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Chicago teachers' strike

#21 User is offline   phil_20686 

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Posted 2012-September-11, 08:10

I have no problem paying teachers more, although I would generally prefer to have more teachers, if there were a limited budget, but it seems like teachers probably have some of the largest long term effects on a country's general outcome.

I also think that we demand much too little from our students. I would like to see schools set their own exams twice yearly, and for them to be appropriately rigorous. It felt like there was really no expectation from the standard exams to achieve any real level of problem solving, or interest.

I remember an A level practical exam, based around a series of chemical tests to identify an unknown compound, where out teachers told us that in 90% of the exams the chemical tests were set in blocks 1 (a) 1(b) etc, and the last question in each block would be the one that was positive. Thus the ideal strategy was simply to complete the last test in every block, and then having seen that they were positive, and worked out the chemical, you could fill in the results for all the other tests, knowing they were negative, and making sure to use all the buzz words. E.g. You would lose marks for using "clear" instead of "transparent" despite my dictionary insisting they were synonymous.

It was just completely bizarre. A practical exam set up in such a way that the teachers would tell you that the optimum way to take the test was not actually to do most of the tests, because the exam setters seem to assume that all students are idiots and will not recognise the patter in a dozen years of passed papers. Or maybe they didn't care as it was an easy way to boost marks.

This stuff is completely widespread. English literature, we were advised that the examiners would not actually check your quotations, and since there was no requirement to reference them to an edition and page number, we could just make them up. Full marks without ever reading the set text. No problemo. And they were open book exams, so you would buy the editions that have copious notes on the main themes and cultural information, and had lists of useful quotations at the back. That was perfectly within the rules.

The hardest GCSE exam by far that I sat was Latin, as you had to do a forty line translation from the Illiad, and that is pretty hard, so obviously we didn't do that. There was a restriced set of about 250 lines that they were allowed to ask you from, so we just learned the english by rote, along with the last work of each line in latin. No need to do any actual latin.

When an exam system has become so corrupted that "good teachers" are those who advise their students on the best way to game the system, it should all go to the scrap house imo. Exams need to be much harder, so that it is no longer the case of applying algorithms by rote, but that genuine thinking is required. Before I went to university I had never seen an exam question that required you to think in a new way, or do anything other than regurgitate past material and solutions.


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I also think a large part of the problem is the psychosis of the the education establishment. On the one hand they believe that education is fundamentally a good thing, and on the other they have made a sort of idol out of educational equality, and these goals are in tension, because a good educator will fundamentally make his class more unequal. To say that it is hard/impossible to teach some kids from disturbed backgrounds is true. So you teach the rest, and if you are a good teacher who enables learning, then every year your class will become more unequal as the good students move every farther away from the worse students.

You see it clearly in the large scale movement in the UK (and a little in the US) to abolish private schooling. Here in the UK, private schools have historically been given charitable status, and removing charitable status will effectively bar the middle classes from elite educational establishments. It has always been seen in the past that giving a child a good education was a good thing, in and of itself, and if parents were prepared to pay extra to have their children in private education, instead of state schooling that is doubly good, as the child is getting a better education, and the state school has one less child to spread its funding around.

However, its evident that having elite private schools perpetuates inequality, because two students who started off the same, and worked the same amount, and one went to an elite school, and one went to an average school, will have vastly different outcomes. Moreover, its not just a question of skills, more stimulating environments help increase your general intelligence. One study suggests that the difference between a good and bad education adds at least two IQ points per year of education. A child with an elite educational establishment, compared to a poor one, will be twenty five IQ points better off over the full school career. That is HUGE, and it is permanent (this result is for average children, its easier to have big changes towards the mean than away from it in terms of absolute iq scores).

The progressive response is to claim how unfair all this is, and that if only we forced well off parents to put their children in comprehensives like the rest then this would drive up standards in the rest. However, this, imo, is just a pretext. In reality they view this inequality as a bad thing, and would rather the children of the well off received a worse, but more equal, education. I cannot understand this sentiment, but it seems fairly widespread among the intellectual left.

