Matt and Ezra claim that the left does not treat teacher's unions with kid gloves.
Okay, I guess if you define implementing an extraordinarily minimal standard of performance, and small bonuses for people who exceed that standard--both economic propositions where the evidence on the Republican side is considerably better than the evidence against the Laffer Curve--as bold, visionary propositions, then Democrats and the Left do not kowtow to the teacher's unions. By the same standard, I am declaring every conservative writer who does not actually advocating slashing income taxes to zero to be a radical, free-thinking independent.
Oh, come on. MY's post noted that the Democrats' fealty to the teachers' unions is nothing like as complete as the Republicans' to the Laffer Curve. This is trivially demonstrated: Democrats voted for (Ted Kennedy co-authored!) the LNCB bill, which teachers' unions opposed. Have you got a case of a single prominent Republican who's voted for an increase in the marginal tax rate since 1994? Let alone one who co-authored legislation to do so?
Oh you jest, their point was that these articles didn't get AXED from one of the most liberal publications in the country, but your article advocated against supply-siderism just a little bit and it's done.
Don't be so willfully dense.
"Matt and Ezra claim that the left does not treat teacher's unions with kid gloves."
Decided to redefine the debate, huh? A more honest response would be to say that the teacher's union has significant influence with the Democrats and that's all you meant to convey. If you actually meant to say more, it was a silly diversionary tactic easily proved false by Matt's post.
The Laffer curve is just a rationalization (and a poor one) invoked on behalf of the thing to which republicans truly are in thrall. Republicans probably are more slavish in their devotion to tax cuts than are democrats in their devotion to teachers' unions. But it's a difference of degree, not kind.
Given their hysterical opposition to charter schools and other forms of school choice, and their constant reference to attacks on teacher's unions as attacks on teachers themselves, and their decades of resistance to any of the very minor requirements that finally made their way into the very mild No Child Left Behind Act, I'd have to say the comparison is apt enough.
By the way, former NEA member here....
You're not responding to the meat of Matt's post. He demonstrates many ways in which the Democrats/liberals do not protect the teachers union to nearly the degree that the right wing enforces lockstep on Reaganomics. Since you don't dispute any of his actual claims, I don't understand what your objection is.
I understand the Democrat-teacher's union alliance, but I also think it's regrettable. At one time they may have helped advance the cause of primary and secondary education by providing more stability for teachers but now they just appear to stand in the way. By insisting everyone be paid the same, they're driving away the best and brightest. I very seriously considered starting a second career in teaching but couldn't justify a 70% cut in salary plus the need to spend two years of nights in graduate school (at my expense), and this was with the help of the Troops-to-Teachers program.
Public education should be a non-partisan proposition, and the partisan activities of the unions just make them look anti-education.
Where is that huge pool of potential teachers, with more talent, more qualifications, and a more amendable attitude toward working for crappy pay with no representation, that conservatives and libertarians are hoping to tap with unions out of the way?
Why exactly do you think that getting rid of unions would be such a great enticement for talented people?
Megan, seriously, name ONE industry in which weakening unions has INCREASED the skill level of workers and the QUALITY of goods produced.
The point is not whether or not the Teachers' Unions play a positive or negative role in Democratic politics or education policy in general. The point is that you would not have a review of a book axed from The Nation because it was too critical of the Teachers' Unions. McArdle is trying to create an equivalence between "slavish fealty" and "treated with kid gloves".
Anon at 12:13, It's quite simple. "Toyota and GM". Compare and contrast.
Yeah, I remember the teachers' unions in 2004 swallowing Joe Lieberman's support for school choice with no problem whatsoever.
Wow, that's a batting practice fastball to smash into the upper deck, if I've ever seen one. Unfortunately, PJayC beat me to it.
Although the "quality of goods argument" for Toyota and GM is true causation aside, the "increase in skill" argument is not, at least as defining workers in the way labor economists would normally so do. Still, without having to deal with causation/correlation issues, another example would easily take its place.
By the same standard, I am declaring every conservative writer who does not actually advocating slashing income taxes to zero to be a radical, free-thinking independent.
Well, almost every member of the republican congressional delegation and president Bush have vowed never to increase taxes for any reason. I'm guessing that any reason still applies if taxes are 0%.
Lets see how many free-thinking independent writers there are who take on Grover Norquist and his pledge-signers as the lunatics they are.
http://www.atr.org/pledge/national/incumbents.html
Toyota's success is based on quality control systems that have little to do with unionization. Systems that, indeed, do allow workers to become "skilled" in ways that the old assembly line model never did.
But the assembly line model is an many ways an exception, not the rule, in terms of unions (something which the anti-union crowd always overlooks). And it is not a model that applies to a skill like teaching.
In terms of the trades, skilled construction trades for instance, eliminating unions is most likely to lead to lower standards of skill and lower quality -- along with lower pay and less safe work environments.
Teaching is one field where measuring performance is quite difficult. How exactly would you do so in a way that takes into account the fact that students of lower socio economic status are going to be more difficult to teach?
The fact that objective performance evaluation is extremely difficult is quite common. How do you evaluate whether or not your doctor is doing a good job? How do you evaluate whether any engineer is doing a good job? Physicians' jobs are arguably far more important and we don't generally give them merit pay either.
It seems easy to pick out the absolute worst (100% of his patients died last year), but there can still be subtleties (if you focus on treating the sickest of the sick, average life expectancy of your patients will be low no matter how good of a job you do). In any event, without an objective system for rating most teachers, talking about merit pay seems pointless.
Megan, does your employer objectively rate each writer and dish out merit pay based solely on your score?
What do you even mean about "evidence against the Laffer curve"? Most people agree that the basic concept-- that there exists a point at which increasing taxes will actually lead to a decrease in revenue-- is entirely true. It's just that the idea that we're anywhere near that point is totally ridiculous. Lowering taxes will decrease revenue, period. Even the Treasury's report using "dynamic scoring", produced at the Bush administration's behest, makes this point. Will it reduce revenue by slightly less than the gain to the taxpayers? Sure. But when you're running deficits like under Reagan and Bush, pushing those liabilities in the future and paying interest on them, you're not really in a position to be cutting taxes at all, unless you can actually find a way to cut spending.
The fact that it is difficult to measure performance is not an excuse for giving up. I hear this from doctors all the time... "It's too hard to measure, so let's not do it." How about trying to figure out a way to do it and trying different things? Just giving up isn't any better.
It is hard to measure performance in teachers, but not impossible. My wife is a public school teacher and they measure and rank schools and teachers all the time. They have even started a very moderate incentive pay program. But the pay scale is fixed based on years of experience and it's virtually impossible to fire a bad teacher. Her school is burdened with several terrible teachers (kids from their classes are consistently underprepared) who are still teaching, year after year.
The biggest problem with education, though, is that we don't value it as a society. Schools are underfunded, neglected, and parents often ignore their kids' education.
I think it's funny that the Republicans desire to cut taxes is treated like some kind of radical position when I suspect most people in the country support it. I support it. I also support cuts in spending. It's just harder to accomplish those.
