ferguson high school says..........

BBQTV · Apr 9, 2010

if you dont know a bill was passed that made teacher pay based on test scores. at 1:00pm today ferguson high school kids skiped class to protest. the reason i post this is because omg thats my school!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111!!!!111111oneone!!!!!11! are princeipal said she does not want this but said she isnt going to stop anyone from protesting. hopefully this sends a meesage to people

fromundaman · Apr 9, 2010

Hahahahahaha!

You don't see the irony in this do you?
OF COURSE the principal would let you skip. Less students in class = less students learning = lower test scores = teachers get paid less = principal gets paid more.

While I agree it's a messed up law, I just want to congratulate you on doing the exact opposite of your goal.

BBQTV · Apr 9, 2010

the bill will start 2013. she wants us to skip but cant say she does

fromundaman · Apr 9, 2010

Ahhh... okay then. Nevermind.

BBQTV · Apr 9, 2010

as of 2:00 children went back to class. now we wait. their was cake thrown cupcakes thrown. i dont know what newschannel but their was a helicopter

TaterSalad0811 · Apr 9, 2010

HOLD IT!!

What's the big deal about being paid based on test scores? Makes sense to me, if a teacher is doing a bad job, it reflects on tests. Sure, some people are ignorant and don't take their education seriously, but there can't be THAT many of those kids in his/her class, right?

And on top of that, why are the students protesting? Does the bill affect them?

Kirby King · Apr 9, 2010

Because if teachers optimize their teaching for a standardized test as opposed to actual learning, students don't actually... learn. They just know how to perform on a standardized test. And tying teacher salaries directly to test scores incentivizes exactly that kind of behavior.

Pluvia · Apr 9, 2010

You can't get paid for test scores, the implications of that is the lower achieving students will be cut from the class rather than helped with their work to achieve better. Why bother with the below average students when you can just get rid of them and help the smarter students get better scores.

BBQTV · Apr 9, 2010

their are people who make money off these tests. and they have the nerve to try to cut or budget make give us this ****? not only that but they going to test art p.e and other things [assuming their not cut of course] and if the teacher gets paid based on scores you think their gonna try to cheat or something? a lot of teachers said their looking for new jobs so that in case it doesn't get removed they have another job. you think people are going to want to be teaching?

BBQTV · Apr 9, 2010

Kirby King said:
Because if teachers optimize their teaching for a standardized test as opposed to actual learning, students don't actually... learn. They just know how to perform on a standardized test. And tying teacher salaries directly to test scores incentivizes exactly that kind of behavior.

quoted for truth. dont care if i double post

1048576 · Apr 10, 2010

Playing devil's advocate...

If the test is designed correctly, surely doing well on the test is indicative of knowledge in that subject. While it's possible to have a bad test day, the fact that there are 30 or so students in the classroom means that the total classroom performance will be indicative of student learning. It seems simple enough to include a function with learning gains as opposed to sum total in order to not hose teachers working with primarily special needs students.

Mota · Apr 10, 2010

They're thinking of doing this too my school as well, I disagree with it, too much importance on tests.

1048576 · Apr 11, 2010

Tests are the only objective way to measure student performance.

Edit: at first I was just playing devil's advocate; now I completely support this mechanic of creating standards and holding the education system accountable to them. Someone convince me this is a bad idea.

Nø Ca$h · Apr 11, 2010

someone got shot at my school last month

Grandeza · Apr 11, 2010

LunarNOVA said:
someone got shot at my school last month

...

anyways on topic, this is pretty bad. Totally doesn't make sense.

Jon Farron · Apr 11, 2010

This is the stupidest law i have ever heard, along with this new eco house bill or whatever going through right now -_-

fromundaman · Apr 11, 2010

1048576 said:
Tests are the only objective way to measure student performance.

Edit: at first I was just playing devil's advocate; now I completely support this mechanic of creating standards and holding the education system accountable to them. Someone convince me this is a bad idea.

Well, yes and no. This is to make it easier to evaluate teachers without actually spending money to go out and evaluate them.

Flaws with this method:

A) I assume these would be standardized tests, and not actual test scores in the class. First off, that means students will be more stressed and some may perform more poorly on tests.