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Thirdly, My generation regards teaching as what you do when you aren't smart enough to have a real career. I don't know how this happened. My grandfather told me that when he became a teacher (1940) it was regarded as on a par with being a surgeon or a GP or a university professor. I.e. A high status job. I think status is more important than money in attracting young applicants to teaching. We are young and idealistic, but the one thing we really can't abide is being looked down on by accountants. :)

I think society has moved towards equating status and money, and that means that we will have to pay our teachers more to get better teachers. I am at peace this this fact. :) I think teachers salaries should be in the 30-60k (in pounds) range, which is about 50% higher than they are, and will put them on a par with young professionals in law, tax, computer science, civil servants and universities. Of course, there will never be as much scope for progression as these other careers, but they do have much better holidays. :)

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PS: The information age is here. Teachers unions need to adjust to the fact that you can actually measure teacher performance, and that some teachers are much better than others. Once they have accepted this (incontrovertible) fact, then there is a long conversation to be had about the best ways to use that information, about how to deal with the inherent randomness of stats applied to individuals and all that stuff.
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#22 User is online   kenberg 

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Posted 2012-September-11, 08:12

 billw55, on 2012-September-11, 07:03, said:

I wish I knew the solution but I don't.


I am in 100% agreement with this.
Ken
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#23 User is offline   TimG 

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Posted 2012-September-11, 08:22

 Cthulhu D, on 2012-September-10, 22:01, said:

You need to test multiple times in a school year to get meaningful results. Of course, the actual tests as proposed don't even control for socio-economic status of the kids, so it's obvious that Chicago is just trying to ***** the teachers.

From my perspective as someone who has worked in public schools (rural) and as a parent of kids who have attended public schools (again rural), standardized tests are often a big waste of time.

As one example, the elementary school I worked at last school year uses Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) levels to monitor reading progress. These tests require one-on-one teacher involvement, especially at lower levels, and can take over an hour to administer. A 3rd grade teacher with a class of 12 students could effectively use two full days of school to test their entire class. What are the kids who are not being tested supposed to be doing when their classmate is being tested by their teacher?

But really, classroom teachers should not be administering such tests, especially when their continued employment may depend upon the success of their students on the tests. So, you really need to hire someone to administer tests and pull individual students from the classroom to take the tests. Of course, they will be missing some direct classroom instruction when they are being tested, something that the classroom teacher will have to make up one-on-one. During which portion of the day?

I performed the year end assessment on all the students I worked with in math last year. They all met the yearly progress requirement! The yearly progress requirement that was a large part of my yearly evaluation as a teacher. How shocking is that? Even though I believe I tested them fairly, I also understand that if they had been assessed by objective strangers, they would not have scored as well.

When my middle school age children take standardized tests, there is a big to do made out of it. The principal sends a note home encouraging parents to make sure their children get a good night's sleep and eat a good breakfast on test days. Regular classroom activities are adjusted so as not to tax the students prior to a test period and the homework load is adjusted. In short, school is disrupted for a week or two.

I recently read a Vanity Fair article about the environment at Microsoft. The article described a process by which all members of a team needed to be evaluated such that some were ranked as superior and some ranked as inferior -- that is, someone(s) on each team had to be given the lowest ranking and those who were ranked lowest often lost their job. It created a very political environment where people jockeyed not to produce a product, but to be part of a team where they could outrank co-workers and keep their jobs.

I could easily see similar things happen when a teacher's continued employment is based upon student test scores. Teachers will compete amongst each other for "good students" and will have incentive to NOT help co-workers, in fact sabotaging co-workers' efforts could become beneficial. Principals who may want to fire a particular teacher but do not have cause could stack their classes against them or otherwise rig things so that their students have a more difficult time. None of this, obviously, is beneficial to the students.

Part of No Child Left Behind is a requirement that high schools have a 100% graduation rate in order to maintain good standing (not be listed as a "failing school") by some year that is not to far in the future. Anyone will tell you that a 100% graduation rate is not going to happen in any but a small handful of schools. But, doesn't it seem like an incentive to school districts to lessen their graduation requirements so that they can graduate a higher percentage of students? (I am not well read on this subject, but I believe states can petition the federal government to be exempt from this 100% graduation rate requirement, or some other provisions of No Child Left Behind by establishing their own guidelines and requirements and jumping through some other hoops. But, it still seems to me that there is incentive to set the bar as low as possibly allowed to better meet goals.)