EI
How many.... - By placing an arbitray limitation on the ability to pay for performance by limiting merit pay is driving people away. Would we have so many ivy league grads working on Wall St if we said: Everyone in a particular segment of the industry must make the same money?
Can you honestly look at the schools you attended and/or that your children attend and say "they all look the same to me." That's just perposterous. You don't have to have a perfect system of deciding who's better, just one that is consistent over time. Let's look at the application rates for teaching positions in Alabama (#43 in the AFT 2004 salary survey) versus those in NY state (#3 in the AFT 2004 salary survey). Now, I'll grant you that neither has adequate merit pay systems, but it seems pretty obvious (and intuitive to me) that the better qualified applicant might be more willing to work as a teacher if they are in NY versus Alabama. Can you deny this?
So, if a state or locality instituted an adequate merit pay system, you are suggesting that this might drive away prospective applicants. I'd suggest the opposite: that more highly qualified applicants would seek positions in that state or district.
Michael W,
If a state instituted strict merit pay, then I would expect prospective teachers to reason as follows:
1. If I go work for that state, I'll be dead last in priority for choosing classes since I'll be new and don't know anyone
2. I'll be given the toughest classes of students with the most significant problems
3. They will perform terribly compared to other students
4. I will earn very little money
A rational teacher would not necessarily jump to work for such a state.
Justin wrote: Although the "quality of goods argument" for Toyota and GM is true causation aside, the "increase in skill" argument is not, at least as defining workers in the way labor economists would normally so do.
It certainly increases the overall skill level of the profession, anyway. When Toyota opened its new truck plant in San Antonio about three years ago, they had to hire something like 2000 workers.
They had, IIRC, more than 10k applicants and interviewed most of them, or in other words, for every position that was eventually filled, the hiring director had his or her choice of 3-5 candidates. And since skill levels are duplicated in many assembly line positions and Toyota doesn't have layers of union bureacracy to bypass if an employee termination becomes necessary, every worker who might be tempted to become lazy and irresponsible has the incentive of knowing that there are probably a couple dozen or more resumes on file in the HR office from similarly-qualified applicants.
Might the popularity of lower taxes in Republican circles be more due to the fact that people like paying less in taxes and the Republican party is traditionally the party of smaller government*, than "lockstep enforcement of the Laffer curve"?
Just saying, you know, that there are simple, parsimonious reasons to cut taxes and talk about cutting taxes that have nothing to do with Bolshevik-style Party Discipline or slavish worship of a particular bit of economics.
It seems somewhat harder to defend Teachers' Union Protection schemes as having a mere populist source, however, as I'm unaware of a great strand of the population demanding such policies as the Teachers' Unions support. It certainly appears, in general, that the great mass of the people are more concerned with results in education.
(* And yes, we're all aware that the Republicans these days aren't actually making government smaller... except perhaps in comparison to what Democrats would do.)
I'd say the republicans are the party of talking about smaller government in highly abstract terms without ever talking about what they'd actually like to cut.
Anonymous - that's not the "labor economics" definition of skill level. I assume the OP was making a particular point about workers, and you can't refute his point simply by redefining it.
Turbulence wrote: Megan, does your employer objectively rate each writer and dish out merit pay based solely on your score?
Too easy. There are, in fact, several ways to evaluate the performance of a person in Megan's position:
1. Is she the kind of writer her employer would like to see on staff in the first place? (She self-published for years, so her hiring manager had plenty of material to evaluate -- something often not possible when hiring a teacher, especially a new graduate).
2. Does the quantity and depth of the posts published, reasonably reflect the kind of time commitment her employer wishes to see? (Somewhat fuzzy, but still quantifiable with the help of a basic ruberic).
3. Is she posting about topics that reflect the general editorial interest of her employers? (Easy enough to investigate.)
4. Is she drawing traffic to her blog? Are any visitors clicking through to other areas of the website? (Very easy to log and quantify.)
Etc.
With teacher merit pay, the same approach is not possible, but that doesn't mean that no approach is possible. Have the principal and board of directors randomly drop in on classes. Interview the teachers periodically -- both for eval purposes and to find out if the teacher is experiencing any student problems that could be addressed before they get out of hand. Randomly take some written input from the students. Examine long-term trends in classroom test scores (perhaps with demographic statistical weighting) and compare the test material to the school's formal standards. Gather the evaluating parties back together, form a sum tally of the results, and then discuss which teachers deserve the biggest bonuses and why -- i.e., do the exact same things any other professional employer would do to review employee performance, with appropriate adaptations to the profession's format.
This would require a lot of effort, unquestionably; but consider the results of a good or a crappy education on the students, as well as the source of the funding. Some people act like this type of performance review is an intangible proposition, but that objection reads more like equivocation for the fact that some people simply don't want to see it done for some reason.
You know what is pathetic about all this, is that the way our kids are educated in almost all urban schools sucks and there is nothing that will ever be done about it as long as the teachers union exists.
Year after year it is the same bullshit about lousy students and underpaid teachers. The teachers of America are the only people, outside of weather forecasters, who have shown that each year their performance gets worse and their output more shoddy. The union solution is to give them more money I guess so the shoddy output will be more expensive which goes along with the American belief that if it is more expensive it must be better.
I mean, every year, year after year, it's the same thing. But no one seems to notice that it is the same discussion and it will be for the rest of your life, even if you are just beginning to read. And the Great Empowerer of this failure is the Democratic party.
Speaking on behalf of no one other than myself on the left, I think the segment of the left that thinks of teacher unions as saintly is vanishingly small.
I do think that a significant part of the left (including me) thinks that doing something about teacher unions is not the key to education reform, for basic economic reasons:
1) The various work rules that teacher unions advocate for are a form of compensation to teachers. You could get the same teachers to work without benefit of those rules, but you would have to pay them more money.
2) Accordingly, while it might be desirable to get rid of some of the work rules for which teacher unions advocate, you can't simply waive a wand and make them disappear without having an impact on the supply of teacher labor. (This is basic economics: for the same reasons, you couldn't halve class size by hiring twice the number of teachers for half pay.)
3) It follows that castrating or getting rid of teacher unions is not a costless means of improving education. This is borne out by looking at the states that have very weak teacher unions (e.g., TX, GA): they typically have the same problems that all the other states have.
4) You could have some kind of education reform that included hobbling teacher unions or getting rid of certain work rules that teacher unions advocate, but it would have to be part of some more comprehensive scheme (which would probably have to include a substantial hike in teacher compensation). In the absence of such a scheme, it is unclear what good (if any) hobbling teacher unions would do.
Heck, I'm a radical, free-thinking independent.
Here's what I think about the Laffer curve: I think we're at
the 30% level. That is if we cut taxes then the government takes
in less money but still more than the assumption that there is
no such effect at all.
Thirty percent is just a crude guess and applies only to the
United States. What the figure would be for Sweden I don't know.
I would also guess that tax shelters are, at this moment in
history, a good part of the reason this happens. Every percentage
drop in the tax rate leads to the well-off shifting some
of their assets out of tax shelters to more productive, and by
the way higher taxpaying, use.
