Their kids still have to take standardized tests. Their schools do not however have to follow the standarized lesson plans and other regulations that control how the teaching is done and the school is operated.
Fine, but I never hear complaint about standardized syllabi. That makes teachers' jobs easier. I only hear complaint of standardized tests. They make teachers' jobs accountable.
Samuel Adams Winter Lager = good. But it's Autumn.
2. I think we have to get away from the idea that what is really going to improve the education system or what is holding it back is the presence or absence of market forces. It masks an essentially punitive, non-constructive approach that ultimately makes reform more difficult. For instance, in a district near where I grew up a charter school opened. The attitude was to punish the main school by withdrawing funding for students sent to the charter school - so the two schools had an essentially adversarial relationship. The leadership of the public school harrassed, blocked and finally suceeded in closing the charter school.
See, its all a matter of perspective. Where you see "punitive," all I see is the inevitable result of loss of monopoly. Of COURSE there is going to be an adversarial relationship when there is more than one option, because they compete for a limited resource. Why should the public school continue getting the portion of funds devoted to the students that would have gone to the charter school? The fact that the public school quashed the charter school outside of the arena of actual merit isn't a flaw in the idea of competition, it's a flaw in the fact the public school had the power to do so.
Essentially, I think the issue is that if we really want to change education, we actually have to change it, and the teachers have no motivation to support that. I loathe the idea that we have to be stuck with the current crop of shitty teachers for the rest of their lives, so I'm behind the idea of adding more competition and shaking things up, adding better teachers and shedding any of the old teachers that aren't up to snuff or can't improve as we can. It's isn't an issue of being punitive, though I can see why the teachers would want to frame it as such, but simply letting the same forces that work in every other aspect work in our education system where they are sorely needed.
So basically the way I feel is this:
1. Your proposed reforms create structural resistance that can only be overcome through some kind of massive reform push that isn't likely to materialize, whereas mine is much easier to impliment.
2. The results of your approach have not really been shown to provide results except where the schools involved have employed my methods. What limited success charter schools have had has been through their liberation from curriculum regulation and teacher empowerment allowing them to creatively engage in their work.
I know it is killing you, but competition isn't really the silver bullet here. Comparitively painless structural reforms are.
The only reason it's bothering me is because your way is such a defeatist approach. We'll never be able to actually make the broad changes necessary, so lets see what kind of small changes we can work into the system without offending anyone to get little increases in performance. I look at the system and see something that is rapidly approaching unsalvageable, so while I may agree your ideas would bring about improvements, I disagree they're all that's needed.
I will add that none of the ideas I advocated have ever, or quite possibly will ever, been applied, so there's no grounds for saying my ideas would be traumatic but might work, while yours have been shown to work. We're both working from hypotheticals here, so there's no grounds for objective comparison. That being said, I don't think you need to be shown statistical proof that when the regulations regarding a monopoly are all created under the authority of the monopoly, there's a problem and its a situation that needs drastic change.
Actually if you look at the most successful schools in underperforming districts they are the ones that have been granted an exception from the standardized statewide curriculum and allowed to creatively engage in their own teaching practice.
If they are exempt from standards, how do you know they are the more successful?
Their kids still have to take standardized tests. Their schools do not however have to follow the standarized lesson plans and other regulations that control how the teaching is done and the school is operated.
I meant to touch on this, but I'll just grab the more relevant quote tree here. The problem with current standardization, and the reason schools that have bucked this have had success, isn't that standardization is bad, its that THIS standardization is bad. If a bad system has been applied, then of course avoiding the system will get better results; this isn't proof the idea of a system is bad.
I think it's undeniable that there needs to be standardization implemented, just in a reasonable and actually useful way. Where you happen to be born should not dictate what you will be taught and the quality of your education, and the only way to combat this is to work to make sure everyone gets the same education, ie standardization.
And now, for the dreaded and tacky triple post, can I just say how apropos the title of this thread has turned out to be. This has been one of the best and most smoothly wide ranging threads I've seen here in forever.
The only reason it's bothering me is because your way is such a defeatist approach. We'll never be able to actually make the broad changes necessary, so lets see what kind of small changes we can work into the system without offending anyone to get little increases in performance. I look at the system and see something that is rapidly approaching unsalvageable, so while I may agree your ideas would bring about improvements, I disagree they're all that's needed.
They seem to work fairly well in other countries where they are implimented.
In any case, I kind of disagree that altering the entire approach taken the the teaching profession, the philosphy of the educational establishment, the staffing of schools and wiping out the bureaucracy is a defeatist, incrimentalist approach. More like it doesn't address what you consider to be the problem, even though your conception of the problem does little to explain why other public school systems with unionized teacher populations in other countries outperform American schools.
