BBO Discussion Forums: Chicago teachers' strike - BBO Discussion Forums

Bbradley62, on 2012-September-14, 09:28, said:

"It is reasonable to estimate that each class in a given public elementary school is drawn from the same pool of students."

That's actually not very reasonable. Some teachers are very good with certain types of students, and so are given more of them. Or some who have a reputation have the more pushy parents make sure that their kids (who they also push to succeed) are in those classes. Or a principal is looking to get rid of a teacher, and gives them more kids with bad behavior, in hopes that they'll quit or get worse scores and thus they can justify firing them.

In HS, it can be much the same. There is only one other Geometry teacher at my school, and I know that the students were very unevenly distributed, with most of the pre-judged weaker students being placed in my class. If our CST (CA testing regime) scores were compared, I am sure that mine will be lower. If you say that you want to judge by improvement (rather than absolute), I'd wonder how you intend to do that, since they have not taken a Geometry CST (and I don't know that the Algebra I CST is necessarily a good predictor for Geometry). And even comparing the students repeating Geo, who therefore have a CST result, I had most of them for summer prep, and all those that made the most significant gains judging by class tests (which took place after the initial CST) were put in her classes, I got the others who did not improve as much. So she may get credit for the gains she made.

You might say "oh, this means that there should be more testing, to get an accurate picture". I understand that from a data point, but there is such a thing as students being over-tested by standardized tests (especially students of color. There are several good books about this.) You could also ask about teacher's in class tests. I would argue that these tests are not necessarily well-standardized. You'd have to give the same exact tests to all students, but as I've been seeing, that doesn't work as well (but that's a separate issue). Professional test-makers would basically argue that teachers are not good at making reliable assessment measures, and that the conclusions drawn from them are not valid.

Guys can we back up one second.

Are you saying students are taking some nat test in every subject, every year?

I dont get all this talk about geometry, if they are not learning then you flunk them, right? Dont you ever test them?

I took a zillion tests during my one and only Summer Geometry class.

How in the world can you get an A and flunk some nat geometry test?
How in the world can you pass reading but flunk some nat reading test?

mike777, on 2012-September-14, 23:00, said:

Students are graded on things throughout the year. However, these grades are highly variable from teacher to teacher (different material is tested, different tests given, different standards for partial credit, different weighting of understanding vs. effort vs. getting the correct answer). Students are also given some standardized tests (normally identical test throughout the state, given once or twice a year). These tests are almost always multiple choice exams, and are supposed to cover the whole year's material according to the state standards. The suggestion is to use these standardized tests for teacher pay and hiring/firing.

Teachers are resistant to this, primarily because this form of evaluation is very inaccurate and incentivizes behavior that may not be in the best interest of the students. To give some examples of the issues: not all students are at the same point coming in, and the students a teacher gets are definitely not a random sample. Measuring on "absolute performance" is thus extremely unfair. You can try to measure "improvement" but this really doesn't work; for example suppose you are teaching physics; you may have a bunch of students who've never taken physics before (so no prior score) but their last science score (in biology) was pretty good.. unfortunately they are way behind in math, which is probably a lot more relevant. Of course, in principle you could have some very complex formula for predicted performance based on scores in multiple previous courses, but no real effort has been put forward to do this. Certain material is easier to approach on multiple choice tests than others; for example, a multiple choice test may do a decent job on testing grammar knowledge but is a terrible way to teach writing skills. Using these tests as a measurement tool will greatly effect what an English teacher does in class (likely for the worse). There are a number of test-taking techniques which can be used to improve results on multiple choice tests without much actual knowledge of the material (how to eliminate answers, how to guess, etc) and teaching these might have more benefit than teaching actual material. Further, some students are just poor test takers (especially poor multiple choice test takers) or vice-versa, and again the poor test-takers may be concentrated in certain classrooms for a wide range of reasons. There are further issues... for example, mathematics can be taught in a very procedural way which does not promote understanding. The course becomes straight memorization, and kids who learn algebra this way (for example) can score okay on standardized tests especially with a lot of review just before the exam. However, the lack of understanding shows up later on and makes it very difficult for these kids once they hit pre-calculus or physics (for example); it's almost impossible to test for this especially in a multiple-choice test. Finally, if this testing data is used to measure schools (as it is, under current federal law) it de-emphasizes classes which aren't tested (such as art or physical education). These classes are being neglected in terms of time and funding (some schools don't even offer them), but they are important to producing well-rounded individuals and for kids' self-esteem and interest in school.