I also believe that the average dollar spent by the private
sector leads to more growth than the average dollar spent by
the public sector. I don't think this is true all the way
down to zero. That is there is going to be a certain level
of public spending where the average dollar of expenditure
is as productive as the non-public, and below that level of
spending actually more productive than the private.
But I believe we're rather far from that point. I know there
are people that believe to the contrary -- that an additional
marginal dollar spent by the government leads to more growth
than money spent by individuals and profit-seeking enterprises
-- but I confess I've never seen an adequate explanation or
maybe even explanation at all.
I don't think this business about the differential productivity
of public and private sector expenditures is really part of
what Laffer is talking about. Maybe it is. But my opinion
owes nothing to Laffer.
In any case if one believes the average dollar spent privately is
more productive than the average dollar spent publically, then
over any length of time one is more or less committed to
reducing government expenditures.
Even a small difference in productivity has a dramatic impact
on the eventual overall wealth over say twenty years due to
the effect of compounding.
Turbulence writes:
If a state instituted strict merit pay, then I would expect prospective teachers to reason as follows:
1. If I go work for that state, I'll be dead last in priority for choosing classes since I'll be new and don't know anyone
But this is true now! And, in any event, when is this not generally true in any profession? Why would it be different for teachers? An argument for making performance a factor in hiring/firing is to get the deadwood out that occupy all those 'good' positions.
2. I'll be given the toughest classes of students with the most significant problems
I don't follow you. I believe a high performing teacher with a salary incentive to take on a tough class is just what we need in the system. As it is, the junior people with no experience are getting exactly what you describe.
3. They will perform terribly compared to other students
Then why are they teaching?
4. I will earn very little money
What? If you're average, you'll get the average pay check, but if you're good and a system is in place to recognize excellence, you'll receive incentives to stay just as you do in any other profession. Beyond monetary, these could include choice of classes and school, or the opportunity to get additional education at taxpayer expense, just to name a few examples.
A rational teacher would not necessarily jump to work for such a state.
So you're proposing that there is no economic incentive which can be constructed to entice highly qualified candidates into the teaching profession. I challenge this most heartily and I cite myself as an example.
Hmmm, Republicans are devoted to an idea.
While Democrats are devoted to getting votes from the teachers unions.
And the Republicans should be ashamed of what exactly???
alkili,
The overwhelming majority of jewish children go to private schools
and usually their parents have significant choice. That is if
they think a school is not performing well then they can and will
switch their child to another. Consequently all these schools
are, compared to public schools, under extraordinary pressure to
perform well and will quickly cease to exist if they don't.
Although jewish children are only a tiny percentage of the overall
population they are academically outperforming the rest of the
population to an amazing degree.
This seems to me evidence that choice matters and has a big positive
impact.
We could do the same thing with public schools if in large urban
districts we committed to closing down one or two of the worst
each year, while at the same time making a fresh start at one or
two new, while giving parents the option of switching between
public schools as long as there's sufficient space and as long
as the parent commits to supplying the transportation.
Even if only a small percentage of the children move, this still
really pushes on the system.
In the area I live in they allow choice at the high school level
but this is less than it appears because each school specializes
and there are no alternatives.
Anon at 12:13, It's quite simple. "Toyota and GM". Compare and contrast.
Except a) for their Japanese factories, Toyota pays no health care costs, since Japan, like every major industrialized country except the US has universal health care; and b) the threat of unionizing has helped to keep wages higher in Toyota's US factories, a fact which has been explicitly recognized by Toyota.
Look-- I've said this again and again, and I have never, ever gotten a reasonable response. This country is not exactly rife with talented, intelligent young people entering the marketplace looking to be teachers. Today, teaching remains largely a niche field to the best credentialled young Americans, because of the prohibitively low entry-level wages. Those that do enter teaching do out of a passion for the profession and a desire to improve young people's lives; not everyone has those internal drives. So here's my question: when we are facing a problem attracting dedicated, intelligent young workers to the teaching field as it stands, you want to remove some of the strongest draws of the profession, generally strong unions and job security. What on earth you thinking about? People don't work jobs for no reason. I simply can't comprehend how removing incentives for a job with a talent shortage is supposed to improve conditions in that job. What are you going to offer people if you take away their job security? Why on earth would a smart college graduate start teaching for $34,000 a year and no job security?
And, once again, I have to point out that the deep South contains both the least unionized teachers and the worst schools. But then, the moronically simplistic teachers unions= failing students meme is sacrosanct among conservatives.
Freddie -
Today, teaching remains largely a niche field to the best credentialled young Americans, because of the prohibitively low entry-level wages.
Yes, precisely. I don't know of any sane person that would argue they are overpaid, so why not have merit pay so that teachers that demonstrate excellence over time are paid more. Why is this not ok with teacher unions?
If someone wants to be a teacher for the reasons you list, I cannot comprehend why that same person thinks the NEA or AFT is an incentive.
Why on earth would a smart college graduate start teaching for $34,000 a year and no job security?
I would argue that it's because a lot of mediocre college graduates want those jobs as well and, I know that if I work hard I can be among the best. The same might be said for other professions, such as joining the military. In most places, however, being among the best teachers gets you a plaque for the wall and little else. Why shouldn't that Physics teacher that's won awards and sent half his students to state competitions make twice as much as the English teacher that hasn't updated a lesson plan since she started twenty years ago?
For years superbly-talented women worked as teachers in large part because of discrimination elsewhere in the job market. The public likes to pretend this is still the case, and that we don't need to pay entry-level teachers salaries that attract superbly-talented people. And we wonder why teaching quality has gone down?
Suggesting that unions are what stands in between us and fantastic public schools is just stupid.
And pretending that there is some equivalence between the power that teachers unions hold over education policy and the sway supply-siders like norquist have over tax policy is just dumb.
When 90% of congressional democrats sign a pledge to NEVER vote for teacher merit pay or school choice or any other policy the unions generally oppose under any circumstances, let me know.
Actually, I know blogs are somewhat informal, but your argument is badly written, indeed nearly unintelligible, and has already been refuted by numerous commenters above, so I'm saving my breath.
"For years superbly-talented women worked as teachers in large part because of discrimination elsewhere in the job market. The public likes to pretend this is still the case, and that we don't need to pay entry-level teachers salaries that attract superbly-talented people. And we wonder why teaching quality has gone down?"
Damn right. Miss Crocker, my terrific 8th grade math teacher would have been a lawyer or programmer or IT specialist or something these days making four times in real money what she did then.
Freddie,
1) Weak teachers unions != no teachers unions.
2) Weak teachers unions != teachers unions that don't block reforms
3) Tons of smart college graduate go into jobs making 30-40K a year with "no job security" as plenty of them don't belong to unions and don't have post graduate degrees. I know plenty of kids form my '03 class at a top 10 school that make in that range.
4) I don't have data but I remember a study that asked if people supported paying teachers more now, if there was an easier termination process, and if it was based on performance. The numbers were highest for merit pay with less security. I know that matches up with every parent I talked to .