Actually if you look at the most successful schools in underperforming districts they are the ones that have been granted an exception from the standardized statewide curriculum and allowed to creatively engage in their own teaching practice.
If they are exempt from standards, how do you know they are the more successful?
Their kids still have to take standardized tests. Their schools do not however have to follow the standarized lesson plans and other regulations that control how the teaching is done and the school is operated.
I meant to touch on this, but I'll just grab the more relevant quote tree here. The problem with current standardization, and the reason schools that have bucked this have had success, isn't that standardization is bad, its that THIS standardization is bad. If a bad system has been applied, then of course avoiding the system will get better results; this isn't proof the idea of a system is bad.
I think it's undeniable that there needs to be standardization implemented, just in a reasonable and actually useful way. Where you happen to be born should not dictate what you will be taught and the quality of your education, and the only way to combat this is to work to make sure everyone gets the same education, ie standardization.
Well yeah, sort of. The thing is that you don't achieve standardization by creating starndardized regulations that control how teaching is done. If you want to standardize anything you need to standardize the education levels received by teachers and the resources available to different school districts. The last is especially important since it is wildly varying levels of funding produced by property taxes that fund most districts in this country.
And I'm not against student performance evaluation, but it should be done the way Maine does it: by evaluating student growth and performance via an accrued portfolio of work and especially in depth writing - not multiple choice questions.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure how much a chance most real education reform can go until education becomes valued in and of itself instead of by the income it can generate by being on a resume.
The only reason it's bothering me is because your way is such a defeatist approach. We'll never be able to actually make the broad changes necessary, so lets see what kind of small changes we can work into the system without offending anyone to get little increases in performance. I look at the system and see something that is rapidly approaching unsalvageable, so while I may agree your ideas would bring about improvements, I disagree they're all that's needed.
They seem to work fairly well in other countries where they are implimented.
In any case, I kind of disagree that altering the entire approach taken the the teaching profession, the philosphy of the educational establishment, the staffing of schools and wiping out the bureaucracy is a defeatist, incrimentalist approach. More like it doesn't address what you consider to be the problem, even though your conception of the problem does little to explain why other public school systems with unionized teacher populations in other countries outperform American schools.
I'll admit to not being an expert on the systems in other countries, but if I had to answer why we seem to do worse with the same base conditions, I'd tie it back to our trouble with unions. Our unions seem to function ideally when they don't represent the entire labor force and focus on quality of life issues for their members. Once they pass the threshold of controlling all or the majority of the workers in their field, they seem to inevitably spiral out of control, leading to serious issues.
I can't speak at all to why this is the pattern here and not elsewhere, but I have yet to see a counter example of a case where a union had universal control of labor in an industry and this did NOT lead directly to extreme inefficiency and general malaise iin said industry.
Actually if you look at the most successful schools in underperforming districts they are the ones that have been granted an exception from the standardized statewide curriculum and allowed to creatively engage in their own teaching practice.
If they are exempt from standards, how do you know they are the more successful?
Their kids still have to take standardized tests. Their schools do not however have to follow the standarized lesson plans and other regulations that control how the teaching is done and the school is operated.
I meant to touch on this, but I'll just grab the more relevant quote tree here. The problem with current standardization, and the reason schools that have bucked this have had success, isn't that standardization is bad, its that THIS standardization is bad. If a bad system has been applied, then of course avoiding the system will get better results; this isn't proof the idea of a system is bad.
I think it's undeniable that there needs to be standardization implemented, just in a reasonable and actually useful way. Where you happen to be born should not dictate what you will be taught and the quality of your education, and the only way to combat this is to work to make sure everyone gets the same education, ie standardization.
Well yeah, sort of. The thing is that you don't achieve standardization by creating starndardized regulations that control how teaching is done. If you want to standardize anything you need to standardize the education levels received by teachers and the resources available to different school districts. The last is especially important since it is wildly varying levels of funding produced by property taxes that fund most districts in this country.
And I'm not against student performance evaluation, but it should be done the way Maine does it: by evaluating student growth and performance via an accrued portfolio of work and especially in depth writing - not multiple choice questions.
I'll agree with you that we need to improve HOW we test students' knowledge, but I still think it needs to be the central focus of uniformity and evaluating school performace. It would be great that all states require the same level of education from their teachers and had the same resources available (and I agree they should), but its the end product we care about, how well and how much the students have learned.
My only point was that the general idea of unions is "hey, the employers and/or the customers are getting too much benefit from my hard work" and with teachers that means "hey, taxpayers and children are getting too much benefit from my hard work."
Actualy its more like "without collective barganing for the little guy, in a mainly oligopolistic market like we typically see in business the little guy is going to get screwed"
Unfortunately, I'm not sure how much a chance most real education reform can go until education becomes valued in and of itself instead of by the income it can generate by being on a resume.
