Ctrl Alt Del Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 WASHINGTON (AP) — Barack Obama promised Tuesday to double funding for charter schools, pay teachers based on performance and replace those who aren't up to the job, embracing education proposals normally more popular with Republican candidates. The Democratic presidential nominee says both parties must work together to improve education in a pitch to independent voters in this presidential election swing state, where the fight over education reform has been the focus of a longtime partisan battle. It was the first of two days that Obama was spending on education policy. Source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-09-09-obama-education_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip I'd like to focus on one of the measures announced by Obama here; the capitalization of the professoriate. The question is: can we truly rate a teacher's performance? On the condition of son to two college professors I daresay, no. A similar approach has been implemented on Brazil some eons ago. Didn't worked. Several reasons were attributed to this failure. Although we can't quite compare the education system of a country with pitiable instruction reports (even more so on the past) with a first world country (with, actually, not good results on education either), I believe a line can be drawn here. First and foremost, what's the occupation of teaching means? Is a teacher just an automaton that stands on a classroom throwing facts about diverse subjects to his students? If that's the case, we might just as well leave the teaching to a robot. After all, he won't forget stuff, won't get annoyed, tired or even ask for a raise. But I believe the office is a little more than that. How to judge the quality of teaching of such professional? 'Oh, we can apply uniformed exams to his pupils', some might say. Really, now? The teacher can be as good as you get, but, ultimately, if the apprentice is studing or not is beyond his reach. And that's assuming that you can prevent the teaching body to cheat somehow - either by giving the answers to their students or in another fashion - because no one looks forward to lose his job, especially not during a crisis period. I think it's only fair to conclude with something Adam Smith himself left us with; that everything should be controlled by the market, except the occupation of teacher. Judging by this, I can see his motives quite well. Thoughts, contributions, divergent opinions? Dissertate, please. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrrtoken Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 The possibility for "school selection" won't work at all, really. That will only create a deeper gap between "educated" and "uneducated". If they really want to improve the system, every school must have equal yet high standards, which means a consistent, national standard of curriculum, rather than each state deciding what is "acceptable" for a student to learn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EnderWiggin Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 If they really want to improve the system, every school must have equal yet high standards, which means a consistent, national standard of curriculum, rather than each state deciding what is "acceptable" for a student to learn. Rather lovely in principle - horrible in execution. _EW_ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ForeverNight Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 I dunno... I would think that it would be possible to rate a teacher on several subjects, such as kids passing, comprehension, MCA/BST/ANY TEST score's to kid, or, maybe, the breakdown of grades in the classroom... There's not that much concrete stuff that you can do this on... Maybe getting rid of Tenure? I don't see what good it does, and there are -at least in my School District- several crappy teachers who are 'protected' with Tenure... Maybe somebody could explain to me why Tenure's a good thing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EnderWiggin Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 Maybe somebody could explain to me why Tenure's a good thing? It makes teachers feel safe inside _EW_ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrrtoken Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 Rather lovely in principle - horrible in execution.That's why I have little faith in this initiative... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Web Rider Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 Honestly, who would rate teachers? If it were my college? Every department would be failing every other department because they're all out to get each other. The same sort of thing happens in schools, and are we to let students rate teachers? Yeah, that's gonna work[/sarcasm]. I don't think standardized tests are going to help, kids are so bogged down with tests these days, they learn more about the correct answer to #5 than the actual materials that will make them know and understand WHY it's the correct answer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ctrl Alt Del Posted March 14, 2009 Author Share Posted March 14, 2009 Honestly, who would rate teachers? If it were my college? Every department would be failing every other department because they're all out to get each other. The same sort of thing happens in schools, and are we to let students rate teachers? Yeah, that's gonna work[/sarcasm]. I don't think standardized tests are going to help, kids are so bogged down with tests these days, they learn more about the correct answer to #5 than the actual materials that will make them know and understand WHY it's the correct answer. Those are my views. You can bring a funny and/or younger teacher to the classroom and most likely the students will like him very much, thank you. His capabilities notwithstanding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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