5) The attitude that the only reason a job is attractive is that you can't be fired attracts a type of person I'm not sure I want teaching my child.
6) Also, there would be more people without education degrees, but with content specific degrees who would love to go into junior high or high school teaching (I would and went down that path at a charter school), but don't want to get an education certification to teach basic stuff they are excited about.
"The biggest problem with education, though, is that we don't value it as a society. Schools are underfunded, neglected, and parents often ignore their kids' education."
ANOTHER great point! Jeezus, it was horrible being smart in my high school, a middle class school in an industrial town in the midwest. You might as well have been walking around with a tumor the size of a grape-fruit in the middle of your face. I bet it's just as bad today in the semi-rural consolidated high-school in my area. Totally anti-intellectual. Totally. No respect for ideas at all. And the good teachers have to row against the incredible current of lack of interest on the part of students and parents alike.
David in NY,
What is the teacher's union's plan to fix that? Oh, higher pay and less accountability....
I think most people on here are drastically overestimating how hard it is to raise teacher pay to any signficant degree. In a lot of districts, you basically would have to get 51% of homeowners (many of whom have no children in the public schools in the district) to agree to an increase in property taxes on themselves. My experience with these sorts of issues is that they never, ever agree to this.
Seriously, how many of the people on here would agree to pay $500 a year extra so that someone else's kids can be taught by a better teacher? My guess is that if people are being honest, it's in the neighborhood of 10% or less.
Joe - I'd pay for the raise, but hey, I live in NY so $500 on my property tax bill isn't a big increase. In fact, I might not notice.
Seriously though, I think if we value their services then we should pay for it. My local school district got voter permission to pay several hundred thousand dollars for artifical turf on the sports fields, for God's sake. I'd rather that had been spent on recruiting some first rate science faculty. Full disclosure: I have a child in said school district.
David,
Not all parents lack interest in education and not all students
lack interest. Empower those that are interested and things
will change.
Imagine that instead of the one high school in your hometown
there had been several smaller schools. Imagine that through
your own effort you'd been able to go to the best of those
schools. As you say most of the students weren't interested;
most of the parents weren't interested and they aren't going
to try.
Those that did care would naturally cluster. Likely you'd
have a far better experience. Possibly your life would have
unfolded a bit differently. Possibly a bit better.
It doesn't really end there. Envy is a big motivator. Although
mostly a negative thing. One might think, I think, that
a good part of the reason public schools don't work is that
envy rules both with the teachers and the students.
It unfolds as a holding down and punishment of those that seem
to be doing well.
Allow people to separate. Allow those who care to self-associate.
The envious will respond by trying to destroy the achievement
and disallow the separation. If this isn't allowed to succeed
many will move on to imitating.
So, as usual, no argument whatsoever to address the fact that the least unionized regions of the country also have the worst schools.
Freddie,
Can you show me a comparison of the NY inner city schools and the GA or TX schools?
Also, can I have a comparison of teachers union strength versus performance, accounting for
1) cost per child
2) teacher per student
3) parental education
4) population density of schools
5) availability of affordable alternatives
Once I see that (or anything resembling 50% of that), I'll be happy to have this discussion. Until then, it's correlation, not causation.
"Seriously though, I think if we value their services then we should pay for it."
I think we should too. I think that most taxpayers in a district think we should too. I just think that when given a ballot where they can check "$500 more in property taxes and higher teacher salaries" or "same property taxes and teachers can make do with what they're getting now," most people -- especially the ones without kids -- will check the latter box.
"My local school district got voter permission to pay several hundred thousand dollars for artifical turf on the sports fields, for God's sake."
Ah, well football's different, especially in the south. I remember in high school (in Texas), the head coach of the football team made more than everyone at the school (principals, teachers, everyone), and it wasn't particularly close.
"So, as usual, no argument whatsoever to address the fact that the least unionized regions of the country also have the worst schools."
Is this true even when controlled for demographics? Because comparing dirt poor Mississippi to Connecticut probably isn't the best way to go about things. Just saying.
Freddie,
There's no more choice in Alabama than there is in New York City.
And I doubt that Alabama's schools are worse than D.C. schools
which are (A) heavily unionized and (B) have some of the better
paid teachers in the country.
Yes, you are correct. Getting rid of unions isn't going to
solve the problem by itself.
But it would be a step forward. Unions block change, experiment,
and improvement.
A good part of the problem of the south is the lack of
a local movement to improve the schools. Or that may be unfair,
I rather think that southern parents lost control of their schools
to federal judges sometime ago.
Might be that there have been some ancillary long-term negative
spin offs from that. The whole black-white thing makes it very
hard to improve the schools.
As far as teacher work rules, I'm not sure what those are. My wife regularly teaches classes of over 20 students, all day, alone, with a brief lunch break at an odd time. Of course, kids eat lunch at odd times, too (10 am?). She is given minimal resources and ends up spending hundreds of dollars every year to supply her kids with resources they need. Some students need basics that their parents should, but don't, provide. She officially ends her work day at 3 pm, but is expected to do various other tasks, attend meetings, get her room ready, etc...
EI
Not really, here in Minnesota it works a little something like this:
1) The school board negotiates a contract with the teacher’s union agreeing to increase their salary and benefits beyond an amount that can be maintained in the next budget
2) When a budget shortfall occurs, the school cuts visible programs like busing, sports, music, libraries etc. that parents will notice.
3) When the parents complain, the school says that they are “underfunded” and an excess levy is proposed otherwise they will be “forced” to maintain the cuts.
4) The excess levy goes through on a referendum on an off-year when most people usually don’t vote and the proponents say it’s for the kids and without the levy these very visible and popular programs will be cut for good.
5) If the levy fails to pass, it gets proposed again and again until it does. If it does pass, about 80 plus percent of the money (per the State Auditor’s office) goes for salaries and benefits with the rest going for other expenses.
6) Then the school board stands reelection – again on an off year when turnout is predictably low – and Education Minnesota (the State’s teachers union) throws its support behind reelecting board members who will agree to it’s budget demands.
7) Rinse and repeat every few years.
"The overwhelming majority of [J]ewish children go to private schools."
I have no idea whether or not this is actually true. Can anyone provide data?
"You know what is pathetic about all this, is that the way our kids are educated in almost all urban schools sucks and there is nothing that will ever be done about it as long as the teachers union exists."
Um, what about states with no teachers' unions? The last 3 states I've lived in (2 in the South and one in the lower Midwest) had no collective bargaining and no union protection whatsoever, and the public schools are farking awful.
In contrast, the New England states where I grew up have large and powerful teachers' unions, and the schools are vastly better than the ones I've observed for the last 11 years.
So if teachers' unions are so bad, why aren't people flocking to those awesome schools in the rural South?
tomboy wrote: For years superbly-talented women worked as teachers in large part because of discrimination elsewhere in the job market. The public likes to pretend this is still the case, and that we don't need to pay entry-level teachers salaries that attract superbly-talented people. And we wonder why teaching quality has gone down?