This would be great, be I can't say I ever expect this to happen. There will always be some great people drawn to various things for altruistic as opposed to financial reasons, but if we are talking about the system as a whole we need more qualified people that you can get just hoping for the best. Someday it'd be great if we got there, but I'm not expecting myself or any direct decendent of mine to be alive to see it happen.
The suckage of the teacher's union is pretty much universally understood, -especially- by good teachers.
My high school fired the teacher of the year because she was new, and they had to toss -someone-.
As much as isolated incidents aren't proof, there does seem to be endemic flaws running in teachers unions that favor those who do nothing and simply put in time to advance and maintain security versus actually expending effort above and beyond the minimum to really get excellence.
My only point was that the general idea of unions is "hey, the employers and/or the customers are getting too much benefit from my hard work" and with teachers that means "hey, taxpayers and children are getting too much benefit from my hard work."
Actualy its more like "without collective barganing for the little guy, in a mainly oligopolistic market like we typically see in business the little guy is going to get screwed"
Which is why the "little union" that focuses on quality of life issues is essential, and why anyone suggesting abolishing unions has gone too far. Society needs the collective bargaining they provide workers, but at the same time needs to find some way to rein them in when they gain universal control of their labor and basically meltdown, as we've seen time and again.
My only point was that the general idea of unions is "hey, the employers and/or the customers are getting too much benefit from my hard work" and with teachers that means "hey, taxpayers and children are getting too much benefit from my hard work."
Actualy its more like "without collective barganing for the little guy, in a mainly oligopolistic market like we typically see in business the little guy is going to get screwed"
Which is why the "little union" that focuses on quality of life issues is essential, and why anyone suggesting abolishing unions has gone too far. Society needs the collective bargaining they provide workers, but at the same time needs to find some way to rein them in when they gain universal control of their labor and basically meltdown, as we've havent really seen ever.
My only point was that the general idea of unions is "hey, the employers and/or the customers are getting too much benefit from my hard work" and with teachers that means "hey, taxpayers and children are getting too much benefit from my hard work."
Actualy its more like "without collective barganing for the little guy, in a mainly oligopolistic market like we typically see in business the little guy is going to get screwed"
Which is why the "little union" that focuses on quality of life issues is essential, and why anyone suggesting abolishing unions has gone too far. Society needs the collective bargaining they provide workers, but at the same time needs to find some way to rein them in when they gain universal control of their labor and basically meltdown, as we've seen time and again.
Perhaps applying anti-monopoly laws as with any other sort of business?
My only point was that the general idea of unions is "hey, the employers and/or the customers are getting too much benefit from my hard work" and with teachers that means "hey, taxpayers and children are getting too much benefit from my hard work."
Actualy its more like "without collective barganing for the little guy, in a mainly oligopolistic market like we typically see in business the little guy is going to get screwed"
Which is why the "little union" that focuses on quality of life issues is essential, and why anyone suggesting abolishing unions has gone too far. Society needs the collective bargaining they provide workers, but at the same time needs to find some way to rein them in when they gain universal control of their labor and basically meltdown, as we've havent really seen ever.
fixed.
You need to mark the parts you fixt, or I'm going to spend a minute just reading it over and over without noticing.
As to the actual point, you really think that the current situations in both automotive manufactoring and air travel (leaving aside other possible examples) aren't cases of union labor control leading to crippling of their industries? More to the specific point, you really think that an uneducated assembly line worker in Detroit deserves to make north of $80k with complete job security, and that this isn't one of, if not THE, reasons American auto makers are getting pounded and are completely uncompetitive on the world market?
My only point was that the general idea of unions is "hey, the employers and/or the customers are getting too much benefit from my hard work" and with teachers that means "hey, taxpayers and children are getting too much benefit from my hard work."
Actualy its more like "without collective barganing for the little guy, in a mainly oligopolistic market like we typically see in business the little guy is going to get screwed"
Which is why the "little union" that focuses on quality of life issues is essential, and why anyone suggesting abolishing unions has gone too far. Society needs the collective bargaining they provide workers, but at the same time needs to find some way to rein them in when they gain universal control of their labor and basically meltdown, as we've seen time and again.
Perhaps applying anti-monopoly laws as with any other sort of business?
Probably the best answer (I'm kind of kicking myself for not mentioning it myself) but I'm a little ambiguous about how it'd work in practice. If a worker can chose which union to join and all workers in the industry are unionized, it may still lead to similar cases, where it's in the workers' best interests to get as many people in their company in one union to maximize their bargaining power, bringing us closer to what we have now (which is ideal for workers, to the potentially extreme detriment of industry/economy). I assume you could lock percentages of one unions control, and letting unions play against each other might help alleviate the problems.
