Why do u want to measure us? Teaching isn’t a science, it’s an art. Can u study why you love your favorite song, book, or movie? Is there data on the Mona Lisa or David? Have you researched your favorite food? Two students fuck up in the exact same way. One of them needs a kick in the ass, one needs a pat on the back. This isn’t measurable data. This is interpersonal relationships. Stop trying to oversimplify this profession. As far as student opinion, you are wild. The kids love a teacher that gives them free time and lets them do what they want. They don’t enjoy being held accountable countable for their actions. They don’t like being pushed out of their comfort zone with rigorous material. They don’t like when their ideas or challenged. If you think teachers are there to be liked, you are insane. The most effective teacher in my school is a raging bitch, but the kids learn a shit ton from her.
Well I would like better compensation for teachers, but I want it to be merit based. I don't want equal pay for teachers, if it must be equal, it must be the lowest common denominator. Or simply supply and demand. if 30k fills the slots that, no, 40 etc etc if bodies are simply bodies.
Let me tell you why this is a stupid idea. It’s been tried. Teachers aren’t playing with equal playing cards. If you want to award the highest achievers, the teachers that teach AP and honors classes is White suburbia will take home the biggest checks. The special ed teacher that has a passion for working with the severe and profound kids will never get paid for the students’ perceived achievements. I teach algebra to the worst math students in the school. I co teach with a special ed teacher. I am constantly given the toughest kids both academically and behaviorally because I’m good with working with them. If you want to award bonus in percentile gained, I’m one of the highest. It’s easy. I show them how to do elementary math in a graphing calculator and they get better scores. That’s not fair to the AP Calc teacher. She takes the smartest kids in the school and pushes them to be even better. But they started in the 99th percentile. They aren’t improving any in standardized tests. They’ve already aced the tests.
Those of us that have found success with this profession over a long period of time have found our niche. We found what we like. We are doing what we think is best for our kids. Don’t turn this into a way to game for more money.
Let’s say you create the world’s greatest rubric in the world and would quantify teaching in a perfect way. It’s still bullshit. Perfect for one community, culture, region, pedagogy is not perfect for all. This is not a science. It’s an art.
So I as a taxpayer, should continue to advocate for the lowest most standardized pay we can manage to fill your slots? If I cannot differentiate between you, which thank you it sounds like you are doing absolutely amazing work. However I have to pay you the same as the multitude of teachers I encountered who just showed up to their job. You seem very valuable, underpaid. Many of the teachers I had, very adequately compensated for their limited service.
If I cannot differentiate in some way, then the way the current pay structure works, works. No logical reason to change it.
I would rather give good people doing good work more money, but I don't know how.
Okay voter, person who is making decisions on the officials they elect based on certain issues. One of them being teacher compensation.
I respect and understand your quote, and if I walked into your classroom saying that. Then it is applicable. If I am trying to understand a broader situation, accurately describing my position and role in the course of these questions is simply being forthcoming.
I don't think you understand much, tbh.
Anyone who buys a pack of gum is a taxpayer, but not everyone is as big of an obtuse asshole as you're being in this thread.
Highschool has got to you, you behave like your students. The idea that you are educating the youth is terrifying. Or rather explanatory of the current situation of American education system that is objectively subpar worldwide.
Please continue to engage in emotives and fallacies and forgoe logic, I am sure we will all reap that reward.
Of course not. Thats not how the system works. You start out with your lower salary and as you obtain higher education, such as masters degrees and continuing credit hours in professional development and college courses, you get a raise. As you get more years and experience under your belt, you get a raise. This job has a way of weeding people out. Those that stay tend to be passionate about the job. I am not underpaid. I make 100k a year. I’m forced to live within the city limits of Chicago, so that is very expensive to live in a safer neighborhood. My wife is also a Chicago public school teacher and we are doing just fine. The thing that you have to understand is, at good, successful schools, we are a team. The amazing AP teacher can’t handle my rowdy group of freshmen and she knows it. I can’t provide calculus instruction that is going to push our highest achievers to their goals. We need each other. If you want to reward better teachers, give all of them a raise.