There's probably some truth in that, but it's also worth noting that the personnell shortages in the healthcare markets have probably also contributed. Teaching, nursing, and dental hygiene all seem to disproportionately draw from a pool of service-minded women; just ask the University of Nice Coeds -- pardon, Northern Colorado -- which specializes in the first two.
However, whereas teaching in times past offered some of the best job opportunities, positions are now readily available for nurses and dental hygienists -- so available, in fact, that nurses are sometimes receiving signing bonuses(!) -- with varying combinations of high salaries/bonuses, flexible working hours, and selectable working conditions.
Actually we are at a point on the Laffer curve where every dollar of tax cuts reduces the amount of money available to the government by considerably more than a dollar.
High deficits mean higher interest rates and higher interest rates mean that government spending goes up to no benefit.
Clinton's tax rises were not anywhere big enough to balance the budget. The point was to show the markets that the administration was serious about cutting the deficit. Interests rates fell quickly as a direct result and the result was a seven year long economic boom.
The markets know that Bush is not at all serious when it comes to budget discipline. He let spending rip for seven years and he is only interested in vetoing new spending now to score points off the democrats.
Mark Amerman (2:33p): I don't necessarily disagree with that public school proposal but I would suspect that teacher unions are not the obstacle (or, at least, not the chief obstacle) to that kind of proposal. Facilitating even public school choice has logistical and administrative costs. A school district may not be able to condition school choice on parents providing transportation.
Skullberg (4:53p) and others: Obviously, teachers, unionized or no, are going to fight like hell against any proposal that pays some teachers additional merit pay by docking salaries for the less meritorious teachers: the predictability of teacher pay scales is a very substantial benefit of the job. Injecting a substantial element of risk into teacher pay at existing pay scales -- which is what any merit pay scheme, no matter how cleverly designed, would require -- is equivalent to asking people to commit to a career where an unlucky class assignment might mean you can't pay your rent. A merit pay proposal that represented a substantial add to teachers' salaries could work, but the problem would be paying for it.
I'm surprised no one's brought up what may be the big issue: there might not be many marginal cases where teacher quality affects outcome.
Parental background and parental involvement have long been known to be the strongest predictors of academic success. There have even been studies demonstrating no substantial difference between some public and private schools when parental income and other correlated factors are taken into account.
This suggests that the marginal utility of a more skilled teacher might not be high enough to justify a meaningful pay incentive.
Though perhaps we should thank teachers for taking a lot of flak that parents actually deserve.
I'm not saying it's so, but it certainly is possible.
Once I see that (or anything resembling 50% of that), I'll be happy to have this discussion. Until then, it's correlation, not causation.
If only your orthodoxy permitted you to have the same standards of evidence for what you yourself believe. Or would you really ignore the evidence if the opposite is true? Of course not.
You just beat me to it! Yes, there are ways to improve the system, but merit pay for teachers is not a proposal whose efficacy is near the top of the list. I've taught for a number of years, and most of my associates have the same thing at the top of that list: power to go with accountably. Support, active support from the school _and_ from the parents, whose sins are manifold. In fact, to go along with the comment by Psychohistorian, the number one problem with education today is . . . parents.
The stories I could tell. Oh, and I'll add the usual comments when merit pay comes up: Great! I'm all for it! How do you define merit, and why, and how do you propose to measure it? In particular, how much do you propose to pay to measure it? Specific, workable answers to these questions have been found to be generally lacking.
alkali,
"Injecting a substantial element of risk into teacher pay at existing pay scale -- which is what any merit pay scheme, no matter how cleverly designed, would require"
I disagree, this is easily overcome by two things:
1) Guaranteeing current teachers their current income and track for something like 10 years in preparation
2) For new hires (and 10 year on all teachers) setting base pay where it is, reducing tenure based raises, and using some of that diverted money and increased tax money to fund the merit based pay.
No one is saying all or most of their salary is merit based, so the rent example is hyperbole. You make it a bonus system, tied into future base pay.
And as for the effect of classroom on the outcome, any well working system will take into account previous teachers of students, students absolute progress, students relative progress, parental feedback, student feedback, core curriculum progress, non-core curriculum progress, discipline issues as well as providing methods of internal feedback to correct the system over time. None will be perfect, but if we can find one that increases student performance and is stable over time, we can tinker at the margins.
Not for you necessarily, but as a preemptive discussion of "teaching to the test" I would like to hear why the AP and IB systems are exceptions.
You have no first hand experience of construction, I take it.
SOV - why need this measurement system be perfect/expensive? Aren't there many parameters you apply to teachers you've taught with? Both my parents are retired educators and they, to this day, have no problem with identifying the duds and those that excelled and noted they all made the same salary (with a note of disgust).
I'd rather have my child in a crowded class with a good teacher than in smaller ones without the skill.
Despite my parents attitudes, you aren't the first I've heard from that was hesitant to identify the poor performers. Why is there a reluctance to get rid of people who might be doing us all a favor by working retail?
An important point that I've made before elsewhere but needs repeating:
The one group of teachers you almost never hear (generalized) complaints about is those who teach in private and religious and charter schools on the K-12 level. That's because, unlike professors with tenure (and sometimes unions), and public K-12 teachers with unions (and sometimes tenure), they can be fired at any time, and some are. The paradox is that teachers who can be fired seldom need to be fired, whereas those who can't be fired are often exactly the ones who should be fired, but aren't, because they can't be fired.
The same paradox applies to students. In my experience, private and charter schools that are free to expel students only have to do so now and then. Those I've taught in seem to average around 1% per year asked to leave during the school year, and another 2% encouraged not to return for the next year. (It's a bit higher for low-tuition startups, even lower for 150-year-old schools with Ivy-level tuition.)
My brief experience in public school teaching has been that a good 30% of my students were behaving in ways that would have gotten them expelled from a private or charter school, and that prevented themselves and everyone else from learning much. If we could only have gotten rid of 1-3% of those 30, the other 27-29% would have been fine. That's why I will never take a public (non-charter) job again, will never take a job requiring me to join a union, and will never take a job requiring me to take any education courses. I did take the PRAXIS test, but that was just one Saturday morning and my (charter) school reimbursed me for it.
[Name too long to quote] at 12:13pm asks: "Why exactly do you think that getting rid of unions would be such a great enticement for talented people?" Answer: personal experience, and knowing lots of others (many of them Ph.D.s) already working for low salaries in private or Catholic or charter schools (and loving it), who have the same objection to joining unions and jumping through stupid Education-major hoops.
Michael, I'm telling you this once and get it straight: I'm identifying you as a troll nut job who is not to be encouraged. If you want me to cease applying that designation to you, you will apolgize, at once, for this:
This marks you as kook who has a pre-staked position determined to attack anyone who looks as if they might effectively disagree with it.
You think I'm being harsh? Not at all. Now you can either admit your inappropriate pigeonholing, apologize for it, and rephrase if you had some other idea to express that you just happened communicate poorly. Or, alternatively, I could be way in the wrong. If that's the case, show me the words that gave you the impression that I was 'hesitant' to identify the poor performers.(Note, btw, that I explicitly said I was all for merit pay. I don't see how you could possibly miscontrue this as 'not for merit pay'), and I will cheerfully apolgize.