Again, the construction industry, at least here, keeps from going to crap because not everyone is in the union. You also have that the union's fees are fairly hefty, so there's profit to be made if you're damned good and can take risks. There's also the fact that the unions contest over many things (Who should install metal roofing, the metal workers or the roofers? Etc.), and that in many situations you have to pay someone what a union would demand for the work -anyways-. But you also have the fact that many skill sets are cross-union; carpenters can do just about anything any of the specialists can do, for instance, you just have to pay them specialist-level wages for it.
The trick is figuring out how to put all those nice little checks and balances in to other systems. I'm not sure how easy it would be to replicate that with teaching jobs. Maybe have the different teaching specialties branch off in to separate unions? It would be damned interesting seeing the Arts and Sciences having to compete directly.
Again, the construction industry, at least here, keeps from going to crap because not everyone is in the union. You also have that the union's fees are fairly hefty, so there's profit to be made if you're damned good and can take risks. There's also the fact that the unions contest over many things (Who should install metal roofing, the metal workers or the roofers? Etc.), and that in many situations you have to pay someone what a union would demand for the work -anyways-. But you also have the fact that many skill sets are cross-union; carpenters can do just about anything any of the specialists can do, for instance, you just have to pay them specialist-level wages for it.
The trick is figuring out how to put all those nice little checks and balances in to other systems. I'm not sure how easy it would be to replicate that with teaching jobs. Maybe have the different teaching specialties branch off in to separate unions? It would be damned interesting seeing the Arts and Sciences having to compete directly.
That would result in a massive mess when a budget needs to be cut.
Again, the construction industry, at least here, keeps from going to crap because not everyone is in the union. You also have that the union's fees are fairly hefty, so there's profit to be made if you're damned good and can take risks. There's also the fact that the unions contest over many things (Who should install metal roofing, the metal workers or the roofers? Etc.), and that in many situations you have to pay someone what a union would demand for the work -anyways-. But you also have the fact that many skill sets are cross-union; carpenters can do just about anything any of the specialists can do, for instance, you just have to pay them specialist-level wages for it.
The trick is figuring out how to put all those nice little checks and balances in to other systems. I'm not sure how easy it would be to replicate that with teaching jobs. Maybe have the different teaching specialties branch off in to separate unions? It would be damned interesting seeing the Arts and Sciences having to compete directly.
That would result in a massive mess when a budget needs to be cut.
My only point was that the general idea of unions is "hey, the employers and/or the customers are getting too much benefit from my hard work" and with teachers that means "hey, taxpayers and children are getting too much benefit from my hard work."
Actualy its more like "without collective barganing for the little guy, in a mainly oligopolistic market like we typically see in business the little guy is going to get screwed"
Which is why the "little union" that focuses on quality of life issues is essential, and why anyone suggesting abolishing unions has gone too far. Society needs the collective bargaining they provide workers, but at the same time needs to find some way to rein them in when they gain universal control of their labor and basically meltdown, as we've havent really seen ever.
fixed.
You need to mark the parts you fixt, or I'm going to spend a minute just reading it over and over without noticing.
As to the actual point, you really think that the current situations in both automotive manufactoring and air travel (leaving aside other possible examples) aren't cases of union labor control leading to crippling of their industries? More to the specific point, you really think that an uneducated assembly line worker in Detroit deserves to make north of $80k with complete job security, and that this isn't one of, if not THE, reasons American auto makers are getting pounded and are completely uncompetitive on the world market?
The Unions didnt really have anything to do with the downfall of their industries.
For air travel it was air fuel and 9/11[and the fact that they have always been heavily subsidised] workers in the air industry are not payed wages better than untrained workers in most other fields. For GM it was the fact that GM built shitty cars and didnt bother to build better cars. Their parts supplier went out of business before they did for goodness sakes. They do have a lot of debt in pensions, but that is because of a bad business decision to not fully fund their pension program. Examine for existance the debt and pension obligations that GE holds, are they going to go under any time soon?
Medical costs are more a problem with the private insurance scheme where doctors have no incentive to keep patients healthy.
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
Well yeah, sort of. The thing is that you don't achieve standardization by creating starndardized regulations that control how teaching is done. If you want to standardize anything you need to standardize the education levels received by teachers and the resources available to different school districts. The last is especially important since it is wildly varying levels of funding produced by property taxes that fund most districts in this country.
It's also worth noting that excellent teachers are often attracted to elite private schools by the lack of red tape and regulation. Even when the pay isn't better, Joe and Jane PhD would rather go teach somewhere where they don't have to worry nearly as much about maintaining certifications, and where they'll actually get to control the curriculum.
