U.S. School issues... fire bad teachers?

[Chibibar]

Poll: Teachers Underpaid but Too Hard to Fire - CBS News

The problem is not that simple.

The method that the "system" want to use to "grade" teachers are from standardize test scores? I think that is a bad idea. All students does not learn the same way. The standardize test doesn't reflect those ways either.

Posting the test scores? only if the standard test can universally prove that it works. Right now many faculty are teaching the children to pass the test to "save their jobs" I feel that this system is not working IMO.

The U.S. should adopt Asian style of learning. You learn in school but take standardize test OUTSIDE of the school to advance. That way it is neutral and up to the student and parents. Teachers to get a lot of flack from parents and students. The teachers do not get the same level of respect in U.S. vs. Asian countries (I know of Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan and Thailand school since I have friends or experience it myself there) The teachers' hand are bound in terms of discipline and some parents are not doing their job as parents.

I think I'll get off my soap box now.

 

[strawman]

The U.S. should adopt Asian style of learning.

You assert that the educational success in asia is due to the educational system and its structure, and has nothing to do with the culture, and what children are taught to value in the home?

 

[Chibibar]

The U.S. should adopt Asian style of learning.

You assert that the educational success in asia is due to the educational system and its structure, and has nothing to do with the culture, and what children are taught to value in the home?[/QUOTE]

Kids today in Asia are more rebellious than when I was in school in Taiwan and Thailand, but the strict disciplinary in schools help the kids to be in line. Many of the parents in Asia are also both working. You see many kids are left alone (like in Japan and Taiwan) similar to the U.S. Culture do have effect on it, but also the teacher has the ability and authority to teach kids. In the U.S. there are so many restriction and even parents FIGHTING the teachers on what to teach and not to teach.

If anything, at least take the testing out of the school and make it independent. Let the U.S. teachers actually TEACH the class instead of TEACHING to pass the exams.

edit: I am a firm believer in corporal punishment. It has its place, and should be use sparingly and controlled environment. But today, such punishment are not allow in the U.S. and much less in a person's home (depending on each states)

Of course the lack of respect on the student part toward teachers, parents and any authority figure doesn't help the situation either.

 

[strawman]

Leaving aside the issue of culture (which I believe is a key to the difference in educational systems), let's approach the testing issue.

How are we to understand whether a teacher is effective if we do not test the children that they educate?

By separating the testing from the education, don't you give bad teachers the ability to continue teaching poorly?

Further, you seem to be of the opinion that teaching kids to pass the tests is inferior to teaching them to... well, you don't really specify. Are you saying that tests cannot be designed to determine a student's understanding of and ability to apply material they've learned?

It seems to me that if I teach my children to add two numbers between 1 and 49, then give them a sheet of such problems and record the number of problems they successfully solved, then I'd have a pretty good idea of how well I taught them to perform the calculation, and how well they learned the teaching. If I taught 300 kids from all backgrounds, and had them take the same test, then on an individual scale I could see how they did, and on a holistic scale I can see how I did as a teacher.

But then, the feedback loop is still present in the Asian system you describe. If a school's students start failing the tests, parents will either make the school fix the problem, or take their children to a different school, correct? So the teachers there must also teach to the tests.

 

[Cajungal]

We discussed accountability in my checkout seminar. One of our professors gave a presentation on a newer way to grade teachers. If a student exceeds expectations, then it counts in a teacher's favor. If a student performs below expectations, it counts against. Basically, for grades 4-9, they take an average of how a kid is performing and comes up with a projected score. If a child scores higher, then you subtract the actual score from the projected score, and that number is a way of showing how much progress a teacher helped to occur. The idea is that we'll start to see that, while more affluent schools generally have higher test scores, we'll be able to see if the teachers and/or students are simply stagnating. By the same token, even if a poorer school gets lower test scores, we'll be able to see what improvements were made. In this way, a teacher in a class full of average students might be graded higher than a teacher in a class full of students who have the benefit of more attention at home and more resources. It was interesting.

 

[strawman]

Interesting! We have our kids at charter schools, and they take tests at the beginning of the year to gauge their current level, then at the end. Regardless of their absolute performance, we get a very good picture of how much they improved throughout the year. This is especially helpful because our kids typically perform above grade level, and if they only improved to being average at each report card we can discuss it with the school and find out what happened.

While absolute performance is important, I'd rather see teachers graded on how well kids improved over the year, so you can get an idea of the velocity of learning, rather than the position of learning.

 

[Chibibar]

FLP: I was a student teacher for developmental math so my experience are limited to students who are poor performers.

when I say the teachers are teaching for the test, they are teaching on HOW to take the test (best test taking methods and answers) there are very few lessons on the background on why things work. Just old fashion "learn and get" method. Also, if a student is doing poorly, they are toss aside to let someone else handle it cause it will "effect the grades" on the test. The teachers are so worry about getting good scores that students with needs can't get help cause no one want to get "bad scores" on their pool to bring down the average.

This is from the interview I require to do from my alumni school. My teachers who I had before said it is a different world today due to assessment testing.

I was helping one my prof on developmental math for grade 10. I was shocked on how little these student know and don't understand how a simple formula like 2X = 12 works. Much less if I give them 2X + 3Y = 24. Or even trying to explain the concept of why we use X or how the though process behind it.