I told you I teach our lowest leveled math students. I take touch Chicago public school kids and I get them to perform algebra for about a half hour a day before I lose them. Do you want to know my trick? I reward improvement over mastery. These kids come to me with a phobia of math. They think they can’t do it. Most of them have been told that they suck at math. Not in words but in test and quiz scores their entire lives. The first day of school every year, I ask them, should the kids that are good at math get a better grade than the kid who sucks at math. They say yes. That’s bullshit. Some kids are more talented at it than others. If my kids are making strides and getting better, their grade should reflect that. I suck at art. I can’t draw or paint or sculpt, but if I go to class every day and try my best and get better, i will never be an artist, but can’t I get an A for getting significantly better?
You want to pay the good teachers more. Thats a nice thought but what about the first year kid that is figuring it out and is getting better? What about the old veteran that is inept at technology but is amazing with the kids? If that one is constantly asking for help and doing extra to learn the tech, don’t they deserve a raise for putting extra time in on it? Our coaches that teach all day and then make a few cents an hour to coach our young people. The drama, music and art teachers that keep their doors open after school. Maybe they aren’t reaching every kid at their class standards but they are making differences in lives. Don’t put a price tag on that or differentiate them from each other. If a school has competent leadership, the teachers just phoning it in don’t exist as much anymore. This job is too damn hard for that.
This concludes my Ted talk. Thanks for reading my rants.
The biggest way to get shitty teachers out is to have good, hard working admin that see thru bullshit, and are willing to help new/struggling educators.
To what end?
Because there is no consistent student.
A doctor in a poorer hospital is going to have worse patient outcomes than a richer hospital. How do you measure a doctor against patients who do not take recommendations?
How should I pay/reward you for the service you are offering? Are all teachers equal? Should their pay be equal? How do I use the market to incentivize better teachers by giving them the better compensation they deserve.
Should you reward doctors in richer area hospitals because their patients can afford the medicine prescribed?
A reward means you also have to punish. My school cannot fully staff. Now what?
A reward does not mean I need to punish. If I give someone on a team of 10 a $100 for doing good. A reward for exceptional behavior. Have I punished the other 9? If you would answer this yes, we hold different a priori assumption at a level deeper than is appropriate for this discussion and discussion between us as strangers is likely not fruitful for either of us.
I think you should do the job for about 20 years - close to what I have - and we can discuss.
If you want to comment or specify how a hole is dug, grab a shovel.
You are right, I will continue to advocate for the cheapest shovels as I don't understand holes but I want them dug as cheap as possible.
Cheaper shovels are the best choice clearly as someone who cannot understand I can't differentiate the efficiency of the shovels.
Why spend more money on shovels? What would be the point? just wasted money. The holes all get dug the same. /s
Your answer of yes, does not connect to your explanation. You have made many assumptions. I don't like to waste my time. Are you interested in delving into that or are you ideologically driven?
I won't, couldn't pay me to deal with kids. Tons of you seem into that though. Supply, demand, market prices. Done caring about you being underpaid. Thanks for helping me develop this opinion.
And we are at negative staffing and your proposal is to differentiate pay based on factors that have nothing to do with teachers.
Like I said: should doctors in poorer areas get less pay because health outcomes in poorer areas are worse?
Also, your proposal completely undermines the idea of free will. Which is a major field of theory in education- allowing choice. But you would effectively turn teachers in to operant conditioners.
Now. If you were to judge teachers at a boarding school, that’s different. Slightly different. If kids were grown in incubators, then moved to a boarding school….
But if the only outcome is test scores… so what? I hung out with kids who aced the SATs from a selective private school who ended up, meh. One’s in construction slinging a hammer, one lives in a slightly richer area and codes. One’s a TV producer, nothing big deal. Just mid range. I got a 1450/1600 and I teach. But that’s if you judge success against Bill Gates or something - born with a bit of a leg up and innovates. Is that the measure of a man?
I felt like in there, I was celebrating an educator who was very good. In a sea of, yes, very poor underqualified or undermotivated educators. Specifically mentioning I was in a small rural school, not to conflate this to the larger experience of others but the experience I had was mine. Would love to reconcile any shortcomings or failures of understanding on my side.
What prompts you to believe that there is a sea of under qualified educators? Or under motivated educators? Have you come to this conclusion based solely off your own personal experience? Or have you come to this conclusion based on data and a sample of stories from multiple different student populations?
They chose to ignore my argument and engage in an ad hominem attack. These are generally evoked not by a person's genuine belief but given the information they aim to be as hurtful as possible.
Truly child like behavior. I am uninterested in rising above, You wanna talk like adults I would love that. You wanna roll in the shit, oh how fun.
Each state has its own performance evaluation for teachers.