Most teachers aren't really opposed to data-driven education, or to having some amount of testing. They're opposed to having a poorly-designed mechanical system for evaluating performance. While in principle "anyone can be fired" in the private sector, barring major corporate restructuring (massive layoffs, new ownership) or substantial incompetence, it's actually quite rare for people to be fired. It's even more rare for people whose direct supervisor and colleagues think they're doing a good job to be fired. Yet these testing regimes create exactly that scenario for teaching. It's also worth mentioning that teaching has an extremely high "wash-out" rate of people who just quit, especially in the first five years. This gets rid of a lot of the "bad teachers" (and some of the good ones) and gives strong evidence that it's not an easy job or a great paycheck. Starting teacher salaries are in general lower than starting salaries for others with comparable preparation (four year college degree), and the teacher pay-scale is also much flatter than what you see in the private sector. However, usually teacher complaints are not about pay so much as about respect. They are professionals working in a demanding field that requires a lot of different skills, where experience is valuable and a lot of people quit because they can't deal with the pressure... yet decisions about their field are being made by highly paid "experts" with no classroom experience and minimal knowledge of leading research in the area, who want to substitute highly inaccurate tests for peer evaluation (which is not 100% accurate either, but seems substantially better than some multiple choice exam given once or twice a year).

mike777, on 2012-September-14, 23:00, said:

Mike, at the lower end of the educational system, almost nothing is impossible. Here is a story from my wife. She is a truth teller, but really no one could make this up.

A (former) neighbor tutored high school kids. He couldn't keep an appointment with one of his kids, and asked Becky if sh would do it. She did. The kid brought in the assignement that he had received back from the teacher. Every problem had a check mark by it indicating satisfactory performance, which apparently meant that there was something down on paper for every problem None of it was correct.

The kid was taking geometry, a course you mention above. This was an advanced course , they were studying the sine law (part of trigonometry, really). For those who have forgotten, an angle A has a number associated with it called the sin of A and written sin A. If a triangle has angles A,B,C and sides a,b,c with side a opposite angle A etc (and with a,b,c designating either the sides themselves or the lengths of those sides, as needed by context) then then (sin A)/a=(sin B)/b=(sin C)/c. For example, if you have two observation posts a known distance c apart, and if the line of sight from these posts to an interesting object makes angles A and B with the line connecting line between the posts, then angle C can be calculated so A,B,C and c are known and thus the distances a and b can be calculated from the sine law.

Of course "can be calculated" providing a person can do some very elementary algebraic manipulation and some arithmetic, with or without a calculator. The student had only the haziest idea of what to do. For example, the angle C is found by subtracting A+B from 180 (when degree measure is used). The student knew that something was supposed to add up to 180 but he was a little unclear whether it was the angles or the sides, and, anyway, getting from A+B+C=180 to C=180-(A+B) was a serious stretch for him.

His solutions had been deemed acceptable by the teacher (they were not correct but in some sense they were done). I of course cannot say if he got an A for this course. But he was in the course, and surely this is bad enough. A kid who should be reviewing arithmetic was studying the sine law, and with absolutely predictable results. He was learning absolutely nothing. At the end of the tear he no doubt was certified as having completed an advanced geometry course, and it would not be surprising at all if the grade was an A if he kept on handing in assignments.