 

[Tress]

I hate that, as a history teacher, my assessment and students' assessments come down to a multiple-choice test. A multiple-choice test is probably the least effective way to gauge whether or not a student has learned from a history class. It works well for math, not so much for history.

 

[Cajungal]

So true. My best history teacher never asked us one multiple choice question. He told us every day not to think about it as being penalized for what we don't know. It was about being given as much credit as possible for what we did know and giving us a chance to explain how we had learned something.

 

[strawman]

Well, if all they taught was test taking methods, then sure, there's a problem. I don't have a problem with spending some time teaching students how to excel on standardized testing, though. I knew students that were great at homework, studying, work groups, and discussing the subject, but couldn't perform in a testing situation. In fact, some of the techniques to help people test well are simply time management effort focus techniques that can help them significantly down the road in work situations. Scanning the whole test and doing the problems you understand first, then hitting the problems that require some effort, then hitting those that you aren't sure how to approach makes a lot of sense when you're applying the same principles to deciding how to order your own work day.

That's not to say that a teacher should simply sit in a room, recite all the possible test questions and answers, and give a practice test every day.

I'm on the fence about teaching "why things work." There simply isn't enough time for a teacher to successfully teach the theory behind even 10% of the lessen material, nevermind all of it. There's a few levels of learning we have to be aware of:

Knowledge - Knowing some collection of information, and being able to recite it on command
Analysis - Applying knowledge to an existing "thing", understanding which knowledge applies to it, being able to apply that knowledge, and being able to define and understand the thing
Synthesis - Being able to understand a thing and the knowledge that applies to it well enough to change it, recreate it differently, or combine it or parts of it with some other thing to create a new thing

Dividing the subject up into portions of the lesson which will only teach knowledge vs portions where they'll teach analysis, vs portions where they'll teach synthesis is hard work. Defining a curriculum is not trivial. I think what people are concerned about is that once the tests were defined, teachers started changing the curriculum to address the tests.

I'm fine with that, as long as the tests represent what we want our kids to be learning. Does the test truly measure the analysis and synthesis capabilities of the student, or just the knowledge?

As long as the test defines what we want our kids to learn, then why wouldn't we want our teachers to "teach to the test"?

Is the problem that the tests aren't good at measuring true ability? Because if they are, then there should be no reason to complain.

 

[North_Ranger]

Back when I was in middle school and high school, our history teachers told us that it's not so important that we remember what happened; that's how you get a passing grade. The real crux is understanding how and why. Why did X happen? How did it impact Y? I found that refreshing after elementary school, where history was pretty much tanking up dates and events, not so much about the hows or whys.

As an English teacher, I have been told that our job is not actually to teach the kids to speak and write English. At least in elementary school the big challenge is creating an interest in the language, supporting the children as they start to try and use English themselves. If they make some mistakes, it's not as important as if one can understand what they are saying. Unfortunately some children seem to have this idea that if you aren't sure, you shouldn't even try using English. I had most trouble getting the pupils out of that state of mind, particularly if they had huddled together into a mass that supported one another in saying "I dunno".

 

[Chibibar]

FLP: I totally agree, but right now (at least like I said from the developmental teacher point of view) the test doesn't reflect it. We are trying to hard to teach the kids on how to take the test (elimination and get the best answer possible) so the teachers don't lose their job from poor performance. That is when I was student teaching.

Now I work in community college and we deal with kids who just graduate from high school who knew LESS math than I did, but manage to pass the test (since that is what they are taught) and have less knowledge on math. Our developmental math courses are filled each semester and have TONS of courses for them ( some even broken down to 2 sections or more) it is insane. that is just math. I won't go into English courses and history.

Now, the average student manage to remember some things, but generally need to learn all over again when they get to college level.

 

[strawman]

Well, if the test is bad, then all bets are off. It's the same in programming. If you don't know what to test for, and how best to test it, you're going to release terrible software.

 

[Chibibar]

Well, if the test is bad, then all bets are off. It's the same in programming. If you don't know what to test for, and how best to test it, you're going to release terrible software.

Yea. but unfortunately, the people making the test "swear" by that it is great stuff and people who are in power to make decision make the teacher work for it. Of course it doesn't help when the government said "no child left behind" with no money. Heck, right now, our community college are getting budget CUT across the board and we are trying to survive with less Government funding (at least in Texas it is official we are getting around 10% cut at least)

 

[MindDetective]

I'm okay with using testing (or CG's) methods for evaluating teachers, as long as the tests actually measure what is intended well.

 

[sixpackshaker]

One thing that troubled me when it came to the standardized testing, the teacher AND student should see some reward/loss for pass/fail. I never liked the idea of giving a rebellious teenager the power to bite me in the ass, if he will not suffer for failing the test.

 

[Cajungal]

I'm okay with using testing (or CG's) methods for evaluating teachers, as long as the tests actually measure what is intended well.

That's the big problem. The assessments developed by teachers in the classroom are far better than the ones developed by nameless, faceless people who know more about theory than practice.

 

[Chibibar]

I'm okay with using testing (or CG's) methods for evaluating teachers, as long as the tests actually measure what is intended well.

That's the big problem. The assessments developed by teachers in the classroom are far better than the ones developed by nameless, faceless people who know more about theory than practice.[/QUOTE]

Yea.. and those faceless people are the one calling the shots.

 

[Cajungal]

DAMN THEM! *fist shake*