My only point was that the general idea of unions is "hey, the employers and/or the customers are getting too much benefit from my hard work" and with teachers that means "hey, taxpayers and children are getting too much benefit from my hard work."
Actualy its more like "without collective barganing for the little guy, in a mainly oligopolistic market like we typically see in business the little guy is going to get screwed"
Which is why the "little union" that focuses on quality of life issues is essential, and why anyone suggesting abolishing unions has gone too far. Society needs the collective bargaining they provide workers, but at the same time needs to find some way to rein them in when they gain universal control of their labor and basically meltdown, as we've havent really seen ever.
fixed.
You need to mark the parts you fixt, or I'm going to spend a minute just reading it over and over without noticing.
As to the actual point, you really think that the current situations in both automotive manufactoring and air travel (leaving aside other possible examples) aren't cases of union labor control leading to crippling of their industries? More to the specific point, you really think that an uneducated assembly line worker in Detroit deserves to make north of $80k with complete job security, and that this isn't one of, if not THE, reasons American auto makers are getting pounded and are completely uncompetitive on the world market?
The Unions didnt really have anything to do with the downfall of their industries.
For air travel it was air fuel and 9/11[and the fact that they have always been heavily subsidised] workers in the air industry are not payed wages better than untrained workers in most other fields. For GM it was the fact that GM built shitty cars and didnt bother to build better cars. Their parts supplier went out of business before they did for goodness sakes. They do have a lot of debt in pensions, but that is because of a bad business decision to not fully fund their pension program. Examine for existance the debt and pension obligations that GE holds, are they going to go under any time soon?
Medical costs are more a problem with the private insurance scheme where doctors have no incentive to keep patients healthy.
There were certainly other factors involved, which is why I made a distinct effort to note hat unions were only one of the major factors, though in my opinion they were the most important one.
Air travel has been in trouble for decades, it isn't some recent phenomena tied to 9/11 and oil prices, which have merely exacerbated the existing problems. The labor costs in air travel are absolutely staggering, and the unions keep them locked into continuing wage hikes. Double digits in percentage wage growth over 1-3 years in all unionized work forces in air travel has been the norm, not the exception.
GM has had some trouble with lower quality cars, but the albatross around their neck has been their work force. They pay obscene wages (the average auto worker with only a HS diploma earns something like $83K), as well as the fact they can't trim their work force in anything other than dire financial situations and are saddled with crippling worker associated costs (fully funded medical insurance for workers for life, etc). You can argue healthy and pension costs are CAUSED by other groups, but the fact GM is still shackled to this huge and ever growing burden, and can't do anything to change it with current workers, is directly tied to their union presence. The suppliers went out of business first because the government has been propping up the US auto makers, no such luck for their suppliers. There have been numerous bail outs, in both industries, that have kept them alive despite their complete infisability.
Well yeah, sort of. The thing is that you don't achieve standardization by creating starndardized regulations that control how teaching is done. If you want to standardize anything you need to standardize the education levels received by teachers and the resources available to different school districts. The last is especially important since it is wildly varying levels of funding produced by property taxes that fund most districts in this country.
It's also worth noting that excellent teachers are often attracted to elite private schools by the lack of red tape and regulation. Even when the pay isn't better, Joe and Jane PhD would rather go teach somewhere where they don't have to worry nearly as much about maintaining certifications, and where they'll actually get to control the curriculum.
I know it was a big thing for the teachers at my private school.
I think this kind of employee empowerment stuff is the predominant model taught in business schools currently for how to motivate the people who work for you.
Well yeah, sort of. The thing is that you don't achieve standardization by creating starndardized regulations that control how teaching is done. If you want to standardize anything you need to standardize the education levels received by teachers and the resources available to different school districts. The last is especially important since it is wildly varying levels of funding produced by property taxes that fund most districts in this country.
It's also worth noting that excellent teachers are often attracted to elite private schools by the lack of red tape and regulation. Even when the pay isn't better, Joe and Jane PhD would rather go teach somewhere where they don't have to worry nearly as much about maintaining certifications, and where they'll actually get to control the curriculum.
I know it was a big thing for the teachers at my private school.
I think this kind of employee empowerment stuff is the predominant model taught in business schools currently for how to motivate the people who work for you.
The question from there is are the schools better because of the different regulations, or because those regulations (which are easier on the teachers) draw better teachers to the school? Another way to put it is do we know if applying the same regulations to teachers who are worse would still produce better results.
Well yeah, sort of. The thing is that you don't achieve standardization by creating starndardized regulations that control how teaching is done. If you want to standardize anything you need to standardize the education levels received by teachers and the resources available to different school districts. The last is especially important since it is wildly varying levels of funding produced by property taxes that fund most districts in this country.