Why do conservative hate America? Unions are as american an institution as are baseball teams, and have served our nation better.
Parents who send their children to unionized schools get a better education for their kids than do parents who send their children to public schools that are not unionized.
This issue was settled long ago by real people with real children. The debate is over. You lost. Go pester someone else.
..skilled construction trades for instance, eliminating unions is most likely to lead to lower standards of skill and lower quality....
You have no first hand experience of construction, I take it.
I have plenty of first hand experience in construction on all levels of projects. Here is my experience as best as I can tell it. In general union people were far more skilled and uniform in their level of skill. Non union people in general were far less skilled. However, the very best people were non union.
This is odd, not so much because it's standard libertarian cant coming from a bog-standard conservative, but because it is almost precisely backward and yet going the same way.
The devil is in the details of course; I imagine that in Dr. Weevil's world free markets and private enterprise, this actually applies. In point of fact, as a general rule, private and charter schools are under tremendous pressure not to expel students, for the good and simple reason that expelled students means less money. This is not always the case of course. Private schools can compete by cherry-picking, and if they have a sufficiently grand reputation that no single parent or group of parents can influence their applicant pool, then yes, in my experience what is described is what actually happens. But that is not your typical private school, which is usually operating on a shoestring, and often dependent on the good will and favors of the parents. In that case, just as in the public one, pressure is put on the teacher to be 'understanding', to 'teach to his/her unique individual needs', and so on and so forth.
If you want to improve education, give teachers the power to flunk anyone they choose, or to dismiss a student from their class permanently for bad behavior. Make C-level work actually count as a C, not a B or, God forbid, a B+. If the parents kick up a fuss, have them told in no uncertain terms that they're the primary reason their little Johnny the Genius (make that Misunderstood Genius) is a dud, academically speaking.
Sigh. Not going to happen, of course. The school board is beholden to the public. Were any board to actually adopt that stance, they would quickly find themselves out of office in the next election cycle. Oh, here's a little something for the delectation of all, lest anyone think I overstate my case:
http://cnnstudentnews.cnn.com/2002/fyi/teachers.ednews/02/07/plagiarism.dispute.ap/index.html
I hate to agree with Yglesias, but it looks like he's got Megan dead to rights here: He has an example of a soi disant conservative having an article spiked by a conservative magazine for violating Laffer Curve orthodoxy, and he has examples of some elements of the left standing up to teachers unions. Meanwhile, Megan has no example of a liberal essay being spiked by a liberal magazine for talking out of school about the teachers unions.
MY, 1; MM, 0.
All the things 'ScentOfViolets' lists as "Not going to happen" are in fact happening right now at more than one private school at which I have taught, including some that are "operating on a shoestring". I agree that they're not going to happen in public schools, but that is precisely one of the reasons I refuse to work in a (non-charter) public school. Her final link also supports my argument, not hers, since it is about a public school.
It apparently hasn't occurred to her that parental pressure may in fact help a school enforce standards. If a bully is harrassing three smaller classmates, that's one set of parents who will object to expelling the bully, and three sets who will be pushing for it. In my experience, a safe and studious environment is a good way to attract good students, especially those who have been bullied at previous schools, those who are painfully shy or odd or have Asperger's, and those who were home-schooled. Parents of students who work hard for their As are also very much in favor of not handing out As like candy to lazy students and cheaters.
Her preliminary insult is also remarkably ignorant. So far from inadvertently expressing a libertarian opinion while trying to follow a strict conservative line, I in fact drew a conclusion from personal experience and observation. Whether that conclusion is 'libertarian' (is it?) or 'conservative' or something else, I neither know nor care. I wrote what I wrote because it seemed to me to be both true and important.
For someone who constantly demands apologies from others, 'ScentOfViolets' is awfully fond of insult and ignorant misstatement.
I think it's pretty apparent to all that you see what you want to see and hear what you want to hear. And what you see and hear just 'happens' to agree with a certain brand of conservative orthodoxy. Just a coincidence, I'm sure.
But tell me, since you're such a sharp cookie and I've obviously been lobotomized by an agenda . . . just how is my cite to demonstrate that support from the administration for teachers is not all that it could be actually be evidence for your point?
Please go on. Explain. At length.
ScentOfViolets:
Even according to you, what I see and hear does not always agree with "a certain brand of conservative agenda". Of course, you can't give me any credit for that divergence, you have to pretend that I'm inexplicably regurgitating some "standard libertarian cant" instead of actually thinking for myself.
I have never suggested that you were "lobotomized by an agenda". That's just projection: you're the one who thinks your opponents are lobotomized by agendas, while you are guided by the pure light of sweet Reason. Your contempt for your opponents seems to have made you too lazy to argue competently against them.
My main point was that private, Catholic, and charter schools are, in my experience, far better for students and teachers than standard public schools. I have taught both middle and high school, in four private, one Catholic, one public, and one charter school, as well as four universities. You linked to a horror story from a public school: how is that not evidence in favor of my disparagement of public schools?
Oh, and anecdotal data? Isn't worth a hill of beans. Mine disagrees with yours, but so what? Let's look at some actual statistics:
http://gradeinflation.com/
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/06/03/lombardi
http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=NDE0ZjNjNjA4N2M1N2ZkMTViZjAyZjIxNTdmNGYzODA=
http://voice.paly.net/view_story.php?id=4746
I think I'll trust my own eyes and ears, thank you very much. But you keep on giving us those updates from where you live, okay?
Uh, your argument is actually that private schools are better than public schools. So explain how this cite is actually evidence for your position. Should be a piece of cake, right?
SOV - How was I to interpret this as anything other than a stance against merit pay?
The stories I could tell. Oh, and I'll add the usual comments when merit pay comes up: Great! I'm all for it! How do you define merit, and why, and how do you propose to measure it? In particular, how much do you propose to pay to measure it? Specific, workable answers to these questions have been found to be generally lacking.
In this case, "I'm all for it" was taken by me as a cynical comment buried in an argument against my position. If it was otherwise, then you apologize. I owe you nothing.
As for orthodoxy, I haven't voted Republican since the 1984 election, but that's not because I follow any "orthodoxy". Quite the contrary; I'm all over the map politically. As I've said elsewhere, I definitely put people who attack me in the category of Those Not To Be Taken Seriously. Ad hominem attacks might make for amusing over-coffee reading, but don't enhance your argument much.
Iow, yes, you are a wingnut(note also, in yet another misreading of what I said, that I accused you of being a Republican. No.) And no, you are not going to apologize, even after you admit that you can't find anything in what I wrote that supports your position. "Hesitant" indeed. (Why is it so hard for wingnuts to take responsibility for their mistakes? Don't they realize that, far from making them the stone warriors for their cause they imagine themselves to be, it makes them look contmeptible, and hypocritical? More like an Exidor than a Hector?) I repeat: Merit Pay! Great! I'm all for it! How do you define merit, and why, and how do you propose to measure it? In particular, how much do you propose to pay to measure it?