Anyway, if I were a classroom teacher with 15-20 years of teaching history, I would be very scared if my future employment (and vesting of retirement benefits, etc) suddenly depended upon the the children in my classroom meeting a certain level on a standardized test. No amount of classroom teaching skill could trump the efforts of administration if they wanted an excuse to let me go.
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#24 User is online   mike777 

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Posted 2012-September-11, 08:35

I would be very scared if my future employment (and vesting of retirement benefits, etc) suddenly depended upon the the children in my classroom meeting a certain level on a standardized test. No amount of classroom teaching skill could trump the efforts of administration if they wanted an excuse to let me go.


This may shock you but this is the world we nonteachers/union live in, at least in the USA.

It is called at will firing. You can basically be fired for any reason.
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#25 User is offline   TimG 

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Posted 2012-September-11, 08:37

 billw55, on 2012-September-11, 07:03, said:

I have a hard time accepting claims that teachers are underpaid. I sure don't make $75,000 per year, and I work substantially more days per year than they do.

Teachers don't start out at these "comfortable salaries". The cost of living where I live is much different than in Chicago, but around here starting teacher pay is less than half of $75,000 (actually the first website I found says that average starting salary for teachers in Maine is $38,770 -- the second showed that average teacher pay for teachers with less than 5 years of experience at my local middle school is $29,565 -- there must be some difference in what is considered a "teacher", perhaps ed techs are included in one figure and not in the other, for instance). Anyway, I am confident that no matter how you look at it, teachers don't start out with "comfortable salaries". And, they may not go to the classroom 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year, but those 185 school days (in Maine) aren't short days.

Teachers are being asked to pick up more and more of their health insurance costs. Just like other industries, I imagine.
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#26 User is online   kenberg 

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Posted 2012-September-11, 09:20

I find the accountability trends pretty scary, much for the reasons TimG describes. I graduated from high school in St. Paul in 1956. My engineering drawing teacher had a severe drinking problem and by sixth period he was pretty unaware of who was actually there. I usually wasn't. Of course he should be let go, I imagine he soon was, but not as a result of some stupid standardized tests. My biology teacher was very weak. I quickly learned that I could only ask questions on the current lesson. He had forgotten the lesson of the day before, and he had not looked ahead to the next day's lesson. But most of my teachers were somewhere between ok and pretty good. And, of course, "good" suggests the question "good for whom?".

I am thinking mostly about high school, and that's where I think that the problems are the most pressing. When I got to college I really liked the fact that my physics teacher, for example, was a noted physicist. We don't need that in high school, and it is not practical with the large number of students involved, but s/he should be knowledgeable and interested in the subject. S/He should be reasonably socially sane, reasonably accepting of adolescent angst. I was a pain in the butt during those years. No doubt about it. I don't suggest that a teacher should tolerate a lot of stuff, simply that s/he should have some faith that with suitable guidance the young person can do better.

But after these standards have been met, the kids should be told that it is their responsibility to learn something. Every teacher has his/her individuality, just as every parent has. If the teacher knows what s/he is talking about and doesn't (often) go into meltdown, then the student should be told to shape up and get with the plan.
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#27 User is online   mike777 

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Posted 2012-September-11, 09:28

Here is an option for at least one small step forward.

http://www.khanacademy.org/about

A free world-class education for anyone anywhere.
The Khan Academy is an organization on a mission. We're a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education for anyone anywhere.

All of the site's resources are available to anyone. It doesn't matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. The Khan Academy's materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge
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#28 User is offline   awm 

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Posted 2012-September-11, 09:39

Some lesser-known facts:

US schools are best in the world if you control for poverty.

Statistics don't, generally, support charter schools over regular public schools.

