

How to fix our schools: A manifesto by education leaders - aik
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/07/AR2010100705078.html

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aik
It's amazing to see all the action that is taking place all of a sudden,
largely sparked by a sensationalist documentary and a Department of Education
contest (Race to the Top).

I'm very curious to see what will come out of it. A lot of harm can be done in
periods like this. What I'm afraid of is that the teacher role will be turned
into an even more mechanistic role and will kill teacher care and passion even
more than it already has with even more endless teaching-for-tests motives. It
may increase student learning, but probably only a minuscule amount to what is
possible.

Here's one teacher evaluation guide that is being implemented in DC:
[http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2010/10/ok_and_it...](http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2010/10/ok_and_its_one.html)

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DanielN
Honestly, the main reason for the action that has taken place over the past 5
years or so is due primarily to the authors of this list. More specifically,
it is due to their getting into positions where they have unusually wide
breadths of power.

I agree with you that reform movements like what is currently building in
education can have disastrous effects. However, in this instance, most of the
reforms being proposed are a product of observing what has worked in charter
schools, rather than a product of running in the opposite direction of what
doesn't work.

I see the current reform movement as an overwhelmingly positive force in
education. As long as they stick to the ideal of spreading successful charter
school practices to the broader public school community I'll be happy.

PS: All you genius hackers with backgrounds in machine learning, AI, social
networking, (god knows what else might be applicable). Don't like the way
teacher performance is being quantified? There's a multi-billion dollar
industry that could use some disruption.

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anamax
> All you genius hackers with backgrounds in machine learning, AI, social
> networking, (god knows what else might be applicable). Don't like the way
> teacher performance is being quantified?

You don't understand. The measurement problem is relatively minor compared to
the problem of getting measurements used.

Teacher's advocates (lobbyists and the like) will say that teachers support
evaluation in the abstract but they oppose any actual implementation. When
asked to provide one that is acceptable to them, they duck and start
namecalling.

~~~
aik
I believe that there are ways around this.

In the ideal world, such a focus on teacher evaluation wouldn't be necessary.
One example: In Finland, from the beginning teachers receive maximum education
themselves and so administrators trust their judgments. I realize we aren't
there, but there may be other ways of getting there.

Firstly, what if all teachers were more motivated? What if all teachers had
clear proof that their methods suck? What if clear evidence of superior
methods that have clearly better results existed?

What if there was a piece of technology that was so attractive, showed such
promise and proved better learning occurred, that teachers themselves took it
up out of interest and started using it and improving on themselves and their
learning through this new methodology. The lobbyists and the like would
probably be against it, but with enough backing and proof of its benefits,
they would lose.

Creating a product like this is the kind of technology and innovation we need,
and I firmly believe it's possible.

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anamax
You're assuming that the purpose of the public education system in the US is
student education. The observed behavior suggests otherwise.

I said lobbyists and teachers organizations, but teachers support them....
And, when evaluation comes up for a vote, teachers vote against it
overwhelmingly. They strike to get rid of it, and so on.

There are no technical solutions to social problems.

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jasonjei
The problem with our schools is that there's no way for us ordinary people to
fix the problem at large. Government administrators--local, federal, and state
--don't let anyone get near it. School boards hardly get anything done.

As programmers, it seems logical to us that if there's something wrong, we can
fork the code and submit patches to the repo. Unfortunately, the barriers to
entry to running your own school are high; credibility requires accreditation,
proper teaching talent, financing.

Most of the time, I don't have a problem with the school. I have a problem
with the teacher, for either being unqualified, or just being a bad teacher. I
can't submit a pull request like I can in Github to rectify the issue with my
own fork. In other words, we're stuck with each other. Even if a teacher is
very qualified, the teaching style may be incompatible with a particular
student. Sometimes there's nothing wrong with the student or teacher, it's
just that neither work together effectively. And it's difficult to move a
student to another teacher's class if spaces/funds/instructors are scarce.

School administrators aren't educators today. They're bureaucrats. It's no
longer about the education, but how they can optimize business processes.
Teachers, as frontline personnel, are fully aware of the problems with
education. Talking to a language teacher trying to bring Chinese into a
district made me realize that it's very political; teachers teaching German
feel threatened, others who have been affected by cuts, such as the music
department, feel insulted.

School is a highly subjective issue. Some students weren't cut out to be
students. Students ahead of the curve are impeded by the traditional
curriculum. No Child Left Behind under the guise of making a "difference"
forces schools to play games with its students. Instead, schools don't teach
anymore, but teach students to prepare for the metrics that will give them
funding (attendance/grade fixing/"standardized" testing).

I'd like to fix the problem when I see it. But unlike software, having forks
or different tags and branches are impossible in the teaching world due to the
many reasons above.

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MaysonL
For many incompetent teachers, the most efficient way to remove them from the
system would be to turn them into competent teachers. _Teaching is a teachable
skill_.

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Towle_
How to fix our schools: Let's ask the people who've already shown they have no
idea

~~~
lliiffee
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Rhee>