The wingnuts always seem to be vague on those particular details. Just as they're vague about how, precisely, private schools are supposed to perform better by virtue of being private. There's a certain pattern there, if you catch my drift.
SOV -
I rather like this post and is in-line with my thinking about how to do this:
Posted by anony-mouse | October 17, 2007 1:34 PM With teacher merit pay, the same approach is not possible, but that doesn't mean that no approach is possible. Have the principal and board of directors randomly drop in on classes. Interview the teachers periodically -- both for eval purposes and to find out if the teacher is experiencing any student problems that could be addressed before they get out of hand. Randomly take some written input from the students. Examine long-term trends in classroom test scores (perhaps with demographic statistical weighting) and compare the test material to the school's formal standards. Gather the evaluating parties back together, form a sum tally of the results, and then discuss which teachers deserve the biggest bonuses and why -- i.e., do the exact same things any other professional employer would do to review employee performance, with appropriate adaptations to the profession's format.
This would require a lot of effort, unquestionably; but consider the results of a good or a crappy education on the students, as well as the source of the funding. Some people act like this type of performance review is an intangible proposition, but that objection reads more like equivocation for the fact that some people simply don't want to see it done for some reason.
If you find this unreasonable, I gather you are applying some orthodoxy. Do you work for the NEA?
As for cost, I don't see how this would be outside of normal administrative overhead. As for the money for the merit pay, well, that's precisely the point, isn't it? I agree that pay should be probably 25% higher but that extra 25% should, by no means, be equally distributed as it is now. It should go to those that demonstrate excellence. One way to identify that excellence is as described by anony-mouse above.
Michael, tell me, why should I talk to you? I'm serious. You made a mistake. You refuse to admit it. Given that, why should I waste my time when, reasonably, I can expect that talking with you would be a waste of time? Do you think this is some sort of game?
Now, if you are really serious (and I am - I happen to be a teacher myself, who, like most teachers think they're above average. Given that, why would I possibly oppose merit pay?) you will at the least admit that you started off half-cocked.
There's no shame in admitting you made a mistake, you know. I make a lot of them. Every day. And when people point this out, I cheerfully admit it. To most people, that makes me more credible, not less. Why do you think people like Dr. Weevil don't seem to be taken very seriously?
In the interest of ensuring I'm not misunderstood: If I mischaracterized your comment, I apologize. I still maintain that your statement was dripping with sarcasm and I believed, after reading it again, that you were not in favor of merit pay because of your oblique attack on measurement of performance.
As for your request for an example, I provided that courtesy of anony-mouse. This not being my profession, I didn't have time to compose my own but a'mouse's comments reflect much of my thinking.
Have fun with the students; they are our most important investment in our future and we appear, relative to much of the rest of the 1st world, to be falling down on the job.
I know Tom Friedman is despised by many of this blog's readers but he had an important point when he related that he told his kids to "do your homework because someone in India wants your (future) job."
Why should anyone take 'ScentOfViolets' seriously? Let us count the reasons not to:
1. She can't understand how anyone could have misread her statement in favor of merit pay. It's very hard to read "Great! I'm all for it!" as anything but sarcastic, and the following questions strongly suggest that she thinks it won't work, reinforcing the impression that she is against it. If she wanted to write in favor of merit pay, she could definitely have expressed herself a lot more clearly, so her sneers at Michael W are unwarranted.
2. In an argument over whether private K-12 schools are (in general) better than public K-12 schools, she gives four links to stories about grade inflation. The first three are about grade inflation in colleges and universities, which means they have nothing whatsoever to do with what I wrote. The fourth shows that grade inflation does sometimes occur in private high schools: ho hum, I never said they were perfect.
3. She writes "as a teacher myself" in an argument about merit pay on the K-12 level. That rather implies that she teaches on the K-12 level, and therefore has personal knowledge of the issue. On another thread she said she teaches math at a university. Why the misrepresentation? And why the sneer at "updates from where you live"? I live in the world of K-12 teaching, which is the subject under discussion, and know a thing or two about it.
4. She writes as if calling an idea 'libertarian' or 'conservative' or an opponent a 'wingnut' is a refutation. It's not even an attempt at a refutation.
I could go on, but why bother? Her 12:58am comment is so astonishly stupid, I really don't know what to say. She can't understand that a story about bad things happening in a public school does not refute someone who thinks private schools are better than public schools? Is anyone else having trouble understanding that?
SoV wrote: The wingnuts always seem to be vague on those particular details. Just as they're vague about how, precisely, private schools are supposed to perform better by virtue of being private. There's a certain pattern there, if you catch my drift.
Scent of Violets, this is not. Scent of a Rotting Diaper, maybe. So far I've seen this person refer passingly to his/her own anecdotal evidence, then viciously attack it when others with (much more) real-world experience cite it; demand evidence for certain claims, then supply evidence for his/her own claims that is at best tangential and at worst irrelevant; demand apologies from others for failing to agree with what may have been a misinterpretation, then engage in wanton misrepresentation and invective against the positions of others; and dimiss opposed opinions as being the league of "wingnuts" while engaging in illogical, irrational behavior that may be approaching the province of a clinical psychologist.
In short, SoV either woke up on a bed of nails and found that his/her S.O. had just moved out, or else SoV is not a reasonable person capable of intelligent, rationally-guided debate. In either case, I suggest that s/he should be poked at with a stick only for purposes of personal amusement, having clearly merited it. Otherwise, just ignore.
I'll meet you halfway and accept your apology. If I seem harsh sometimes it's because I've dealt with too many people who are up to their in bad faith, delusion, and demagoguery. Misrepresenting other people's words is an indicator of this sort. Refusing to acknowldege mistakes is another.
Anyway, no, it's also been my experience that quite a few teachers would welcome some sort of merit system if it actually measured merit. , and there was no possibility that this merit system could be used as a convenient club.
And assessing actual merit is a difficult thing to do. No one objects to the high salaries of major entertainment figures, because the criteria of merit are unambiguous, agreed upon, and easily measured. Sports figures like Barry Bonds can point to a numerical batting average, 0.370 or 0.341, say, or their cumulutive runs when asked why they deserve their megasalaries. Matt Damon can quote butts-in-seats figures, and no one disputes he is worth every penny he gets.
This is difficult, very difficult for what you are proposing. What is the definition of 'merit' how is it measured, what are it's components? Can everyone agree that this is the correct definition? What factors would give an erroneous measure, how could they be corrected for? Who is doing the measuring? How much is being spent on the measuring?
These are not easy questions, and they are often approached in bad baith (think voucher advocates who quote average cost per student instead of marginal cost, for example), advanced by the same sorts who have already demonstrated they are no friend of the public education system.
There are ways to assess merit, I agree, but they have an extremely strong subjective component, and they cost a great deal of money. If you've got some new idea, let's hear it. So far, all I've heard is some rather vague talk, nothing in detail.
