Anyway, AP students are generally the bright overachievers with big futures ahead of them (I’m an exception, it seems) and plenty of incentives to do well in class and take/pass the AP test. So, let’s be clear that this isn’t a program which rewards “exceptional” teachers so much as it is a program that rewards whichever teachers happen to be teaching AP-level classes. If you’re an awesome teacher working with lower-level students you’re not going to get anything, while even a mediocre AP teacher is virtually assured a bonus, since many of their students would pass the AP exam regardless. Indeed, I have little trouble imagining that were it the union promoting this sort of compensation scheme, folks here would be highlighting that very fact and claiming this is just a giveaway to senior teachers.

I mean, I’ll grant the point that it’s private money, but I think you can make a good argument that once the school district starts playing along by distributing it or releasing test scores to a private foundation, it becomes part of the overall compensation package.

what’s wrong with you people?!? you don’t by any chance happen to have six fingers on your right hands do you?

#26

#20
If you want your teachers pay based on test scores, then you have teachers that will only teach the kids to regurgitate for the test. While this may work in math and science, it will not work for subjects such as History or English where you want to kid to learn to think, not regurgitate.

Of all those categories I’d like kids to learn to actually think in, it’s science, by a landslide. Having a class on the history of science and calling it a science class is a cruel joke. A science class ought to be training students in the discipline of accurately separating truth from falsehood. A skill all too lacking nowadays.

Big, BIG, amen. Having taught seniors in science and math, it’s *amazing* how many have not been taught the ability to critically think, as opposed to simply learning “facts”. Thank you! to all the math teachers that made me do word problems and to all the science teachers that asked me, “what do *you* think?”

Entirely true. I worked in a unionized paper mill when I was a student, and the regular employees kept telling us to slow down. Unlike them, we didn’t know if we’d be called again the week after (we were temp workers).

The union was so strong there that guys were sleeping on the job in plain view of everyone. Dealing with the union grievance was more expensive than just letting them sleep and hiring a temp to make up for the lost work.

(Paper mill closed a few years ago, BTW.)

One thing that I find particularly mind boggling is the idea that the union is considered an authority on effective education and what’s best for the students. That’s like trusting foxes as an authority on what’s best for chickens or cops as an authority on what’s best for the accused.

It would seem to me that merit would be a result of “value added,” as in how much the teacher left the students better off as opposed to what a mediocre, or average, teacher would have done. I don`t know how exactly to measure this, but it would seem that any sensible plan to implement merit pay would start from this point.

My problem with the union here is not that they are opposed to the current structure of incentive bonuses. It is that they are opposed to the PRINCIPLE of incentive bonuses. They want their members, and hence their compensation, to be uniform (and mediocre) because outperformers arent wanted. Anyone who has ever excelled at a unionized job has felt this effect – other workers giving you the evil eye, or the union steward telling you to take it easy.

Of course, that can be extrapolated out to include the teacher’s influence in every success you have in life ever.

If my company pays me a bonus based upon how my team performed this year, that performance was influenced by every boss I’ve ever had, and prior to that, by every teacher I ever had. Similarly, my team’s ability to accomplish what I directed reflects me as a boss, all their previous bosses and all their teachers.

The long and the short of it is, none of those people owe me any money if I fail to earn the bonus, though clearly they all equally ‘influenced’ that failure.

Teacher’s don’t want to be held accountable for all the losers that pass through the schools, but they want props for the few winners. Perhaps it is the student as an individual that either accomplishes much or very little and it is all really just a reflection of them, not the teachers, when they do so.

The foundation should just rescind the bonus. Or give it to the most accomplished students instead.

First, what about other more talented teachers that don’t happen to teach AP courses. Hell, as someone pointed out earlier, some of those lower grade high school teachers may have more to do with those kids passing AP tests than their AP teachers. I finished high school with enough AP tests passed to avoid over 20 credits of college classes. But I’d only rate half of those AP teachers as some of the best teachers I had in high school.

Second, as soon as you implement a system where teachers receive bonuses based on standardized testing scores, it’s not that hard for higher ups in the school to stack the classes to benefit the teachers they like. Put all of the brightest kids in with one teacher, and that teacher looks fantastic, even if the kids really didn’t learn anything new that year because that teacher was horrible.

If public schools did not exist, this would actually be very easy to do.

A good school would be one that could attract and retain parents and students as customers. A bad school would be one that could not.

A good teacher would be one that could convince a good school to hire them, and that could keep a job at a good school once they had one. A bad teacher would be one who could not.

Cheap, easy and objective. The way we do it for every other occupation.

When I was a kid, teachers sent troublemakers out of the room so they didn’t impair the education of the rest of the kids. Today, in many Virginia schools, there is no place to send the kids; the principal’s office refuses to deal with them. So, the teachers are stuck with unruly kids in the classroom and everybody loses. By separating the education function from the discipline function, we would get much better education. That, of course, would require several staff positions and would cost money.

The point really is on topic: if teachers could concentrate on teaching, we would have better teachers. I have tutored chemistry and physics students with great success. I would love to teach, but I would never do so in the environment most schools provide.

If you want to measure the quality of a teacher, there is simply no cheap and easy and objective way to do it. I would suggest a combination of three factors.

1) Standardized test results
problem: teach to the test.
2) Parent and teacher comments
problem: bribery, financial and grades
3) Any teacher wanting to be considered for a bonus must submit lesson plans for evaluation, and an observer must drop in occasionally to observe how well the lesson plans are delivered. The observer would note how well the teacher engages the students, whether the teacher actually knows that days material in depth (or are they just reading the book). Also, does the teacher use the entire block of time effectively.A teacher must be scrutinized by different observers to avoid bias. Problem: it isn’t objective.

Finally, a committee would have to evaluate the results and pick winners. It would be far from perfect, but I think it better than nothing.

#20
If you want your teachers pay based on test scores, then you have teachers that will only teach the kids to regurgitate for the test. While this may work in math and science, it will not work for subjects such as History or English where you want to kid to learn to think, not regurgitate.

Of all those categories I’d like kids to learn to actually think in, it’s science, by a landslide. Having a class on the history of science and calling it a science class is a cruel joke. A science class ought to be training students in the discipline of accurately separating truth from falsehood. A skill all too lacking nowadays.