Most of the people pushing for "education reform" (including Arne Duncan and Michelle Rhee) have little to no classroom teaching experience. One thing that's often overlooked about testing is that students have little incentive to perform well on these tests, whereas teachers have every incentive to teach test-taking skills over actual knowledge, or even to themselves promote cheating on the tests. In fact cheating is often the result when tests are used to evaluate teachers and schools, including when Michelle Rhee was in charge in DC.
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#29 User is offline   dwar0123 

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Posted 2012-September-11, 10:10

 phil_20686, on 2012-September-11, 08:10, said:

The progressive response is to claim how unfair all this is, and that if only we forced well off parents to put their children in comprehensives like the rest then this would drive up standards in the rest. However, this, imo, is just a pretext. In reality they view this inequality as a bad thing, and would rather the children of the well off received a worse, but more equal, education. I cannot understand this sentiment, but it seems fairly widespread among the intellectual left.

As a left leaning progressive, that comes off as the mad ramblings of the fear mongering right. Look at the insane things the left believe in, obviously they are totally nuts. Of course it is far less true of the intellectual left then how many of the comments from Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh represents the intellectual right.

It is very easy to feel superior about ones own argument when you can take the most absurd things ever said from the opposing side and convince yourself that it is fairly widespread among their intellectuals. And that is giving you the benefit of doubt, because the only person I have ever heard state such an absurd thing is you.
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#30 User is online   kenberg 

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Posted 2012-September-11, 11:04

Some pretty strange things do get put forward by some fairly influential people. I was at a talk (quite a while ago, it is true) where a person high in educational circles was speaking favorably about the narrowing achievement gap between boys and girls in mathematics. The girls scores had not gone up, the boys scores had gone down. I listened carefully to catch the irony in his presentation but I could not discern it.

Another time I was walking with a highly placed official in the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. A world class mathematician had written an article for the Washington Post in which he argued that the nation faced many and varied challenges in mathematics education. Preparing talented students for future research, preparing non-college bound students for basic competency, and many other things in between. The NCTM guy dismissed the author of this piece with "He just doesn't understand mathematics"!

There was an echo of this when I was involved in some reform activities. At one point I made the not very deep statement that "Every child is important". Everyone thought this was wonderful, but they interpreted it as "even the most in need of help" while I meant "the most in need of help and also the ones with the most promise". This view was greeted with less enthusiasm.

I have never figured out if I qualify as a progressive, probably I don't. But the "every child is important", as I intended it, is certainly my view.
Ken
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#31 User is online   mike777 

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Posted 2012-September-11, 11:49

To paraphrase:

Every child is important, but some are more important than others.
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#32 User is offline   phil_20686 

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Posted 2012-September-11, 12:34

 dwar0123, on 2012-September-11, 10:10, said:

And that is giving you the benefit of doubt, because the only person I have ever heard state such an absurd thing is you.


I don't have to look very far for examples: Here is felix Salmon, who could probably lay claim to being the worlds most influential financial journalist, (and is a left wing progressive thinker)

Quote

the charitable purpose of the private school is just a marginal increase in the quality of some children’s education — complete with deleterious effects on everybody else. (Just imagine how much better Manhattan’s public schools would be, if all of the island’s super-rich had to send their kids to those public schools.


arguing against charitable status for private schools. Here is Fiona Miller, a commentator for teh Guardian News paper

Quote

the private sector is a serious policy issue. It affects the intake of many urban schools; provides an unfair advantage to better-off families in a highly competitive higher education sector and jobs market; and divides, rather than brings together, young people from different backgrounds.



Or here is a commentator from the New statesmen, another left wing periodical in the UK

Quote

I think the system should be abolished, or, more realistically, lose the charitable status which means the taxpayer funds them to the tune of £100 million a year.... it [private schools] is far and away the major obstacle to class mobility and equality of opportunity in Britain.



I could go on. Its harder to find the `real intellectual left` on the internet than newspaper commentators, but I'm sure if you try it won't be too hard for you to dig it out.
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#33 User is offline   PassedOut 

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Posted 2012-September-11, 12:58

 phil_20686, on 2012-September-11, 12:34, said:

I don't have to look very far for examples: Here is felix Salmon, who could probably lay claim to being the worlds most influential financial journalist, (and is a left wing progressive thinker)

arguing against charitable status for private schools. Here is Fiona Miller, a commentator for teh Guardian News paper

Or here is a commentator from the New statesmen, another left wing periodical in the UK

I could go on. Its harder to find the `real intellectual left` on the internet than newspaper commentators, but I'm sure if you try it won't be too hard for you to dig it out.

