as a teacher (or a future raise) were at stake.. So your solution BECOMES the problem.. And actually doesn't "solve" anything..

 

[FAST]

16x9

So then you agree that paying them for these "results" is a dumb idea?

I'll elaborate on what I said,...with the current crop of teachers,...with no incentive other than the next contract,...you could be right.

If what you say is true,...then why wouldn't the teachers just be allowed to give the test to the students before hand, would be even simpler for the teachers...same result,...right,...???

BUT you have to think past the obvious,...if the teachers don't know what the tests are,...how could they "teach for the test".

Of coarse,...that would be in the next contract,...we demand to know what the tests are,...

AGAIN,...this whole topic is just really about the guarantied wage increases for simply getting older,...needs to be fixed,...!!!

Personaly I don't think it would work, or even be desirable,...but the current contract needs to be ripped up and renegotiated like the private sector.

A more logical incentive would be to have a lower teacher to student ratio, and possibly higher rates for teachers, in low income/problem areas,...but we all know the teachers union would NEVER allow that.

FAST

 

[basketcase]

And the grades come from test scores.... Your dancing pretty hard. I will agree that education has done a shitty job building reliable measurements and metrics.

Says the master of the two-step.

SAT scores have nothing to do with GPA. GPA is determined by individual teachers and it seems teachers can predict student success far better than standardized tests. In the same way, principals would be far better at determining success of teachers than some test.

For some reason you not only want standardized tests despite their flaws but you want the tests to determine something they weren't designed for. Seems pretty ridiculous.

 

[basketcase]

Learning is the reason we have teachers, testing is how we measure learning. None of your other metrics would come close to measuring the desired outcome.

What you were advocating was standardized tests. Are you now backing off that claim and talking about all tests?

 

[onthebottom]

Says the master of the two-step.

SAT scores have nothing to do with GPA. GPA is determined by individual teachers and it seems teachers can predict student success far better than standardized tests. In the same way, principals would be far better at determining success of teachers than some test.

For some reason you not only want standardized tests despite their flaws but you want the tests to determine something they weren't designed for. Seems pretty ridiculous.

GPA is based on tests?

 

[onthebottom]

What you were advocating was standardized tests. Are you now backing off that claim and talking about all tests?

The only way to compare students is to used standardized tests....

 

[basketcase]

The only way to compare students is to used standardized tests....

Really? The studies I mentioned showed the best way was based on marks determined by teachers (GPA).

Canada has no such thing as SAT's and quite successfully deals with university admissions using classroom marks according to the teacher's experience with the student. The only standardized testing in Ontario that is actually used to evaluate individual students is a general literacy test in grade 10.

 

[basketcase]

GPA is based on tests?

Do teachers not give tests in the US?

 

[fuji]

The only way to compare students is to used standardized tests....

That is provably and very obviously false. There are lots of other ways to compare students. And the topic here was comparing teachers, not students.

You could evaluate a teacher by looking at the future outcomes of their students five years later. For example, evaluating a grade 8 teacher based on what percentage of their students get accepted into college or university five years later.

Again any such evaluation would have to be adjusted by demographics, a teacher in a rich middle class neighborhood can't take credit for the advantages those students have at home, and a teacher in a poor neighborhood should not be penalized for the disadvantages those students have.

And there are of course other methods of creating quantifiable performance data, such as polling the opinions of parents.

In reality teacher performance should be measured by some combination of all these factors, and judged relative to other teachers in the same locale rather then provincially or nationally.

 

[fuji]

GPA is based on tests?

Only in part. A large part of GPA these days is awarded for group project work, essays, presentations, and homework assignments.

Of these things there is a lot of evidence that an ability to do well in group project work is the most valuable skill developed in school. Far more practical in life than an ability to do well on tests.

 

[FAST]

The current teachers aversion to testing is probably one of the main reasons why our math capabilities have dropped.

With out testing,...all you are able to gauge is how well a student is able to learn,...not actually have learned anything.

FAST

 

[fuji]

I agree that teachers need to be moved to a merit based system, and whether that merit system is based on standardized tests, or some other measurable performance metric is really just quibbling.

But while I think that is important, I don't think that is the main reason why our math scores are dropping.

I think that we have some cultural responsibility there. Parents no longer push their kids to do hours of homework a day, and many parents get upset with schools if kids are sent home with a lot of homework. Especially for a subject like math, the bulk of learning happens outside the classroom with a book and a lamp.

In the countries where math scores are high you will find that kids routinely spend several hours a night studying. Our kids no longer do, we are slipping into being a lazy culture.

 

[AdamH]

the guarantied wage increases for simply getting older,...needs to be fixed,...!!!

I agree.. I just think that simply looking at the standardized test scores is an overtly simple solution, and not necessarily the best indicator of a teacher's legitimate performance....

We've all had plenty of ancient teachers that were beyond useless.. I had one Geography teacher that simply sat at an overhead projector writing WORD FOR WORD (while reading aloud) what was written in the textbooks that we were all sitting with.. All class long, he would write shit down, and we would be told to write it down in our notebooks.. Then once every 4 to 6 weeks we'd get a test.. That was it.. He may as well have handed us the fucking text book, told us what to read, and then told us to report back to class every 4 to 6 weeks.. The man did NOTHING of value for his pay cheque..

 

[basketcase]

The current teachers aversion to testing is probably one of the main reasons why our math capabilities have dropped.

With out testing,...all you are able to gauge is how well a student is able to learn,...not actually have learned anything.

FAST

Please explain how that worked. Yes, Ontario's grade 3 and 6 math test scores have gone down. What does that have to do with teachers not liking testing - especially since at the same time the English skills on those same tests have gone up?

 

[onthebottom]

Do teachers not give tests in the US?

Yes, and they base grades on them, which seems entirely valid to teachers except when test scores are used to measure their performace, then all of a sudden testing is highly flawed.