Bear in mind that these types of assesments are extremely difficult, just as a general rule. The same types of questions, for example, apply to testing of children and how much they have learned, and what their abilities are.
Funny, I thought we were talking about teaching and schooling in general. I just picked the first four or five off a simple google search to show that your personal experiences are, shall we say, idiosyncratic. And that my personal perceptions were somewhat more accurate than yours.
You are, of course, free to post cites showing just the opposite wrt graded inflation in k-12 schools. Or - this ought to be good - you could explain just why there is more grade inflation in private universities than public, the private being so superior in your world-view, but the pattern is reversed.
Me, I agree with the 'conventional' view that education has become commoditized in the sense that the final grade is more important than what is actually learned, the diploma is more important than the classes actually taken. At least, that's my personal perception.
You know, "Doctor", the main reason why I bother to reply to you is to hold you up as the typical wingnut who's not to be taken seriously, who cannot, in fact, keep his story straight from post to post. Didn't you write this, not terribly long ago:
Gee, I'm being told I'm engaging in misrepresentation about my teaching experience when I claim knowledge of both K-12 and university levels . . . by someone who claims to have taught at both the K-12 and university levels.
Snicker. You do have entertainment value, I'll give you that.
My favorite aspect of Scent's argument was that the one link she posted that was actually germane was quoting a high school Junior in a high school newspaper as her authoritative source on the prevalence of grade inflation in private schools.
The moderate tone, sound reasoning skills, and clear command of the English language do indeed reinforce the hypothesis that Scent is a member of a teacher's union (CTA?)
"You're not responding to the meat of Matt's post. He demonstrates many ways in which the Democrats/liberals do not protect the teachers union to nearly the degree that the right wing enforces lockstep on Reaganomics."
You're comparing an interest group to an idea, an apples and oranges comparison. You can't "protect" an idea, you can either accept it or reject it. With interest groups it's "What have you done for me lately."
"Megan, seriously, name ONE industry in which weakening unions has INCREASED the skill level of workers and the QUALITY of goods produced."
Telecommunications
'ScentOfViolets' "thought we were talking about teaching and schooling in general". The original post was about teachers' unions, which means it was about K-12 public-school education. Yes, a few universities, like Cal State, have unions, but most university employees are protected by tenure, and few, if any, non-public K-12 schools have unions.
She wants me to "explain just why there is more grade inflation in private universities than public, the private being so superior in [my] world-view". I don't know whether there is, much less why, and I don't much care. I have not claimed that private universities are superior to public ones, much less that all private institutions are superior to all public ones. (She seems to have me confused with some kneejerk 'wingnut' boogieman of her own imagination.) I thought I had made it quite clear that I favor schools in which incompetent faculty can be fired. There is no essential difference between American public and private universities in this respect, since both have strong tenure systems that make firing incompetents extremely difficult. It is on the K-12 level that there is a huge difference between private, religious, and charter schools on the one hand, where incompetent faculty can be fired, and where parents and students are in general satisfied with the quality of their teachers, and traditional public schools on the other hand, where incompetents cannot be fired and are notoriously prevalent and bitterly resented.
She seems to find some contradiction between the fact that I have experience in both K-12 and university teaching, but object to her pretending to be doing both at once. It's conceivable that she is one of the very rare teachers who teaches simultaneously at the K-12 and university levels -- presumably part-time at one or both -- but that seems very unlikely. So how can she say "as a teacher" in a context clearly implying that she is teaching K-12 right now, when she's specifically said elsewhere that she teaches in a university? Instead of claiming to be "knowledgeable" about K-12 as well as university teaching, she needs to say what her experience in the field is, so we know whether her opinions are based on hearsay or actual knowledge.
I certainly agree (from personal knowledge) that education has to a great extent "become commoditized in the sense that the final grade is more important than what is actually learned, the diploma is more important than the classes actually taken". But that process is far from complete and far from inevitable, and many private schools stay in business precisely by catering to parents and students who are interested in actual learning.
Finally, I note that people who start shortening my pseudonym to 'Weevil' or putting "Doctor" in sneer-quotes are invariably those who are losing the argument.
Chuckle. Look at the crazy man dance. Just how do you get that I said I did both at once is beyond me.
And no, the reason I sneer at the 'doctor' is probably the reason most people do; you make it quite clear within a very few posts that you're an idiot. Sorry. That's just the way it is.
And that's it for me with you.
Running away just as you ran away from Stuart Buck on the other thread, eh, 'ScentOfViolets'?
The fact is that while we were arguing about merit pay in K-12 education, you wrote "I happen to be a teacher myself, who, like most teachers think they're above average. Given that, why would I possibly oppose merit pay?" Do you really not see how that clearly implies that you are teaching K-12 yourself? Merit pay for teachers is a topic almost entirely associated with K-12 schools. Professors may well support it, but not because they think they're above average -- that's irrelevant if they're not competing for it themselves.
And do you really not see that your coy avoidance of the question of whether you have in fact ever taught K-12 students might be taken as deeply dishonest? You say you have "knowledge" of both levels -- that's awfully vague. Have you taught K-12 students yourself, or not? Because if you haven't you might want to try listening to those of us who actually have first-hand knowledge of the subject.
Sigh. I really am a teacher at the college level, and I really do support merit pay, and no, how well I teach or don't teach doesn't really figured into my contract, and yes, I wish it did. I don't know how to make that any clearer.
Oh, and yes, I have taught K-12, and I also know more than a few K-12 teachers. So I do have first-hand knowledge, and I do listen to people who have first-hand knowledge of the subject. I also have a 13-year old daughter, I am involved in a lot of her school activities, I'm on the PTA, I've even been known to do coaching for the mathletes. I also volunteer to run the summer transition math section for minority students.
Funny thing, none of those people have your experiences either. But really, given your multiple idiocies, this is really all the time I have to devote to you.
Is that a promise? Next time I make a serious argument, as I did in my 9:09pm comment yesterday, you won't reply with a string of insults and ignorant misrepresentations, as you did in your 9:43pm comment, and then follow up with more of the same?
And next time you ask a question in a comment and I then post a comment that doesn't directly address your question, you won't treat me as some kind of idiot who doesn't know how to read, but will consider that perhaps I wasn't trying to address your specific question, but was writing about the general topic of the thread? Especially when I point that out? Because that would be a pleasant change from the obnoxious attitude that you displayed in our very first interaction, and that you have maintained ever since.
You not only have a funny way of looking at things, but a funny way of remembering them as well. It's also clear that the game you want to play is "as long as I can get him to respond, I win", and that you devote ten times the energy to personal attacks that you actually do to producing an argument. Possibly because you are incapable of developing one.
You're worthless.
Bye.
Wow, you can't even admit that you started both of our disputes, by gratuitously insulting me for things I had written that were not even addressed to you and that you refused to even try to understand.
You do provide an excellent illustration of just why there are so few conservatives in academia: because creeps like you assume that all conservatives are incompetent, even as you display your own grotesque incompetence in basic argument, and your fundamental lack of decency.
Don't hurry back.