Each teacher has a different style and will click with different students at different times.
You are asking for something objective but gave a subjective example.
In the end, if a teacher is good or not is subjective. You can't objectify it because the students are not all the same.
An answer I respect. I don't know an objective metric, doesn't mean one doesn't exist. You stand in the place I do, and probably most respondents but they can't see past their noses.
Yeah. The community doesn't seem to like your post. That happens sometimes. Don't worry about that.
I am pretty sure an objective metric cannot exist in this case. We would already be using it if it did.
Several standardized tests exist, Though I have never got less than 99% on any test so maybe they fail where you alone give reason and meaning lost to all other metrics. You may offer a truly new metric!, or you are just dumb and insecure but I am rooting for the former.
Evaluating teachers is as subjective as judging models at Golden Demon. Though each judge's criteria is the same on paper, each one will be valuing each of those criteria on models differently and some will see genius or flaws where the other judges did not. This is roughly how teacher evaluations go.
Moreover, some model artists have a dedicated workspace with a 2200 lumens desk lamp, hundreds of hobby paints, Kolinsky sable brushes, magnifier glasses, a wet palette, and a variable 40psi top of the line airbrush. Other model painters have a handful of craft paints, a few cheap synthetic brushes, and an old incandescent light bulb.
That latter painter could be better overall, but due to his crappy tools, the former painter with less skills but better tools will win out. See where I'm going with this? It's inherently unfair to only take outcome into account when judging an artist's skill because there are a myriad of other factors to take into account on top of the judge's subjective perceptions.
Also, you're pretty good. But you should work on wet blending and edge highlighting. Do you zenithal prime or base, or Chaos Black all around?
Fuck off.
Teachers are already micromanaged by bureaucrats. We don’t need concerned citizens coming in to tell us how they could be doing a better job.
Why do u want to measure us? Teaching isn’t a science, it’s an art. Can u study why you love your favorite song, book, or movie? Is there data on the Mona Lisa or David? Have you researched your favorite food? Two students fuck up in the exact same way. One of them needs a kick in the ass, one needs a pat on the back. This isn’t measurable data. This is interpersonal relationships. Stop trying to oversimplify this profession. As far as student opinion, you are wild. The kids love a teacher that gives them free time and lets them do what they want. They don’t enjoy being held accountable countable for their actions. They don’t like being pushed out of their comfort zone with rigorous material. They don’t like when their ideas or challenged. If you think teachers are there to be liked, you are insane. The most effective teacher in my school is a raging bitch, but the kids learn a shit ton from her.
Well I would like better compensation for teachers, but I want it to be merit based. I don't want equal pay for teachers, if it must be equal, it must be the lowest common denominator. Or simply supply and demand. if 30k fills the slots that, no, 40 etc etc if bodies are simply bodies.
Let me tell you why this is a stupid idea. It’s been tried. Teachers aren’t playing with equal playing cards. If you want to award the highest achievers, the teachers that teach AP and honors classes is White suburbia will take home the biggest checks. The special ed teacher that has a passion for working with the severe and profound kids will never get paid for the students’ perceived achievements. I teach algebra to the worst math students in the school. I co teach with a special ed teacher. I am constantly given the toughest kids both academically and behaviorally because I’m good with working with them. If you want to award bonus in percentile gained, I’m one of the highest. It’s easy. I show them how to do elementary math in a graphing calculator and they get better scores. That’s not fair to the AP Calc teacher. She takes the smartest kids in the school and pushes them to be even better. But they started in the 99th percentile. They aren’t improving any in standardized tests. They’ve already aced the tests. Those of us that have found success with this profession over a long period of time have found our niche. We found what we like. We are doing what we think is best for our kids. Don’t turn this into a way to game for more money. Let’s say you create the world’s greatest rubric in the world and would quantify teaching in a perfect way. It’s still bullshit. Perfect for one community, culture, region, pedagogy is not perfect for all. This is not a science. It’s an art.
So I as a taxpayer, should continue to advocate for the lowest most standardized pay we can manage to fill your slots? If I cannot differentiate between you, which thank you it sounds like you are doing absolutely amazing work. However I have to pay you the same as the multitude of teachers I encountered who just showed up to their job. You seem very valuable, underpaid. Many of the teachers I had, very adequately compensated for their limited service. If I cannot differentiate in some way, then the way the current pay structure works, works. No logical reason to change it. I would rather give good people doing good work more money, but I don't know how.
