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Hmmm? Putting students on ignore....now THERE'S a concept,
It would be good, and sometimes poor teachers are told to do that. It is wonderful to know that my having someone on the ignore list here makes them upset that they can't say mean things and raise my blood pressure.
The Ignore list makes posting here and many places on the city data forum almost enjoyable.
Competant school districts do this from day one. In my schools we have data and graphs for the performance level of every child, EVERY CHILD, in the buildings. For children who are in the core curriculum(meaning they don't need any extras) they are progress monitored with the graphs and data for every aspect of the various parts of learning reading and math, three times a year.
For children who have missed benchmarks in one of the core measurements, or even before if the classroom teacher has concerns, they are progress monitorer with all the graphs and data monthly, or even weekly.
If your district is not organized to do this, ask why not. Its being done in many schools in Pennyslvania.
Z
I think what the person was saying is that while these assessments may exist, many teachers are not evaluated based upon these types of assessments. For example, in my school the 3rd through 5th grade teachers are evaluated based upon how their students performed on the TAKS test (state test). 1st and 2nd grade teachers are evaluated based upon how their students performed on TPRI (a state reading test - based on comprehension as well as fluency). For example, if you are a 2nd grade teacher with 22 students in your class, and a) 5 of them come in reading at a beginning kinder level, b) 5 of them come in reading at a beginning 1st grade level, and c) the rest of them come in reading at a beginning 2nd grade level, you are evaluated based upon how many of them end up reading at an end-of-year 2nd grade level rather than how many advanced at least one full grade level. We have data and graphs on all of the kiddos and they are progress monitored to death in Reading and Math, but the assessment-related portion of the teacher evaluation is not based on gains.
I don't want to put words in the other poster's mouth, but this is just more what I think s/he was trying to say.
Last edited by buffy888; 07-25-2010 at 10:42 PM..
Reason: Accidentally clicked on Post button too early
I think what the person was saying is that while these assessments may exist, many teachers are not evaluated based upon these types of assessments. For example, in my school the 3rd through 5th grade teachers are evaluated based upon how their students performed on the TAKS test (state test). 1st and 2nd grade teachers are evaluated based upon how their students performed on TPRI (a state reading test - based on comprehension as well as fluency). For example, if you are a 2nd grade teacher with 22 students in your class, and a) 5 of them come in reading at a beginning kinder level, b) 5 of them come in reading at a beginning 1st grade level, and c) the rest of them come in reading at a beginning 2nd grade level, you are evaluated based upon how many of them end up reading at an end-of-year 2nd grade level rather than how many advanced at least one full grade level. We have data and graphs on all of the kiddos and they are progress monitored to death in Reading and Math, but the assessment-related portion of the teacher evaluation is not based on gains.
I don't want to put words in the other poster's mouth, but this is just more what I think s/he was trying to say.
You've missed my point.
An appropriate management system in a school should NOT be designed around evaluating teachers on how well their children perform on some test that takes place in 1% of the year. This is a clear sign of bad administration on the part of the district.
A properly managed system evaluates the staff on the basis of the system not on some stupid state test coming from outside the system. There are too many variables in human learning that are not accounted for using that simplistic method. A bad day for a couple of students in a class, a bad group of low scoring kids, and many many variables which many other people(and I on this forum) have delineated come into effect.
If you are progress monitoring every child in your building, and then still wasting your time being evaluated on stupid state test scores, well..... your management operation is in the dark ages, or succumbing to a public which knows nothing about education. There are many districts that test the kids out the wazoo, but when it comes time to use the data for appropriate educational decisions in the three major areas that management should be doing(providing a cohesive teaching technique that everyone uses, providing a cohesive k-12 curriculum that everyone follow with benchmarks expected for each child at each stage in each grade, and providing a cohesive progress monitoring system to know where every child is in the curriculum benchmarks), they often just can't pull it together.
I know this is the case because my district administrators have presented our system at state and national conferences, and the number of districts who collect data but don't have a clue how to use it is phenomenal. Very very very few come up to share how they do it; most come up with the "deer in the headlights look."
Well, if that's how we're calculating salaries, assuming I make $90,000/year in IT and 8,000 people use my system for even just 1 hour per day, that comes out to $0.045/person/hour! I'm getting paid pennies to work for people who read their email! Is your internet not worth more than 4 cents? If I just made a living wage of $7/hour/person who uses the internet, I should be making $2,800,000/year.