It's also worth noting that excellent teachers are often attracted to elite private schools by the lack of red tape and regulation. Even when the pay isn't better, Joe and Jane PhD would rather go teach somewhere where they don't have to worry nearly as much about maintaining certifications, and where they'll actually get to control the curriculum.
I know it was a big thing for the teachers at my private school.
I think this kind of employee empowerment stuff is the predominant model taught in business schools currently for how to motivate the people who work for you.
The question from there is are the schools better because of the different regulations, or because those regulations (which are easier on the teachers) draw better teachers to the school? Another way to put it is do we know if applying the same regulations to teachers who are worse would still produce better results.
A lot of the information I'm giving you has come from Linda Darling-Hammond and her studies of education reform in which tight regulation has been removed from or introduced into public schools across the country. So these aren't self-selecting teacher populations, no.
Well yeah, sort of. The thing is that you don't achieve standardization by creating starndardized regulations that control how teaching is done. If you want to standardize anything you need to standardize the education levels received by teachers and the resources available to different school districts. The last is especially important since it is wildly varying levels of funding produced by property taxes that fund most districts in this country.
It's also worth noting that excellent teachers are often attracted to elite private schools by the lack of red tape and regulation. Even when the pay isn't better, Joe and Jane PhD would rather go teach somewhere where they don't have to worry nearly as much about maintaining certifications, and where they'll actually get to control the curriculum.
I know it was a big thing for the teachers at my private school.
I think this kind of employee empowerment stuff is the predominant model taught in business schools currently for how to motivate the people who work for you.
The question from there is are the schools better because of the different regulations, or because those regulations (which are easier on the teachers) draw better teachers to the school? Another way to put it is do we know if applying the same regulations to teachers who are worse would still produce better results.
A lot of the information I'm giving you has come from Linda Darling-Hammond and her studies of education reform in which tight regulation has been removed from or introduced into public schools across the country. So these aren't self-selecting teacher populations, no.
Interesting. I'd actually like to see a more wide scale test of the ideas, and see if they uniformally produce improved results. The only problem is, ethics are a questions when you run experiments involving people's lives, and I'm not sure the risk of some group of kids getting an abysmal education is worth the data we'd gain.
Maybe apply the new ideas in volunteer communities and schools that are already underperforming? That way the only people invovled are those who know what they're going into and presumably have an out if needed, and those who already aren't being served well by education. Not that that's necessarily great, but it's an idea.
Wouldn't it make more sense to take advantage of the "natural experiment" data, available by looking at different countries with different levels of regulation in secondary education and seeing if it correlates with better results?
Interesting. I'd actually like to see a more wide scale test of the ideas, and see if they uniformally produce improved results. The only problem is, ethics are a questions when you run experiments involving people's lives, and I'm not sure the risk of some group of kids getting an abysmal education is worth the data we'd gain.
Maybe apply the new ideas in volunteer communities and schools that are already underperforming? That way the only people invovled are those who know what they're going into and presumably have an out if needed, and those who already aren't being served well by education. Not that that's necessarily great, but it's an idea.
Yeah, this is what I think too. As far as I'm concerned there should be something like FDR in the early new deal - just try stuff to fix the problem. Attach money to it so that communities will volunteer.
Wouldn't it make more sense to take advantage of the "natural experiment" data, available by looking at different countries with different levels of regulation in secondary education and seeing if it correlates with better results?
This is why I was referencing Japan and Switzerland.
With education, you can do freeform teaching without applying huge risks to the students by applying minimums that don't take over the entire course.
I don't get why nobody can see such a basic middle ground.
"Teach the kids X, Y, and Z about Shakespeare, we don't care how."
I can only see it being at all dangerous in a math class, where falling behind is a serious issue, whereas in the arts, you're not going to be unable to continue if you haven't learned that Shakespeare died in 1616.
You can also have volunteering, where students take an experimental class during the semester or during summer, for a wad of scholarship money, and, if the class does shitty for them, have a scheduled makeup class that they can take under normal rules. The wad of money covers the risk and loss of a full summer vacation, -and- goes towards their education anyways.
Shinto; I was responding to werehippy saying it wasn't ethical to "experiment" with lower levels of regulation, on the grounds that you're experimenting with kid's educations & future & so on. So, yes, indeed, if you can look at examples of other countries which have already performed the "experiment", and been successful... well, in a way it implies that it's actually unethical to not make the "experiment" yourself.
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Samuel Adams Winter Lager = good. But it's Autumn.
The only reason it's bothering me is because your way is such a defeatist approach. We'll never be able to actually make the broad changes necessary, so lets see what kind of small changes we can work into the system without offending anyone to get little increases in performance. I look at the system and see something that is rapidly approaching unsalvageable, so while I may agree your ideas would bring about improvements, I disagree they're all that's needed.
