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Harryk

wrote:
On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 11:32:51 -0400,
wrote:

wrote:
On Sun, 27 Mar 2011 23:03:24 -0700, wrote:

On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 01:49:47 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 27 Mar 2011 10:37:33 -0700, wrote:

It is a strange comment from a person who believes in the unions and
their policy of paying the oldest and longest serving employees the
most, regardless of performance.
Who believes that? I don't think you'll find anyone who does.
School teachers.
Nonsense. They believe performance does matter, and they're sick of
teaching to tests that don't teach kids anything useful except maybe
how to take tests.
Taking tests is a very important skill but these teachers do not want
their salary tied to any measure of performance. They want to be paid
by credentials and time in grade.
Make that sound reasonable to me..
A totally out of touch teacher with 20 years on the job and a PhD, who
gets horrible results, makes 3 times as much as a new teacher who
connects with the kids and really gets something done in the
classroom. That is ridiculous.
Too many variables in your argument. You're making assumptions the kids
in each class are pretty much the same kids, with the same home life.
When I was in public school, the older, more experienced teachers were
by far the better teachers.

I did not have that experience with the older teachers and if you are
paying for the degree of improvement, kids at risk present more
opportunity.

No matter what guide you use, old teachers still resist. any system
that does not simply pay for credentials and time in grade. They are
also the ones who tend to run the education establishment so it will
be hard to change that from within.

A problem with judging teachers who handle "kids at risk" is that the
teachers have absolutely no control over what happens outside of the
classroom and school. Teachers cannot force kids or their parents into
the correct behavior at home. Teachers cannot control the environment at
the kid's home.

A hybrid system might work...X amount of pay for experience and
credentials, and Y amount above that for producing classes with Z
results, assuming the "Z" results are reasonable, attainable, measurable
and within the purview of the teacher.