B) Guessing would completely mess with the results, considering American tests, especially standardized ones, tend to all be multiple choice.

C) This doesn't actually test how good the teacher is, just how much the students learned. I had a teacher in 8th grade who only showed movies, which, while we watched she would either drink in class (She filled her coffee mug with vodka but apparently we weren't supposed to know that) or went out to smoke. That being said, the textbook and movies gave us all the information we needed to pass the ridiculously easy tests they give in that year. Should this teacher stay on the staff because her students get decent test scores? (I have more examples, if necessary.)

D) As someone said, this encourages teachers to turn a blind eye on cheating. (I already had one teacher my freshman year who, since he was a horrible teacher and as a result students didn't learn anything, and as a result got bad grades on his rather difficult tests (Basically what would have been a normal test if we'd actually even once mentioned the material on them), would ignore cheating so that the class average would reach an acceptable level.)

E) I would assume these would be, like the SATs, ACTs, etc., one or several nationally administered tests? If so, then that sets really unfair standards due to how rich or poor a school is.

F) If I have been wrong, and these are based on test scores of tests given by the teachers themselves, then the flaw is obvious: If the teacher wants a good grade, administer a ridiculously easy test. This would make the bill have the opposite effect of what was intended, and actually hurt the students' educations.

Arg, I actually forgot some of my points as I realized new ones... I'll add more if/when I remember them.

Mr.Freeman · Apr 11, 2010

Ferguson High is in Florida? Because the same kind of bill was passed over here about basing teachers' pay on students' perfomances on tests.

We did a protest on Friday. Kinda stupid, and some kids tried to leave school.

GoldShadow · Apr 11, 2010

1048576 said:
Tests are the only objective way to measure student performance.

Edit: at first I was just playing devil's advocate; now I completely support this mechanic of creating standards and holding the education system accountable to them. Someone convince me this is a bad idea.

Kirby King said:
Because if teachers optimize their teaching for a standardized test as opposed to actual learning, students don't actually... learn. They just know how to perform on a standardized test. And tying teacher salaries directly to test scores incentivizes exactly that kind of behavior.

Once more, to reiterate KiKi's point. I don't see how anyone can argue for score-based teacher pay.

Moreover, this type of system doesn't account for different populations of students.

Should a teacher in a generally low-achieving, low-income urban school district be penalized for something out of his or her control? In fact, we've seen what happens in a case like this. I can't recall the exact study (I believe it was mentioned in Freakonomics), so I'll have to dig it up for the specifics; however, the gist of it was that teachers in this kind of pay system at schools in low-income, urban areas realized and exploited flaws in the system. Once the performance based pay system was implemented, test scores started going up dramatically. Mission accomplished, right? Not even close. After some ingenious investigation, it was found that test scores weren't going up because teachers had somehow gotten better at teaching or students wanted to learn more; it was because the teachers were helping students cheat on standardized tests.

A system like this has good intentions but is fundamentally flawed.

1048576 · Apr 11, 2010

Oh good a debate.

Goldshadow: just because rules are broken doesn't mean rules are bad. It just means there has to be an incentive in place not to cheat, like a punishment for getting caught or something. Imagine if we got rid of existing laws because people broke them? There'd be no point to any of the laws anymore. Perhaps this analogy has some holes, but your argument is analogous to "well, some people cheated on the SAT; therefore the SAT should not be used as a metric for anything." "Some people forge checks. We should get rid of checks as an acceptable substitute for legal tender." Obviously that's ridiculous.

To KK: my assertion is that if the test is well-designed, then teaching to the test would be the same as making students learn. On the science portion of the SAT for example, there are several rudimentary basic knowledge questions that can be drilled and memorized (but are nonetheless valuable to know [like what are atoms made of]), but there were also some critical thinking questions which walked through the scientific method for a given hypothesis, using a chart of data and asking about what it says and it's validity with respect to the hypothesis.

fromundaman: to respond to parts A and B, statistically speaking, the results would roughly even out for the spectrum of teachers over the long-term. C is a problem with the test being too easy or the teacher being exceptionally skilled at selecting textbooks/movies. Logically, a teacher who inputs more effort should get better results from roughly equal students. Obviously an easy test is bad. That's not a problem with the system as a whole. Also, I dislike your suggestion that we can substitute classroom test scores for standardized tests. We all know some teacher's tests are easier than others. I addressed point D. It's basically Goldshadow's point. E: I don't follow. How is paying a more competent teacher more money unfair? F: we're on the same page here

Sorry for making everything so condensed. That's the problem with 3 vs. 1 I guess. I'll elaborate more as these points get picked apart.

fromundaman · Apr 12, 2010

1048576 said:
Oh good a debate.