People in charge just don't know what to do so they pretend these things don't happen, or they kick it down the road to the next teacher. At the University a student came to me who had all As in geometry, algebra and trigonometry. She planned to be a math major. The unfair (from her viewpoint) advisers had placed her in a non-credit remedial course and, in fact, in part 1 of a two part remedial course. She thought that at least she should be allowed to take parts 1 and 2 at the same time and was hoping I would intervene. It seemed right and I was about to call someone when I decided to first check her skills. I asked her to solve x^2-3x+2=0. No problem x=sqrt(3x-2). I told her she should continue on in the first part of the remedial course and take the second part when (don't hold your breath) she successfully completed the first part. I also suggested she might want to consider a major other than mathematics. Ah yes, old guy discouraging eager young female from pursuing her dream. Shut my mouth, I did.

I could easily go on for quite a while. There was the student flunking pre-calculus for the second time. She had made her way through the non-credit preparatory course with a D, so clearly she didn't need to go back and retake that! Her intended major was nuclear engineering. Oh my, this time it was older white guy discouraging an African-American female from following her dreams. "I can be anything I want to be" she told me as she left my office in a huff.

There are more than a few out there in the low income schools who should not be teaching. This is not because they have not mastered the latest educational techniques, it's because they have no clue whatsoever about the subject that they are teaching. They give good grades for writing something, pretty much anything, beside every problem number.
Routinely certifying students as having learned a subject when they absolutely have done no such thing should be a criminal offense. Any thought that these teachers are doing the students a favor is highly misguided.

Of course maybe they do such things in Chicago.
The winter is forbidden till December
And exits March the second on the dot.
By order, summer lingers through September
In Camelot.

kenberg, on 2012-September-15, 08:53, said:

While this is true, the problem has little to do with teachers unions. The turnover in many of these schools is extremely high -- these teachers quit or get fired. But teaching in a low income school is a job that few want. The school is physically crumbling and the resources are poor. The pay is equal to (or in some cases, less than) the pay in a much better school in the same general area. Seeing the difficulties that the kids go through in their lives is depressing and frustrating, and in some cases the job may even be physically dangerous. Many of the students are simply not focused on their schoolwork because of issues in their family and community, lack of good nutrition, lack of faith in school as a way to succeed, or bad coaching from (bad) previous teachers. Even those who are really altruistic and eager to work with these kids often burn out and switch schools (or professions) after a few years.

The solutions mandated from on high involve cutting funding for these schools to give them "incentive to improve", forcing firing of all school employees and reorganizing the school (which gets rid of the few strong individuals who would stay voluntarily and might help the situation), and closing down the schools entirely to replace them with for-profit charter schools (which often emphasize profits over teaching and perform even worse on standardized tests than the failing public schools that were shut down). Oh, and demonizing the teachers union so it becomes easier to reduce the pay and job security of those who teach in low-income schools (with the opposite effect on those who teach at the better schools).

"Teachers are resistant to this, primarily because this form of evaluation is very inaccurate and incentivizes behavior that may not be in the best interest of the students"


btw I think the Mayor wants to only use these standard tests as roughly 30% of a teacher's evaluation.

As Adam points out the complaint seems to be that these tests are inaccurate.

awm, on 2012-September-15, 09:39, said:

I agree that this is what often happens. Nonetheless, I believe that there is a serious problem with minimum standards for teacher knowledge that often gets less attention than it should have.


I lived in Prince George's County in Maryland (the Univ of MD is there) until I retired. When school systems are ranked by student achievement, Baltimore has last place nailed down, no contest, but PG is next in line.How does this happen? I just checked at http://quickfacts.ce...s/24/24033.html and I see the median household income is a little over $71,000 per year. The statewide Maryland figure is a little over $70,000. Some of the teachers in PG are very fine. Some, more than a few, are not. What has happened? I do not entirely know.

One thing: For many tears PG has had a cap on property taxes. The school system no doubt could use more money, the property tax keeps this from happening.It is a heavily minority county, and so there have been proposals, and some successful legislative effort, to bring in additional state funding. But people who live in districts with higher property taxes are naturally not thrilled to have their state taxes go to help a county with a cap on property taxes.