Isn't the point of these arguments that the folks who now send their children to cloistered schools would insist upon high standards for all schools, should their children be intermixed?

In my opinion, US teachers -- particularly elementary teachers -- earn far less than they should. Nothing is more important to the future prosperity and security of our country than the health and education of our young people, and it's scandalous that our budgetary priorities are so skewed: we spend far too much on weapons and far too little on giving our kids the start that they need.

Kids don't choose their parents, and their health and education should not depend upon the wealth of their families. It's important to all of us that they get the best possible chance to succeed in life.
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#34 User is offline   TimG 

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Posted 2012-September-11, 13:09

 kenberg, on 2012-September-11, 09:20, said:

I am thinking mostly about high school, and that's where I think that the problems are the most pressing.

I believe students have to be engaged long before they reach high school, if they are not engaged by the time they hit high school they are very likely lost.

I had two school positions last year (I won't call them "teaching" positions): Title 1 Ed Tech in an elementary school; and monitoring an algebra class at a regional vocation center for high school juniors and seniors.

Kids qualify for Title 1 when they are a year behind grade level in math or reading but do not qualify for special education. The kids were in Title 1 primarily because they didn't care much about learning (or had a condition such as ADD or ADHD which caused them not to be able to focus on learning). If something (or someone) doesn't spark their interest, they aren't going to be able to suddenly pick things up when they reach high school.

The vocational students were mostly looking at the algebra class as the last math class they would ever have to take, just a requirement to get a diploma. We spent a good portion of the year doing things like adding and subtracting fractions and percents and ratios. Many of the students struggled with these things because they didn't have a solid foundation in things like multiplication tables. It's hard to factor 54 when you think 6 x 9 = 56. They should have flunked Geometry and Pre-Algrbra (and 6th grade math) before they got to this point. But, they weren't engaged at this point, and it was really too late.

Anyway, I mention the odd combination of jobs, because I could easily see the 1st and 2nd grade students that I was working with in Title 1 ending up being the same students who don't care when they get to high school if we think of things in terms of "the problem being most pressing in high school".
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#35 User is offline   dwar0123 

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Posted 2012-September-11, 13:18

 phil_20686, on 2012-September-11, 12:34, said:

I don't have to look very far for examples: Here is felix Salmon, who could probably lay claim to being the worlds most influential financial journalist, (and is a left wing progressive thinker)


Perhaps I should have been more clear on what statement of yours I find absurd and beyond the pail.

Quote

In reality they view this inequality as a bad thing, and would rather the children of the well off received a worse, but more equal, education. I cannot understand this sentiment, but it seems fairly widespread among the intellectual left.


The reason you can't understand this sentiment is because it doesn't exist, no sane person wants to hold children back. If you think education is a zero sum business then naturally you will presume that improving the education of the poor means the education of the rich must suffer.

Being progressive isn't about making everyone equal, it is about using limited resources efficiently and fairly.

The rich have earned their money and they can spend it however they choose, if they want to spend it on their children to give them a leg up in the world with a first class education, great. Not really a charity though is it, providing your own child with a first class education?

Quote

the charitable purpose of the private school is just a marginal increase in the quality of some children’s education — complete with deleterious effects on everybody else. (Just imagine how much better Manhattan’s public schools would be, if all of the island’s super-rich had to send their kids to those public schools.


I am not familiar with this person, but in this limited quote he isn't actually advocating the abolishment of private schools. I certainty don't favor the abolishment of private schools but I can still state for the arguments sake, to further a related point, that abolishing private schools would certainty result in better public schools.

On a personal note, I am more in favor of supporting the gifted, no matter their background, with a great education. Spending massive resources on the least performing students isn't to efficient, or so my gut tells me.
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#36 User is online   mike777 

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Posted 2012-September-11, 13:23

 PassedOut, on 2012-September-11, 12:58, said:

Isn't the point of these arguments that the folks who now send their children to cloistered schools would insist upon high standards for all schools, should their children be intermixed?