Goldshadow: just because rules are broken doesn't mean rules are bad. It just means there has to be an incentive in place not to cheat, like a punishment for getting caught or something. Imagine if we got rid of existing laws because people broke them? There'd be no point to any of the laws anymore. Perhaps this analogy has some holes, but your argument is analogous to "well, some people cheated on the SAT; therefore the SAT should not be used as a metric for anything." "Some people forge checks. We should get rid of checks as an acceptable substitute for legal tender." Obviously that's ridiculous.

To KK: my assertion is that if the test is well-designed, then teaching to the test would be the same as making students learn. On the science portion of the SAT for example, there are several rudimentary basic knowledge questions that can be drilled and memorized (but are nonetheless valuable to know [like what are atoms made of]), but there were also some critical thinking questions which walked through the scientific method for a given hypothesis, using a chart of data and asking about what it says and it's validity with respect to the hypothesis.

fromundaman: to respond to parts A and B, statistically speaking, the results would roughly even out for the spectrum of teachers over the long-term. C is a problem with the test being too easy or the teacher being exceptionally skilled at selecting textbooks/movies. Logically, a teacher who inputs more effort should get better results from roughly equal students. Obviously an easy test is bad. That's not a problem with the system as a whole. Also, I dislike your suggestion that we can substitute classroom test scores for standardized tests. We all know some teacher's tests are easier than others. I addressed point D. It's basically Goldshadow's point. E: I don't follow. How is paying a more competent teacher more money unfair? F: we're on the same page here

Sorry for making everything so condensed. That's the problem with 3 vs. 1 I guess. I'll elaborate more as these points get picked apart.

First I want to address what you told Goldshadow:

While I understand where you're coming from, there is one giant flaw with your point/analogy: In this case, even with a punishment system in place, teachers are rewarded for encouraging cheating.
To make another analogy, this would be like saying that if cops do their jobs right, then crime rate should go down, and that therefore when the amount of arrests/tickets/etc. go down, then the precinct gets more money. This would not encourage cops to fight crime to a greater extent, but instead encourage them to ignore it.

I'll give you points A and B, the problem being that a bad/good year directly influences your salary, and you can't always wait for the long term for it to even out in this case. It's like how at my job, at one point, since we are paid hourly, they'd give us near overtime hours for like 3 weeks, then randomly cut our hours and give them to other employees who had had less the previous weeks so that it would average out, though it would screw us over for financial planning, since we're expecting to get a certain amount per paycheck, and the constantly fluctuating paychecks hurt a lot.

Right, but how do you control how difficult a test is without standardizing it? I mean, hell, this would encourage the easiest sort of tests.

I think you misunderstood my E point. What I mean is richer schools tend to get more educated students than poorer ones. If we judge all of them by the same standard, that is even less incentive for teachers to go to poorer school districts (and my GF's mom is a teacher in a poorer district, and trust me, there is already very little incentive to go there in the first place, since the pay is lower and the students harder to teach and control, but the qualifications required are the same.).

1048576 · Apr 12, 2010

With 30 or so students, you are extremely unlikely to encounter a good or bad year with enough of them such that your salary does not relect your competence as a teacher. 30 students, 1 or 2 tests covering different subjects is a sufficient sample size, IMO.

I'm saying we need harsher penalties for cheating and a better system to detect cheating. We shouldn't get rid of everything that you have an incentive to cheat on. I agree that the incentive present in your cop analogy is ineffective, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to create an effective one.

I've asserted since the beginning that standardized tests are the only way to accurately measure student performance.