I haven't followed developments since I moved some five or six years ago, but when I was there, the scene went like this. In the spring there would be announcements of new teaching positions and it would be emphasized that applicants were expected to be of the highest quality. Somewhere around mid-August there would be a large number of unfilled positions. These positions were filled. Somehow.

So some teachers are very fine. Many more are perfectly acceptable and a student (and his parents) needs to be told to stop griping and do his homework. Some should be working elsewhere. There are many things, of course, that go into successful teaching. I believe that doing a first sort on getting rid of those whose knowledge base is simply too low for them to possibly be effective would be a good start. Trust me, I am not one of those college profs (I have known some) who gripe that their kid's teachers don't always say things just right. I don't always say things just right. Teachers need not be of expert status in the field that they teach, but that's not remotely the sorting out that I am suggesting. Of course then these teachers would have to be be replaced by more knowledgeable teachers, that requires money, that requires raising property taxes, that they won't do.

So it's a mess. But accepting that a person who does not know algebra cannot teach algebra would be a decent start at seeing what needs to be done.

I don't know how much of this applies to Chi, but I guess it is not completely different there.

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phil_20686, on 2012-September-13, 10:39, said:

I agree.

phil_20686, on 2012-September-13, 10:39, said:

I think you have a mostly wrong view of US politics if you blame the Democrats much for FOMC and infrastructure and debt ceiling. And might be wrong on ACA (might be right, I certainly would rather the starting dem position was no private insurance, medicare for all - but it isn't clear if this would have passed even at the start of the administration). I think you are also wrong if you think the Republicans would have been even marginally better at any of these issues. And I think the idea (possibly consistent with your post about incompetent implementation, but quite possibly not the view you were advocating) that ACA is so incompetently implemented that we would have been better with the prior status quo (I.e., repeal the ACA) and then used that as a starting point for single payer health service is woefully naive to the dynamics of the US political system or the widespread meme that gov't can do little right and the private sector is always the efficient and effective way to do anything. I mean look how long the US went with less coverage than now (many decades) even with folks in the interim trying to do somethings to expand coverage (Clinton health care, healthy children, etc.).

Mbodell said:

The current state of infrastructure is the result of bad policy over at least thirty years. There have been plenty of democratic governments who could have done something about it.
Fomc: my reading is that Obama basically didn't understand how important it is, and was not prepared to expend political capital on controversial picks. This was a massive error. The deficit would be fraction of what it is if we had moved to better monetary policy earlier in the cycle.
Theaca. Yes I think it was a bad policy move. The problem with these things is that it becomes impossible to further reformit for a period of ten years or so, as there is so much political capital invested in the ideas. We all know that Obama was forced to make concessions to the insurance companies because he could not afford their opposition. Universal healthcare Is such an obviously good policy that if they had simply kept it as a major policy issue for a few years they could have convicted enough of the republican voters to have enough bipartisan support to make a good stab at it, without needing to pander to so many interest groups. Now you are going to be stuck with the Aca for decades when a single payer system is trivially better.
Ps:any policy move that can persuade Catholics and Protestants to put aside five hundredd years of antagonism to provide a united opposition has been incompetently managed. The us bishops conference has been campaigning for universal healthcare since A1997, it should not have been a challenge to keep them on board.

phil_20686, on 2012-September-17, 01:07, said:

Now there's a plan!

On the unintended truth front my all time favorite was Nixon's "This nation cannot stand pat"

phil_20686, on 2012-September-17, 01:07, said:

Universal healthcare has been a major policy issue here for years but bipartisan support has not developed. Insurance money crushed Clinton's effort. While the ACA is not as good as I'd have liked (poorer than your NHS for sure), it has definitely proved helpful to folks in the state that launched it:

Life Under Romneycare

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Suppose that Obama had succeeded in passing a single-payer system (which truly was not possible because many democrats also depend upon insurance company support) with no republican votes (which surely would have been the case). We can be certain that we'd be hearing this republican argument now:

"Why did Obama not put forward a plan like Romneycare? That has proved successful in Massachusetts and we could have voted for it."

