Lets Decimate our Public Schools

Decimation is the practice of losing 10% of a force or whatever...with the public school systems I think we should test every teacher every year on their subjects, and the bottom 10% of test takers should be terminated and replaced with better teachers. We can do this every year, assuring we have the best and brightest teaching our young people. Any complaints? We wouldn't be testing their kids, we would be testing them directly. Multiple choice.

 

Is a test the best way to gauge a good teach. I always did great on standardized tests but I'd make a terrible teacher. Why don't we give more power back to the parents and enable school choice.

 

I am all for school choice, but at the middle and high school level knowing the material is important. Today's teacher's come from the bottom 20% of a very large college class. This isn't a good formula for success. The worst 10% of teachers if they are in that group two years in a row then? It shows more then just "poor test taking", which is BS for the most part, (dont study and you will become a bad test taker too), it shows lack of knowledge to score in the bottom 10% twice in a row.

 

Privatize all the public schools and make them compete against each other for students. The best schools will survive, and the bad schools will close down for lack of business.

 

There's nobody out there to replace them. Also, knowledge of subject does not necessarily equal ability to teach the subject. My son has a teacher who has great command of the subject matter, but he can bore me in a 5 minute presentation (and I have a much higher attention span than a 8th grader). He would pass your test, but still needs to be fired.

 

Plenty of people

But lack of knowledge does equal inability to teach it.

Among teachers currently teaching, do you think he will progress more if the teachers have greater subject knowledge, or less subject knowledge?

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Also good, but lets just say for now school choice doesnt get passed. Do you like the decimation idea?

 

If you're looking to attract the top of the class for teaching, you'll need to convert the system to one resembling Finland's or South Korea's.

It would probably require some major cultural changes as well. Teaching doesn't get much respect in our culture as compared to those countries.

 

If you want to run schools by a free market model, then you need to acknowledge the fact that in the free market, people fall through the cracks.

If you are fine with there being children who never receive any kind of education, then this model works.

 

Not really, not with credentials. My wife is in school admin. They have a hard time finding qualified people for two or three positions each summer. They usually (about half the time) have to do a second job posting on the hiring site because they don't find someone qualfied.

Depends on the subject. I could teach history or literature despite having little knowledge of the subject. Just need to stay ahead of the kids on it. Math, most science and writing, I do agree require subject matter knowledge. Without the ability to relay the information, knowledge is useless. My son would be better off in a class with a teacher who didn't know the subject well than one that turns him off the subject due to inability to teach.

Without the ability to relay the information, knowledge is useless. My son would be better off in a class with a teacher who didn't know the subject as well than the expert that turns him off the subject due to inability to teach.


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I don't. It doesn't address a teacher's job. I think a better approach would be to give principal's more free reign in firing people. My wife can usually tell how effective a teacher is in a week at her school. She should be able to fire them freely the first two months of school.

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Cultural changes is the only thing that would work.

 

The problem is that some students are going to be ruined in the bad schools, and if they've been to a bad school it will be almost impossible for them to get into a good school.

 

What a joke this is, you think kids are getting educated in public schools? Maybe they are in white neighborhoods, but in black and Hispanic neighborhoods, no they are not getting educated.

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Black and Hispanic kids are getting no education in the bad public schools they are trapped in. You don't even know that?

 

They can get a good education at any public school in this country if they want it. You think people are going to want to operate private schools in those areas of town?

 

I disagree. Teachers who are just staying ahead of the kids are not providing good teaching.
A deep knowledge of the content is important because of the experience and insights that knowledge is based on, and the teaching will include the more inspiring qualities that a master brings to the table.
But good teaching is much more than subject knowledge, and at the lower grades, the classroom teacher must be not only a subject generalist but also a caring and inspiring manager of children at their most formative moments. You can't pay those people enough for the value they are capable of adding to society, but they are ignored while celebrities and sportsmen are glorified.
There are indeed some incompetent teachers, but the idiot comments from people who know nothing about teaching beyond their mindless stereotypes and ignorant prejudices is part of the problem, not the solution.