Including learning gains in the payment function (as opposed to sum total) solves this problem. In fact, it may even incentivize teachers to go to poor districts where there are greater opportunities for such gains (if you want to rig it that way. I don't know the specifics of this particular bill well enough to make that call.) Given that, I don't think the pay would be lower given merit-based pay.

fromundaman · Apr 12, 2010

Ah, but here is the thing, how many teachers have just one class? Not to mention I know in my school, which was a middle class school, there were some really bad classes. On top of that, a few disruptive students can really slow down a class' progress.

How exactly would you put this into effect? I mean, truly, I cannot think of a single system where the people in charge of enforcing the laws are rewarded by breaking them AND still follow them, regardless of the penalties for getting caught.
Hell, take illegal downloads as an example. If you get caught, you pretty much are in debt for your entire life. That hasn't stopped anyone.

How would you measure learning gain though? I mean, if it's a standardized test, essentially everyone is being tested for the same thing, regardless of social situation or location. Either your class passes or it doesn't.

Also, while you may have emphasized it, is the bill aiming to measure via standardized tests? That is the real question.

Also, what do you do for classes like Music, art, foreign languages, etc? It's not like a math class where the material you need to know is set in stone.

Finally, how many teachers have you seen who get through their entire textbooks? Most of them just pick the most important parts and do those. If you test on the whole year's material, you're going to hit stuff the students have never seen, unless the teacher rushes through it, in which case they won't know it well.

1048576 · Apr 12, 2010

The RIAA has stopped prosecuting individual cases of illegal downloads. (There's still a couple of outstanding cases though.)
It seems trivial enough to either record footage of the test or hire an old lady or two to watch over the classroom for a day. Then it's just a matter of selecting a punishment to deter people from cheating knowing they'll likely get caught. It's really hard to develop a similar system for music downloads.

The more classes a teacher has, the higher the sample size, and the more reflective of student performance the test scores will be. That's a good thing. As far as having a few bad seeds dragging down a whole class, that seems like a teacher's fault for not controlling the disruptive kid or kicking him out. If your whole classroom is ne'erdowells, then it'll be really easy to have learning gains.

If the bill doesn't work with standardized tests, then we agree that it sucks. Fair enough?

I dunno; play a song, draw/meld something, foreign language tests are easy to devise. It's the same way you test good writing. The process is inherently subjective (well, maybe only for art) but again, with a large sample size, the results will normalize themselves into an accurate reflection of the teacher.

Edit: missed your last paragraph. I'm unaware of this phenomenon. I'm pretty sure all of my teachers managed to get through their entire curriculum for the year, and we had plenty of spare time. That's why you have a curriculum in the first place. The school board gives a broad swath. Okay, here's everything you need to teach your kids. At the end of the year, we will test them on a subset of this material to make sure you did your job.

BBQTV · Apr 12, 2010

ok man today its the teacher turn to protest.out of (1000, 3000?) their are 20 teachers in my school today. and my school is in florida. and is it just me or does 1048576 give troll vibes?

1048576 · Apr 12, 2010

The irony is delicious.

GreenKirby · Apr 12, 2010

TaterSalad0811 said:
HOLD IT!!

What's the big deal about being paid based on test scores? Makes sense to me, if a teacher is doing a bad job, it reflects on tests. Sure, some people are ignorant and don't take their education seriously, but there can't be THAT many of those kids in his/her class, right?

And on top of that, why are the students protesting? Does the bill affect them?

The teacher can just pass everybody.

Teaching around the standardized has already proven to fail.

1048576 · Apr 12, 2010

It's not really fair to say that just because No Child Left Behind was a disaster thaat teaching around standardized tests is an inherently flawed system. That bill had a number of problems independent of how the schools were evaluated.

fromundaman · Apr 13, 2010

Teaching around standardized tests is not necessarily a problem (Though it can be for some subjects. Foreign language is the first to come to mind, especially due to the inherent flaw in how foreign language is taught to begin with, which is that teachers are not ALLOWED to teach grammar, something which is thankfully ignored by some teachers.), provided it is not the only thing you teach around.

1048576 · Apr 13, 2010

Wait, what? I learned plenty of grammar in my Florida foreign language schooling. Who decided that was wrong/unproductive? I don't see too much of a problem with standardized foreign language tests. What obstacles do you think exist specifically in that context that don't exist for other subjects?