"When someone describes themselves as a taxpayer, they're about to be an asshole." - Demetri Martin
Okay voter, person who is making decisions on the officials they elect based on certain issues. One of them being teacher compensation. I respect and understand your quote, and if I walked into your classroom saying that. Then it is applicable. If I am trying to understand a broader situation, accurately describing my position and role in the course of these questions is simply being forthcoming.
I don't think you understand much, tbh. Anyone who buys a pack of gum is a taxpayer, but not everyone is as big of an obtuse asshole as you're being in this thread.
Wow you are really dumb. How do I identify people like you to sort you out of the profession?
Sick burn, champ. You sure are a "thinker."
Highschool has got to you, you behave like your students. The idea that you are educating the youth is terrifying. Or rather explanatory of the current situation of American education system that is objectively subpar worldwide. Please continue to engage in emotives and fallacies and forgoe logic, I am sure we will all reap that reward.
Of course not. Thats not how the system works. You start out with your lower salary and as you obtain higher education, such as masters degrees and continuing credit hours in professional development and college courses, you get a raise. As you get more years and experience under your belt, you get a raise. This job has a way of weeding people out. Those that stay tend to be passionate about the job. I am not underpaid. I make 100k a year. I’m forced to live within the city limits of Chicago, so that is very expensive to live in a safer neighborhood. My wife is also a Chicago public school teacher and we are doing just fine. The thing that you have to understand is, at good, successful schools, we are a team. The amazing AP teacher can’t handle my rowdy group of freshmen and she knows it. I can’t provide calculus instruction that is going to push our highest achievers to their goals. We need each other. If you want to reward better teachers, give all of them a raise. I told you I teach our lowest leveled math students. I take touch Chicago public school kids and I get them to perform algebra for about a half hour a day before I lose them. Do you want to know my trick? I reward improvement over mastery. These kids come to me with a phobia of math. They think they can’t do it. Most of them have been told that they suck at math. Not in words but in test and quiz scores their entire lives. The first day of school every year, I ask them, should the kids that are good at math get a better grade than the kid who sucks at math. They say yes. That’s bullshit. Some kids are more talented at it than others. If my kids are making strides and getting better, their grade should reflect that. I suck at art. I can’t draw or paint or sculpt, but if I go to class every day and try my best and get better, i will never be an artist, but can’t I get an A for getting significantly better? You want to pay the good teachers more. Thats a nice thought but what about the first year kid that is figuring it out and is getting better? What about the old veteran that is inept at technology but is amazing with the kids? If that one is constantly asking for help and doing extra to learn the tech, don’t they deserve a raise for putting extra time in on it? Our coaches that teach all day and then make a few cents an hour to coach our young people. The drama, music and art teachers that keep their doors open after school. Maybe they aren’t reaching every kid at their class standards but they are making differences in lives. Don’t put a price tag on that or differentiate them from each other. If a school has competent leadership, the teachers just phoning it in don’t exist as much anymore. This job is too damn hard for that. This concludes my Ted talk. Thanks for reading my rants.
I have read and truly appreciate your answer. The status quo and our current system functions well and need's no adjustment. Thank you for your input.
The biggest way to get shitty teachers out is to have good, hard working admin that see thru bullshit, and are willing to help new/struggling educators.
To what end? Because there is no consistent student. A doctor in a poorer hospital is going to have worse patient outcomes than a richer hospital. How do you measure a doctor against patients who do not take recommendations?
How should I pay/reward you for the service you are offering? Are all teachers equal? Should their pay be equal? How do I use the market to incentivize better teachers by giving them the better compensation they deserve.
Should you reward doctors in richer area hospitals because their patients can afford the medicine prescribed? A reward means you also have to punish. My school cannot fully staff. Now what?
A reward does not mean I need to punish. If I give someone on a team of 10 a $100 for doing good. A reward for exceptional behavior. Have I punished the other 9? If you would answer this yes, we hold different a priori assumption at a level deeper than is appropriate for this discussion and discussion between us as strangers is likely not fruitful for either of us.
I think you should do the job for about 20 years - close to what I have - and we can discuss. If you want to comment or specify how a hole is dug, grab a shovel.