Well, if that's how we're calculating salaries, assuming I make $90,000/year in IT and 8,000 people use my system for even just 1 hour per day, that comes out to $0.045/person/hour! I'm getting paid pennies to work for people who read their email! Is your internet not worth more than 4 cents? If I just made a living wage of $7/hour/person who uses the internet, I should be making $2,800,000/year.
The system is designed to keep the man down.
The internet isn't worth $7/hr. If they charged me $7/hr to use the internet, I'd go back to my real life in a hurry. The less thatn $2 a day I pay for internet is more than I care to pay but since my husband needs it for work, I'll use it. Sorry, but you are at the mercy of what people will pay for your service.
Comparing teachers to baby sitters is a good analogy. Babysitters ARE paid $2.50/hr/child. We do care for your children all day long. If a baby sitter makes $2.50/hr/child why are people moaning about teacher's making $70K/year? We're cheap babysitters at that wage.
The internet isn't worth $7/hr. If they charged me $7/hr to use the internet, I'd go back to my real life in a hurry. The less thatn $2 a day I pay for internet is more than I care to pay but since my husband needs it for work, I'll use it. Sorry, but you are at the mercy of what people will pay for your service.
Comparing teachers to baby sitters is a good analogy. Babysitters ARE paid $2.50/hr/child. We do care for your children all day long. If a baby sitter makes $2.50/hr/child why are people moaning about teacher's making $70K/year? We're cheap babysitters at that wage.
One difference between babysitters and teachers is that babysitters can devote their whole time to the child they are babysitting, while teachers spread their time out over 30 different kids. Now, if only there was somewhere that paid teachers more for spending more time with each individual kid (i.e. smaller class sizes)... Oh wait, that's a private school!
One difference between babysitters and teachers is that babysitters can devote their whole time to the child they are babysitting, while teachers spread their time out over 30 different kids. Now, if only there was somewhere that paid teachers more for spending more time with each individual kid (i.e. smaller class sizes)... Oh wait, that's a private school!
Private schools don't pay more here, they pay less here.
Babysitters don't need to devote their time to the children one on one. They just need to watch them. You are, however, correct on ratios.
The ratio for a day care provider here is 4:1 if all children are under two (but the going rate is over $5/hr/child), 6:1 if up to two of the children are under two and, I believe, 8:1 or 10:1 if none are under two. which is why you pay more for a day care provider when the children are very young. That $2.50/child/hour I stated was for an older child. Infants are much more because they do require a lot of 1:1 care. I'm not sure what the going rate should be for teenagers but I'm thinking more than preschoolers, . Hazard pay should be involved.
Actually, the pay per hour shouldn't go down as the number of charges goes up, it should go up because the job gets harder. A baby sitter doesn't have to keep 30 students in their seats and on task. She just has to watch them play.
"Wow," is all I can say. I have 2 BAs, a Masters, and a doctorate and make 42 K teaching, uh, I mean, babysitting.
You're right; all I can provide those 30 HS teenaged kids is monitoring- No educational value, whatsoever. We all know how easy it is to make 30 teenagers listen and do whatever they are told to do and just sit by and watch it all happen. No extra effort at all. And like all good babysitters, I do lesson plans and grading and IEP writing on my own time. I would be remiss to mention that like with babysitters, parents are so active in their children's time with me thus helping that babysitting process be even more rewarding for me. When teachers say they feel like a babysitter, I think they mean that in addition to everything else.
But, as wise people have written before me, if you have never been a GOOD teacher, you cannot even begin to talk on the subject and will likely never understand.
The internet isn't worth $7/hr. If they charged me $7/hr to use the internet, I'd go back to my real life in a hurry. The less thatn $2 a day I pay for internet is more than I care to pay but since my husband needs it for work, I'll use it. Sorry, but you are at the mercy of what people will pay for your service.
Comparing teachers to baby sitters is a good analogy. Babysitters ARE paid $2.50/hr/child. We do care for your children all day long. If a baby sitter makes $2.50/hr/child why are people moaning about teacher's making $70K/year? We're cheap babysitters at that wage.
And you are at the mercy of what people are willing to pay for your service.
My point is that both analogies are poor. It's so easy to point at one thing and say 'This is similar, why aren't they paid the same' without taking in to account all the differences. There is no overhead (also known as administrative) costs, babysitting is contract work with no benefits, etc. Most importantly, there are economies of scale. Why is it a private tutor makes whatever it is that a private tutor makes? Why not use that number to make some absurd claim about how much teachers should be making? Let's see, a tutor at $50/hour/student with 30 students: teachers should be making $2,000,000/year!
My contention is not that teachers make too much/not enough, it is that pointless analogies do not form a cohesive argument.
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. Hazard pay should be involved.