And I guess just to reiterate the argument we've been having this whole time

I think you can get an accurate representation of a teachers competence solely through standardized testing. Like, if the tests are designed well, you can spend the whole year teaching to them. Preparing students for a test is inherently going to help students learn at a high level, given the test isn't just mindless regurgitation and actually requires some synthesis and evaluation.

I'm not sure if I'm being clear, but the phrasing I want isn't coming to me.

Fuelbi · Apr 13, 2010

Ferguson.... hmm... Ferguson. I've heard of that school, but I don't want to go to it.

Lucky *******s. All the schools in the **** state have gotten to do a walk out except mine

.

I oppose this bill anyways. I don't think it's fair that a teacher who has a Master's degree will get paid less than what he/she deserves because the class if filled with a bunch of lazy pricks. That also goes for new teachers. Say it's your first year. I don't think you just came fresh out of college and get paid a miserable slither of cash is fair at all. That would also go for ESOL/ESE students (although I'm sure Florida could make an exception to that right?).

This is why I'm happy that my school won't be affected if this goes through. Good school with good teachers... also has high FCAT scores so yeah...

fromundaman · Apr 14, 2010

1048576 said:
Wait, what? I learned plenty of grammar in my Florida foreign language schooling. Who decided that was wrong/unproductive? I don't see too much of a problem with standardized foreign language tests. What obstacles do you think exist specifically in that context that don't exist for other subjects?

And I guess just to reiterate the argument we've been having this whole time I think you can get an accurate representation of a teachers competence solely through standardized testing. Like, if the tests are designed well, you can spend the whole year teaching to them. Preparing students for a test is inherently going to help students learn at a high level, given the test isn't just mindless regurgitation and actually requires some synthesis and evaluation.

I'm not sure if I'm being clear, but the phrasing I want isn't coming to me.

First off, I know at least in Ohio, foreign language teachers are not ALLOWED to teach grammar, since they want students to learn the language in the same way you learned your maternal one (AKA learn words and use it), the problem being that without being surrounded by the language, that doesn't work.

Also, just want to say that teaching around tests does in fact encourage regurgitation. France teaches this way, and the differences between the way people learn in the States and there is enormous, and while France generally has a better education level, what you learn in the States tends to be more useful, since US teachings tend to be focused on the method and result moreso than knowing everything word for word and proving every answer.

1048576 · Apr 14, 2010

It's agreed. Omitting grammar from foreign language education is idiotic.

If a test encourages regurgitation, then you're doing the test wrong. Math tests by their very nature encourage critical thinking, because if you try to memorize the algorithm for every possible problem they can throw at you, you're going to be sick, and you're going to fail. English tests obviously require it also, since there's no algorithm to memorize. For other subjects, it's easy enough to ask someone to solve an abstract problem that requires concrete knowledge. (Why doesn't water break down into H2 and 02 before you get a chance to drink it?) (What historical event supports the argument that ...) (Translate this sentence ... that one's not too upper level, but still if you can answer it then you obviously learned)

Where did you get your info about France. I cannot find mention of the phenomenon you are describing with my quick, lazy Google search.

I can honestly say, maybe with the exception of the math portion of my elementary school "FCAT" that I've never had a government standardized test that just required me to simply throw facts verbatum back at the grader.

BBQTV · Apr 14, 2010

this friday is when govener christ? chris....t? is ether gonna veto the bill or let it be law

fromundaman · Apr 15, 2010

I had a sleepless night and my comp just died, so I'm posting from my GF's laptop. As a result, I'm not going to reply to everything right now, since I'm probably not thinking straight.

However my info about the french system comes from having spent my 7th and 11th grades in France.

BBQTV · Apr 15, 2010

good news he vetoed the bill

1048576 · Apr 16, 2010

So how do you guys suggest we make sure teachers aren't sitting in their chairs doing nothing all day?

BBQTV · Apr 16, 2010

how about we make a bill that effects teacher pay based on test scores?

GoldShadow · Apr 16, 2010

1048576 said:
So how do you guys suggest we make sure teachers aren't sitting in their chairs doing nothing all day?

Pay them better.

BBQTV · Apr 16, 2010

that works too

ferguson high school says..........

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