jerseyhoya wrote:I'd suggest that headline writer find a new job

I AM looking for a new job. It's hard work writing Fox-like headlines and subtext

pacino wrote:study showed little success for merit pay in NJ

About two thirds of Nashville’s middle-school math teachers volunteered to participate in the experiment. Half of the 296 teachers were placed randomly in a control group, while the rest were eligible for bonuses of $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 if their pupils scored significantly higher than expected on a statewide exam.

The bonuses amounted to as much as 30 percent of teachers’ yearly salaries in Nashville, where teachers are paid between $36,000 to $64,000, union officials said.

Over the next three years, 34 percent of the eligible teachers received a bonus at least once because their students did well on the exam. Eighteen of the teachers received bonuses all three years.

However, the study concluded students in the classes where teachers received bonuses did not progress any faster than those in classes taught by instructors were not eligible for the cash.

It's kind of amazing (though in another respect it makes perfect sense) that baseball is so far ahead of pedagogy when it comes to valuing performance. When a player has a career year, it might be because he's a legitimately great player; it might be because he was really lucky; it might be because he took PEDs or corked his bat. You generally don't pay him serious money until he delivers for a few years in a row.

Worse, if I'm reading this right, they did the equivalent of compensating just on batting average ("statewide exams").

Much as I dislike agreeing with the AEI guy, I think he's correct here:

"The fact that that teachers don’t respond to cash bonuses like rats do to food pellets does nothing to diminish my confidence that it’s good for schooling if teacher pay better reflects the contributions that teachers make," Hess said. "Serious proponents of merit pay believe the point is not any kind of short-term test score bump but making the profession more attractive to talented candidates."

Longer time frame, more/better metrics, supports--the idea here is to identify and reward quality educators.

pacino wrote:study showed little success for merit pay in NJ

You realize the article is about a study in Tennessee, it's from 4 months ago, and I'm 98% sure we talked about it four months ago. Didn't there used to be an education thread? Did it get erased from existence? Because my searching for said discussion is proving fruitless.

Maybe if teachers could control more parameters they could do better rather than having to answer to the unsuccessful football coach who now is the principal.

Shit is hitting the fan a little bit down here as the grades have been released for the schools. They'll need to make major changes for this to have any chance of working. My school's science teachers did the best of any school in the county, but we only got a "B" average because our school is so highly rated. We received an "A" in performance of our students, but our value added numbers were only a "B." Meanwhile, teachers from very poor schools ended up with A's because their kids started so low. It's a good way to get teachers into the tougher schools, but it's not really fair to punish teachers who are doing a good job at good schools.

Not that this matters to me very much. They don't have the money to raise salaries very much and they can't really lower salaries too much given their current crappiness. Plus, I don't plan to stay here.

But I said this when we originally had this discussion, I am all for merit pay if they can find a way for it to be effective. It's been tried over and over again for the last 100+ years whenever the fad demands it. It just doesn't seem to work. And from a psychology point of view, it's not really surprising that it doesn't work.

dajafi wrote:
Much as I dislike agreeing with the AEI guy, I think he's correct here:

"The fact that that teachers don’t respond to cash bonuses like rats do to food pellets does nothing to diminish my confidence that it’s good for schooling if teacher pay better reflects the contributions that teachers make," Hess said. "Serious proponents of merit pay believe the point is not any kind of short-term test score bump but making the profession more attractive to talented candidates."

Longer time frame, more/better metrics, supports--the idea here is to identify and reward quality educators.

lucky for you, it looks like the AEI guy is suggesting the presence of scoring, the apparatus of the rat trap rather than the savor of the pellets, will attract better educators - a dubious notion at best.

Wouldn't it be a step in the right direction if we put teachers in charge of what is being taught instead of the board of education? it seems like they are almost universally filled with (unqualified) retards.

Hey traderdave is a nice guy

Yes, I like traderdave very much. But he is the exception that proves the rule.

Kent Conrad retiring

+1

I don't think Boards of Ed. as a rule are deserving all that much of the blame. Some, probably. In many states, there's little they can do. They certainly aren't driving the bus in terms of taking teacher discretion away. That's coming from administrators from local to state (and to a small extent national) level.

For instance, in Lil' Vulture's school, the day starts at 8:05 and it goes to 3:17, with a half an hour for lunch. No recess, and very little flexibility. This, to me, is insane. Is there any evidence that doing away with recess improves student performance? Why not listen to teachers when making these decisions?

Most teachers I talk to think this is crazy. Give the kids 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the PM to run off some steam.

Every Democrat's favorite senator, Smokin Joe Lieberman, is announcing tomorrow whether he's running for reelection as a Dem or an independent or retiring.

drsmooth wrote:

dajafi wrote:
Much as I dislike agreeing with the AEI guy, I think he's correct here:

"The fact that that teachers don’t respond to cash bonuses like rats do to food pellets does nothing to diminish my confidence that it’s good for schooling if teacher pay better reflects the contributions that teachers make," Hess said. "Serious proponents of merit pay believe the point is not any kind of short-term test score bump but making the profession more attractive to talented candidates."

Longer time frame, more/better metrics, supports--the idea here is to identify and reward quality educators.

lucky for you, it looks like the AEI guy is suggesting the presence of scoring, the apparatus of the rat trap rather than the savor of the pellets, will attract better educators - a dubious notion at best.

The fixed teacher salary schedule is one of the worst things about the current educational system. Teachers unions love it, because the weakest links are usually the strongest union supporters. Teachers can be their own worst enemies. I've heard many teachers complain that they work hard at being English, Math, Science teachers and yet earn less than the old Phys Ed teacher who also coaches. Can't pay more for premium subjects that require a ton of out of school work. PE is almost a license to steal. Zero out of school work, except coaching, for which you get paid extra. The current system really screws the good teachers who teach demanding subjects, requiring prep and grading homework. Just about any evaluation system is better than the present non-evaluation, pay based on schedule system. For secondary schools, I'd just do an equal combo of Principal's evaluation, peer vote, student evaluation, and improvement in student scores vs predicted improvement. For elementary school, I'd exclude student eval, replace it with parent eval.

Lieberman is apparently retiring

jerseyhoya wrote:Lieberman is apparently retiring

in this case I'll make a rare exception and insist you count the votes first

thanks for helping with the DADT repeal, Joe

Hey Barack, IM COMING

I'm really surprised he's retiring. Is he healthy? Maybe he wants to move into lobbying.

Well, if he's really retiring, at least went out out classy with the DADT.

jerseyhoya wrote:Lieberman is apparently retiring

I did not doubt you, but it's like with the wicked witch of the east - you wanna have the shoes in hand