I will add that none of the ideas I advocated have ever, or quite possibly will ever, been applied, so there's no grounds for saying my ideas would be traumatic but might work, while yours have been shown to work. We're both working from hypotheticals here, so there's no grounds for objective comparison. That being said, I don't think you need to be shown statistical proof that when the regulations regarding a monopoly are all created under the authority of the monopoly, there's a problem and its a situation that needs drastic change.
I meant to touch on this, but I'll just grab the more relevant quote tree here. The problem with current standardization, and the reason schools that have bucked this have had success, isn't that standardization is bad, its that THIS standardization is bad. If a bad system has been applied, then of course avoiding the system will get better results; this isn't proof the idea of a system is bad.
I think it's undeniable that there needs to be standardization implemented, just in a reasonable and actually useful way. Where you happen to be born should not dictate what you will be taught and the quality of your education, and the only way to combat this is to work to make sure everyone gets the same education, ie standardization.
They seem to work fairly well in other countries where they are implimented.
In any case, I kind of disagree that altering the entire approach taken the the teaching profession, the philosphy of the educational establishment, the staffing of schools and wiping out the bureaucracy is a defeatist, incrimentalist approach. More like it doesn't address what you consider to be the problem, even though your conception of the problem does little to explain why other public school systems with unionized teacher populations in other countries outperform American schools.
Well yeah, sort of. The thing is that you don't achieve standardization by creating starndardized regulations that control how teaching is done. If you want to standardize anything you need to standardize the education levels received by teachers and the resources available to different school districts. The last is especially important since it is wildly varying levels of funding produced by property taxes that fund most districts in this country.
And I'm not against student performance evaluation, but it should be done the way Maine does it: by evaluating student growth and performance via an accrued portfolio of work and especially in depth writing - not multiple choice questions.
I'll admit to not being an expert on the systems in other countries, but if I had to answer why we seem to do worse with the same base conditions, I'd tie it back to our trouble with unions. Our unions seem to function ideally when they don't represent the entire labor force and focus on quality of life issues for their members. Once they pass the threshold of controlling all or the majority of the workers in their field, they seem to inevitably spiral out of control, leading to serious issues.
I can't speak at all to why this is the pattern here and not elsewhere, but I have yet to see a counter example of a case where a union had universal control of labor in an industry and this did NOT lead directly to extreme inefficiency and general malaise iin said industry.
My high school fired the teacher of the year because she was new, and they had to toss -someone-.
I'll agree with you that we need to improve HOW we test students' knowledge, but I still think it needs to be the central focus of uniformity and evaluating school performace. It would be great that all states require the same level of education from their teachers and had the same resources available (and I agree they should), but its the end product we care about, how well and how much the students have learned.
Actualy its more like "without collective barganing for the little guy, in a mainly oligopolistic market like we typically see in business the little guy is going to get screwed"
This would be great, be I can't say I ever expect this to happen. There will always be some great people drawn to various things for altruistic as opposed to financial reasons, but if we are talking about the system as a whole we need more qualified people that you can get just hoping for the best. Someday it'd be great if we got there, but I'm not expecting myself or any direct decendent of mine to be alive to see it happen.
As much as isolated incidents aren't proof, there does seem to be endemic flaws running in teachers unions that favor those who do nothing and simply put in time to advance and maintain security versus actually expending effort above and beyond the minimum to really get excellence.
Which is why the "little union" that focuses on quality of life issues is essential, and why anyone suggesting abolishing unions has gone too far. Society needs the collective bargaining they provide workers, but at the same time needs to find some way to rein them in when they gain universal control of their labor and basically meltdown, as we've seen time and again.
fixed.
Perhaps applying anti-monopoly laws as with any other sort of business?
You need to mark the parts you fixt, or I'm going to spend a minute just reading it over and over without noticing.
As to the actual point, you really think that the current situations in both automotive manufactoring and air travel (leaving aside other possible examples) aren't cases of union labor control leading to crippling of their industries? More to the specific point, you really think that an uneducated assembly line worker in Detroit deserves to make north of $80k with complete job security, and that this isn't one of, if not THE, reasons American auto makers are getting pounded and are completely uncompetitive on the world market?
Probably the best answer (I'm kind of kicking myself for not mentioning it myself) but I'm a little ambiguous about how it'd work in practice. If a worker can chose which union to join and all workers in the industry are unionized, it may still lead to similar cases, where it's in the workers' best interests to get as many people in their company in one union to maximize their bargaining power, bringing us closer to what we have now (which is ideal for workers, to the potentially extreme detriment of industry/economy). I assume you could lock percentages of one unions control, and letting unions play against each other might help alleviate the problems.
