
Your Child Left Behind - jseliger
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/12/your-child-left-behind/8310
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anigbrowl
_Meanwhile, a 2010 study of teacher-prep programs in 16 countries found a
striking correlation between how well students did on international exams and
how their future teachers performed on a math test. In the U.S., researchers
tested nearly 3,300 teachers-to-be in 39 states. The results? Our future
middle-school math teachers knew about as much math as their peers in Thailand
and Oman—and nowhere near what future teachers in Taiwan and Singapore knew._

This article is more than usually informative, and focuses on what's working
best as well as worst (although in our case, that's sadly not saying much).
Well worth the read.

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rmk
I am glad to read that the teachers' unions' claims have been more or less
blown to bits by this article. Randi Weingarten & co. would have us believe
that the more they are paid and the less they contribute to their own
retirement (maybe zero), the better-performing the kids will be.

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danteembermage
And the best educated students in the entire planet according the this metric
and study? White kids in D.C. who scored a 37 (compared to #2 Taiwan with a
28) in a city whose average is 1.8.

[http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/11/your-
chi...](http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/11/your-child-left-
behind/66069/)

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ZeroGravitas
After reading this article I still have no idea what they are suggesting the
problem is, or what they propose the solution is.

Most of it seems based on the assumption that America should be the best at
everything, and if they're not then there's some foul plot afoot and the
sensationalism starts with the headline.

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yardie
Yeah, the article is essentially empty of any research. "Hey Massachusetts did
these things and it worked out great!" Well What did Massachusetts do? Teacher
entrance exams and reshuffling money. Reshuffling money where exactly? What
else did they do to improve scores?

I'd also like to point out that in many other countries the state is seen as
the first employer of choice. Unlike the US where Apple, Oracle, Google, and
Microsoft get the best picks first and the state can choose later many
countries, if you do well in school you are slotted for a teaching or gov't
job with great benefits, lifetime employment, guaranteed pension, housing,
etc. This might not mean much to those in the US but in Europe and most of
Asia a government job is a seriously good job.

This affects the US education because some of the best teachers aren't even
considering teaching, not when they can pull Google money, Facebook money, or
Intel money. So in that regard, the unions are right. Our free market works so
well that teachers have to be paid more. Not all teachers, but certainly the
best ones.

This is why it's important to factor in opportunity costs when doing these
samples. If the best job in China is a teacher making $50,000 than what is the
equivalent in the US? $100k, $150k.