In my opinion, US teachers -- particularly elementary teachers -- earn far less than they should. Nothing is more important to the future prosperity and security of our country than the health and education of our young people, and it's scandalous that our budgetary priorities are so skewed: we spend far too much on weapons and far too little on giving our kids the start that they need.

Kids don't choose their parents, and their health and education should not depend upon the wealth of their families. It's important to all of us that they get the best possible chance to succeed in life.



It is tough in today's economy to call a starting teachers job with just a 4 year degree and no exp at 50K in Chicago a scandal.
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#37 User is online   mike777 

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Posted 2012-September-11, 13:23

 PassedOut, on 2012-September-11, 12:58, said:

Isn't the point of these arguments that the folks who now send their children to cloistered schools would insist upon high standards for all schools, should their children be intermixed?

In my opinion, US teachers -- particularly elementary teachers -- earn far less than they should. Nothing is more important to the future prosperity and security of our country than the health and education of our young people, and it's scandalous that our budgetary priorities are so skewed: we spend far too much on weapons and far too little on giving our kids the start that they need.

Kids don't choose their parents, and their health and education should not depend upon the wealth of their families. It's important to all of us that they get the best possible chance to succeed in life.



It is tough in today's economy to call a starting teachers job with just a 4 year degree and no exp at 50K in Chicago a scandal. Throw in having summers off and vacation/holidays. Please add in benefits which run around 15k or so at that level.

I understand Ken would never take the job for that amount of money or even more but trust me there are millions out there who will.


2010-2011: the CPS gives a starting salary of $50,577 for a first-year teacher with a bachelor's degree. But that's including the seven-percent "pension pickup," which comes from the Board of Education: it's compensation, obviously, but not money teachers get right now.
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#38 User is offline   Phil 

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Posted 2012-September-11, 13:28

 awm, on 2012-September-11, 09:39, said:



If school teachers are glorified social workers, then this is probably true.

I doubt the veracity of anything coming from the NEA, sorry.
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#39 User is offline   dwar0123 

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Posted 2012-September-11, 13:47

 Phil, on 2012-September-11, 13:28, said:

If school teachers are glorified social workers, then this is probably true.

I doubt the veracity of anything coming from the NEA, sorry.

I think their method is inherently biased. You slice away our poorest schools and then make comparisons to an entire countries school system when the specific poverty rate for those schools matches the poverty rate of the comparison country as a whole.

That smacks of comparing our cream to another countries butter.

Or to put another way, I am not sure I accept that lowering the poverty rate by x always translates into a y increase in education, which is an assumption that has to be made for their article to be useful.

I do agree that lowering poverty tends to increase education levels, but I don't think it as simple as this article would require it to be for their comparisons to make sense.
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#40 User is offline   hrothgar 

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Posted 2012-September-11, 14:05

 mike777, on 2012-September-11, 13:23, said:

It is tough in today's economy to call a starting teachers job with just a 4 year degree and no exp at 50K in Chicago a scandal. Throw in having summers off and vacation/holidays. Please add in benefits which run around 15k or so at that level.

I understand Ken would never take the job for that amount of money or even more but trust me there are millions out there who will.


2010-2011: the CPS gives a starting salary of $50,577 for a first-year teacher with a bachelor's degree. But that's including the seven-percent "pension pickup," which comes from the Board of Education: it's compensation, obviously, but not money teachers get right now.


Few comments here

1. I don't doubt that there are millions of people willing to take a job that pays $50K a year. This sure as hell doesn't mean that those individuals are qualified to do the job in question.

2. CNN reports that the median starting salary for four year college graduates is $42,569. The same article reports that the typical starting salary for education related salaries is $37,423. The typical COLA for Chicago is about 5%.

http://money.cnn.com...-jobs/index.htm
http://www.bestplace...llinois/chicago

This suggests that for some reason the city of Chicago needs to spend significantly more money to attract teachers than other parts of the country...
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