Jack Nicklaus Endorses Romney, Mitt calls Jack “Greatest athlete of the 20th century.”

[Golfingdad]

Originally Posted by hanalei

Guess were going have to agree to disagree.

Education and training mean nothing if u cant get students engaged and enthusiastic about learning the material at hand. Versus the teacher with the PhD calling out 'Bueller?' for 5 minutes. Some of the worst college teachers I've encountered had PhDs in Chemistry and Math, they know everything about their subject, buy can't teach a dog to sit...

College is a whole different animal.  I believe that when we are talking generally about education and teachers, we are focusing on K-12.  College students are there because they really want to be there and really want to learn about that subject.  I don't think at that stage it is part of the teachers responsibility to motivate them to want it anymore.  If you don't want it, you don't go to college.

That doesn't mean that college professors who care and enjoy their jobs aren't better than the ones you're referring to, because they certainly are, but that doesn't really pertain to this discussion.  I don't think so at least.  Are college professors in the teachers' unions?

Secondly, in reference to high school and below teachers ... I don't think Subaroo was saying that teachers with more training trump teachers that care, he's saying teachers with more and better training who care trump teachers who's kids do well on tests.

[David in FL]

I don't think Subaroo was saying that teachers with more training trump teachers that care, he's saying teachers with more and better training who care trump teachers who's kids do well on tests.

No. He said, teachers should be paid more....and not on the basis of merit, but rather on the basis of the amount of training they have. Unfortunately, that's an extremely common belief in academia as a whole. Its no better than those unions that believe that pay and promotion should be solely based on tenure, rather than on performance and merit. And we wonder why mediocrity has become the standard to which so many aspire..... :-(

[Subaroo]

Originally Posted by David in FL

No.

He said, teachers should be paid more....and not on the basis of merit, but rather on the basis of the amount of training they have.

Well maybe we are talking past each other when we say "merit pay."  When I say merit pay, I'm referring to paying teachers based on their students' results on standardized tests.  Is this what you mean too?

[Subaroo]

Originally Posted by Golfingdad

College is a whole different animal.  I believe that when we are talking generally about education and teachers, we are focusing on K-12.  College students are there because they really want to be there and really want to learn about that subject.  I don't think at that stage it is part of the teachers responsibility to motivate them to want it anymore.  If you don't want it, you don't go to college.

That doesn't mean that college professors who care and enjoy their jobs aren't better than the ones you're referring to, because they certainly are, but that doesn't really pertain to this discussion.  I don't think so at least.  Are college professors in the teachers' unions?

Secondly, in reference to high school and below teachers ... I don't think Subaroo was saying that teachers with more training trump teachers that care, he's saying teachers with more and better training who care trump teachers who's kids do well on tests.

Right.  College professors are experts.  K-12 teachers are...teachers.

[David in FL]

Well maybe we are talking past each other when we say "merit pay."  When I say merit pay, I'm referring to paying teachers based on their students' results on standardized tests.  Is this what you mean too?

I mean paying anyone, regardless of their field, by their performance as measured by whatever objective metrics are deemed appropriate by the people who are hiring and paying them.

[Subaroo]

Originally Posted by David in FL

I mean paying anyone, regardless of their field, by their performance as measured by whatever objective metrics are deemed appropriate by the people who are hiring and paying them.

I think there are metrics to measure a teacher, more subjective though.  If you have other objective ways to measure teachers then lets talk about them, but I think right now we are talking about standardized tests.  Standardized tests to determine a teacher's salary do not work.

[Golfingdad]

Originally Posted by David in FL

I mean paying anyone, regardless of their field, by their performance as measured by whatever objective metrics are deemed appropriate by the people who are hiring and paying them.

Originally Posted by Subaroo

I think there are metrics to measure a teacher, more subjective though.  If you have other objective ways to measure teachers then lets talk about them, but I think right now we are talking about standardized tests.  Standardized tests to determine a teacher's salary do not work.

I kind of agree with both of you on this one.  I would bet that most people would agree that teaching to tests is not good teaching.  Therefore, it stands to reason that paying teachers based on test results isn't the best idea.  But just paying teachers solely on their education and formal training isn't the best alternative either.  Is there another option?

[x129]

Teaching  really isn't any harder  or more subjective than any other professional job. Now I am not saying those evaluations in other fields are perfect or 100% accurate. I am just saying teaching isn't some magical field. Yes teacher results are much more than just test results which is why most of the incentive programs I am aware of only use it as 1 of the criteria. But teacher unions in general are not too fond of the other evaluation tools complaining that they are too biased.  But if you asked the teachers, executive staff, students, and parents to name the top 10% of teacher and the bottom 10%, you would find very few names on both lists.  In general, everyone knows who the great and who the terrible teachers are.It is figuring out the ones in the middle that is tricky.

The studies linking increased education to better teaching in the k-12 range  suggest that completing masters degrees does little to nothing to help improve teacher performance. There are exceptions if the degree is in a  some noneducation field (i.e. if you have PHD in mathematics and are teaching calculus, or a masters in chemistry teaching science. English and the fine arts didn't show this effect). Part of the problem is that people get Masters in education for the added pay not because they want to be better teachers.  Experience after the first 5 years also has just about zero correlation with teaching performance in most of the studies. A couple suggest improvement out to 20 years (but with about 80% of the gain in the first 3 years) which suggests that we are overpaying teachers with 20+ years of experience and underpaying the ones with 5 years. Now there are some reasons to overpay for experience other than performance.

Originally Posted by Subaroo

I think there are metrics to measure a teacher, more subjective though.  If you have other objective ways to measure teachers then lets talk about them, but I think right now we are talking about standardized tests.  Standardized tests to determine a teacher's salary do not work.