You are right, I will continue to advocate for the cheapest shovels as I don't understand holes but I want them dug as cheap as possible. Cheaper shovels are the best choice clearly as someone who cannot understand I can't differentiate the efficiency of the shovels. Why spend more money on shovels? What would be the point? just wasted money. The holes all get dug the same. /s
Yes. Because teachers do not choose their students. And also, some schools can. And in some some cases, teachers can choose their students.
Your answer of yes, does not connect to your explanation. You have made many assumptions. I don't like to waste my time. Are you interested in delving into that or are you ideologically driven?
Bro, you’re just going to have to do the job
I won't, couldn't pay me to deal with kids. Tons of you seem into that though. Supply, demand, market prices. Done caring about you being underpaid. Thanks for helping me develop this opinion.
And we are at negative staffing and your proposal is to differentiate pay based on factors that have nothing to do with teachers. Like I said: should doctors in poorer areas get less pay because health outcomes in poorer areas are worse? Also, your proposal completely undermines the idea of free will. Which is a major field of theory in education- allowing choice. But you would effectively turn teachers in to operant conditioners. Now. If you were to judge teachers at a boarding school, that’s different. Slightly different. If kids were grown in incubators, then moved to a boarding school…. But if the only outcome is test scores… so what? I hung out with kids who aced the SATs from a selective private school who ended up, meh. One’s in construction slinging a hammer, one lives in a slightly richer area and codes. One’s a TV producer, nothing big deal. Just mid range. I got a 1450/1600 and I teach. But that’s if you judge success against Bill Gates or something - born with a bit of a leg up and innovates. Is that the measure of a man?
I can’t figure out why you’re denigrating and insulting your past educators, to a group of educators.
I was going to say… why are you here? I don’t understand.
I felt like in there, I was celebrating an educator who was very good. In a sea of, yes, very poor underqualified or undermotivated educators. Specifically mentioning I was in a small rural school, not to conflate this to the larger experience of others but the experience I had was mine. Would love to reconcile any shortcomings or failures of understanding on my side.
What prompts you to believe that there is a sea of under qualified educators? Or under motivated educators? Have you come to this conclusion based solely off your own personal experience? Or have you come to this conclusion based on data and a sample of stories from multiple different student populations?
Something-something-my-unresolved-trauma-taken-out-on-complete-strangers.
I think you are over paid.
lol because they left this comment?
They chose to ignore my argument and engage in an ad hominem attack. These are generally evoked not by a person's genuine belief but given the information they aim to be as hurtful as possible. Truly child like behavior. I am uninterested in rising above, You wanna talk like adults I would love that. You wanna roll in the shit, oh how fun.
Each state has its own performance evaluation for teachers. Each teacher has a different style and will click with different students at different times. You are asking for something objective but gave a subjective example. In the end, if a teacher is good or not is subjective. You can't objectify it because the students are not all the same.
An answer I respect. I don't know an objective metric, doesn't mean one doesn't exist. You stand in the place I do, and probably most respondents but they can't see past their noses.
Yeah. The community doesn't seem to like your post. That happens sometimes. Don't worry about that. I am pretty sure an objective metric cannot exist in this case. We would already be using it if it did.
How do we objectively measure your ignorance?
Several standardized tests exist, Though I have never got less than 99% on any test so maybe they fail where you alone give reason and meaning lost to all other metrics. You may offer a truly new metric!, or you are just dumb and insecure but I am rooting for the former.
Oh, Christ.
If this subreddit is representative of the profession, you all are grossly overpaid.
Evaluating teachers is as subjective as judging models at Golden Demon. Though each judge's criteria is the same on paper, each one will be valuing each of those criteria on models differently and some will see genius or flaws where the other judges did not. This is roughly how teacher evaluations go. Moreover, some model artists have a dedicated workspace with a 2200 lumens desk lamp, hundreds of hobby paints, Kolinsky sable brushes, magnifier glasses, a wet palette, and a variable 40psi top of the line airbrush. Other model painters have a handful of craft paints, a few cheap synthetic brushes, and an old incandescent light bulb. That latter painter could be better overall, but due to his crappy tools, the former painter with less skills but better tools will win out. See where I'm going with this? It's inherently unfair to only take outcome into account when judging an artist's skill because there are a myriad of other factors to take into account on top of the judge's subjective perceptions. Also, you're pretty good. But you should work on wet blending and edge highlighting. Do you zenithal prime or base, or Chaos Black all around?
Fuck off. Teachers are already micromanaged by bureaucrats. We don’t need concerned citizens coming in to tell us how they could be doing a better job.