Again, the construction industry, at least here, keeps from going to crap because not everyone is in the union. You also have that the union's fees are fairly hefty, so there's profit to be made if you're damned good and can take risks. There's also the fact that the unions contest over many things (Who should install metal roofing, the metal workers or the roofers? Etc.), and that in many situations you have to pay someone what a union would demand for the work -anyways-. But you also have the fact that many skill sets are cross-union; carpenters can do just about anything any of the specialists can do, for instance, you just have to pay them specialist-level wages for it.
The trick is figuring out how to put all those nice little checks and balances in to other systems. I'm not sure how easy it would be to replicate that with teaching jobs. Maybe have the different teaching specialties branch off in to separate unions? It would be damned interesting seeing the Arts and Sciences having to compete directly.
That would result in a massive mess when a budget needs to be cut.
They already focus on axing the arts anyways.
The Unions didnt really have anything to do with the downfall of their industries.
For air travel it was air fuel and 9/11[and the fact that they have always been heavily subsidised] workers in the air industry are not payed wages better than untrained workers in most other fields. For GM it was the fact that GM built shitty cars and didnt bother to build better cars. Their parts supplier went out of business before they did for goodness sakes. They do have a lot of debt in pensions, but that is because of a bad business decision to not fully fund their pension program. Examine for existance the debt and pension obligations that GE holds, are they going to go under any time soon?
Medical costs are more a problem with the private insurance scheme where doctors have no incentive to keep patients healthy.
It's also worth noting that excellent teachers are often attracted to elite private schools by the lack of red tape and regulation. Even when the pay isn't better, Joe and Jane PhD would rather go teach somewhere where they don't have to worry nearly as much about maintaining certifications, and where they'll actually get to control the curriculum.
There were certainly other factors involved, which is why I made a distinct effort to note hat unions were only one of the major factors, though in my opinion they were the most important one.
Air travel has been in trouble for decades, it isn't some recent phenomena tied to 9/11 and oil prices, which have merely exacerbated the existing problems. The labor costs in air travel are absolutely staggering, and the unions keep them locked into continuing wage hikes. Double digits in percentage wage growth over 1-3 years in all unionized work forces in air travel has been the norm, not the exception.
GM has had some trouble with lower quality cars, but the albatross around their neck has been their work force. They pay obscene wages (the average auto worker with only a HS diploma earns something like $83K), as well as the fact they can't trim their work force in anything other than dire financial situations and are saddled with crippling worker associated costs (fully funded medical insurance for workers for life, etc). You can argue healthy and pension costs are CAUSED by other groups, but the fact GM is still shackled to this huge and ever growing burden, and can't do anything to change it with current workers, is directly tied to their union presence. The suppliers went out of business first because the government has been propping up the US auto makers, no such luck for their suppliers. There have been numerous bail outs, in both industries, that have kept them alive despite their complete infisability.
I know it was a big thing for the teachers at my private school.
I think this kind of employee empowerment stuff is the predominant model taught in business schools currently for how to motivate the people who work for you.
The question from there is are the schools better because of the different regulations, or because those regulations (which are easier on the teachers) draw better teachers to the school? Another way to put it is do we know if applying the same regulations to teachers who are worse would still produce better results.
A lot of the information I'm giving you has come from Linda Darling-Hammond and her studies of education reform in which tight regulation has been removed from or introduced into public schools across the country. So these aren't self-selecting teacher populations, no.
Interesting. I'd actually like to see a more wide scale test of the ideas, and see if they uniformally produce improved results. The only problem is, ethics are a questions when you run experiments involving people's lives, and I'm not sure the risk of some group of kids getting an abysmal education is worth the data we'd gain.
Maybe apply the new ideas in volunteer communities and schools that are already underperforming? That way the only people invovled are those who know what they're going into and presumably have an out if needed, and those who already aren't being served well by education. Not that that's necessarily great, but it's an idea.
Yeah, this is what I think too. As far as I'm concerned there should be something like FDR in the early new deal - just try stuff to fix the problem. Attach money to it so that communities will volunteer.
This is why I was referencing Japan and Switzerland.
I don't get why nobody can see such a basic middle ground.
"Teach the kids X, Y, and Z about Shakespeare, we don't care how."
I can only see it being at all dangerous in a math class, where falling behind is a serious issue, whereas in the arts, you're not going to be unable to continue if you haven't learned that Shakespeare died in 1616.
You can also have volunteering, where students take an experimental class during the semester or during summer, for a wad of scholarship money, and, if the class does shitty for them, have a scheduled makeup class that they can take under normal rules. The wad of money covers the risk and loss of a full summer vacation, -and- goes towards their education anyways.
Short version: I agree with you.