PassedOut, on 2012-September-17, 07:50, said:

what part of "politics" do you not understand? and, can you name a political party that does not play that same game?

if there isn't a market approach (i think there is, but that's another story), Medicare for all is the only slightly-workable solution...

Everybody's always played politics. What the current generation of Republicans are doing is not politics, trying to get their ideas into law, and trying to minimize the damage of things that they think are not right; it is "IOKIYAR" and "we will fight with all tools in our power anything he says, because impeding the government is good for the Republican party."

Note, *not* the United States (except in that they believe that a Republican government is good for the United States, because it just is. Frankly, I'm not all that sure that several of them *do* believe that - rather "I don't care what we win, as long as we win").

I also believe that there are many backers of the Republican party who really do think that as long as they get theirs, to hell with everybody else. And if you throw enough money and potential for power at the problem, that you can get people to do it.

Note: there's a lot about the other side I have issues with, too. That's why I'd actually like to have a left-wing party in That Country Down South. I also hope that the President gets re-elected and finds the 2nd-term-freedom to let go on some of the freedom-denying policies they're following. I also hope they are able to tell the Republicans "go on and stick with that strategy. Blue's a good colour for you." *I*'m not holding my breath, though.

mycroft, on 2012-September-18, 10:54, said:

While I agree with much of what you say, I do not think that this particularly distinguishes republicans from democrats.

In the first two paragraphs, I'd even distinguish this congress' Republicans from those of the last Democratic President, never mind the Democrats in Republican administrations. Third paragraph, I'm sure that there are "Screw you, Jack, I got mine" Democratic party backers, but I bet they're outnumbered 15-1 by the other side.

In Canada, and other Parliamentary Democracies, no matter their failings (and they are legion), one thing that is true is that it is Her Majesty's *Loyal* Opposition, in name, and intended to be in fact. Yes, their job is to oppose the government. Yes, they want to be in power themselves, and will do what they can to get there. But their opposition is intended to be, and usually is, for the good of the country and for the good of the government, and only secondarily for themselves.

mycroft, on 2012-September-18, 13:34, said:

If you really mean that literally, then IMO you are just as blinded by party loyalty as any Limbaugh caller.

billw55, on 2012-September-18, 14:30, said:

If you mean that 15-1 is overstated, then perhaps.

If you mean that the idea that this policy of party first, country be damned, is mainstream policy for the Republicans as opposed to being a minor part of the Democratic party; as it is with any major party anywhere/when. Then I disagree.

Admittedly, over the last 10-20 years or so the republican party seems to be committing slow political self destruction. But I do not believe that this makes democrats any more altruistic on average. They are representing themselves and their supporters too, and I don't believe they are any more (or less) politically honest about it. At times they do a better job with PR, that's about all the credit I will give them.

My refusal to capitalize the name of either party is not an accident

billw55, on 2012-September-18, 14:30, said:

Heh. You think that my loyalty to the NDP has anything to do with this discussion? The Democrats are *far too right wing* for me...

I'm saying that I challenge you to find two people in the same league as the Koch brothers and "sign my 'no taxes' form in blood" Norquist on the Democratic side, not relevant to "ensuring the Ds win, no matter what", but "ensure that *I* get more than I currently have, and especially don't lose anything, no matter what." Okay, I'll probably lose, but the people that think that way are just naturally going to be Republican backers, because current Republican policy seems to be designed to get us back to Victorian/Robber Baron days as soon as possible, which at least looks good to that type.

Of course the Democratic backers are backers because it will help them. But some, I mean some, of them might just be there because they realize that helping Buffett's maid or UAW builders actually *buy* the stuff they make will help them, even if it costs them some profits *now*.