 

The problem is, with on-going budget cuts, some teachers are having to teach more than one or two subjects. Depending on the size of the school, he may have to teach five totally different classes. You want to test him on all of those subjects? Additionally, a lot of decent teachers have just packed up and quit, never to teach again. My wife and myself both quit early on because the profession had turned to crap. There are a helluva lot easier ways to make a living and make more $$$ at the same time.

 

What happens to the communities whose public schools are fine as they are? Would you impose privatization by force?

 

How can you privatize something by force? At best you could remove all public funding and close the school and the people could collectively purchase the school and fund it voluntarily. The only way you could by force stop that from happening is to use the government to make such a thing illegal.

Nothing private is "by force" the government has a monopoly on that.

 

No. There are a lot of variables that go into a "good class." For instance the quality of the students. Highly sought after teachers get the "brighter" students while everyone gets the leftovers. You also have to factor in curriculm, and how sometimes the teachers teacher other subjects as well. A teacher who might have had one bad class but another really good one, what does that mean then? And we need to look at the mental effects this has. You lose your friends every year under this system and it's tough dealing with that. There's also this enormous amount of pressure to do better, that in the end will only cause students to forget things after a year.

 

If public education funding stopped taking slashes every chance neocons get, you'd probably see many more great teachers. It's the same with any industry...you only get what you pay for.

 

This is because of white-flight and preferential funding towards white neighborhoods. It's institutionalized racism and is primarily perpetrated by GOP members that are pushing for privatized everything in order to enforce white privilege.

 

No, bad teachers get pay raises all the time, the unions demand it. Public education is at historic highs. This is a fact. You are wrong.

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Detroit and Washington DC are among the most highly funded districts and the worst schools are also well above national funding. They are failures. Denying vouchers and keeping children there is institutionalized racism maybe, Demicrats do run all of these places.

 

Really? Why do we have (*)(*)(*)(*)ty education compared to other countries that pay their teachers 2-5 times more in salary than our own? Teaching is THE single most important job in the country but it doesn't produce immediate profits so it gets funding cut every year. The big wigs need to wake up and realize that teachers are an investment and the payoffs are amazing.

 

That is fine, but not to the point. The point is, do you want the top 90% retained or is the bottom 10% good enough for our kids? We can fire them for being incompetent teachers too of need be, but shouldn't they excel at the subject matter they teach?

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What nations are you referring too? Will the bad teachers go if we give another raise? Are you including benefits in your tally? Has there every been a time we paid more for education?

Why do you want the dumbest 10% in their field retained? If you want better teachers?

 

you're mistaking pay and benefits for tenure. Most teachers fought for tenure, not pay...this is where you're misrepresenting things.

Edited to add the study that underfunded public education made possible your inability to look things up...

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/sep/11/education-compared-oecd-country-pisa

 

If she hires qualified people they are not likely to test in the bottom 10% are they? Not the 10% worst in each school. Statewide.

You shouldn't teach. You should be able to expound on ideas and give depth to knowledge. Not recite a text book. Keep your day job. Please, it is for the kids.

Your on the left, what do you know of math? Stick to creative writing.

False dichotomy. Why are all the teachers suddenly incompetent just because the 10% who are the least knowledgeable in their fields are dismissed? They can still be dismissed for sucking for other reasons.

withouth the knowledge....didnt you have some teachers that knew their subject better then others? once ? ever? or were all perfectly equal?

False dichotomy. Why not just say, "well if they shoot heroin but are super smart my son would be better off with the dumbest 10% of teachers then that guy"? Why do the new hires suck worse then the ones they hired last time?

Agreed. Take it up with the unions.

Don't hold your breath while those kids go stupid.

 

I'm pretty sure we aren't getting what we pay for.

http://mercatus.org/publication/k-12-spending-student-oecd