What kind of objective measuring of student/teacher performance SHOULD we have?

[grumbler]

My solution would be a federal funding mechanism and a parental choice school model.  No school districts with their bureaucratic overheads, just a healthy accreditation system like private schools have.  Every school is private, every parent gets to send their kid to any school  they want to (and can get their kid into and physically present at every school day), and the funding goes with the kid.

What makes a school successful?  Getting enough parents to entrust their children's educations to it.  Some schools could be college prep, some could be more vocationally oriented, some built around the arts or performing arts, some around sports.

Every parent and every student leaves an evaluation when they leave the school, and schools are required to have some system to track (even if very grossly) the success of their students for, say, five years after graduation.  Parents have that data available when they choose schools (new schools will obviously be more of a crap shoot for parents than established schools).  A "school" consists of a group of teachers sufficient to get accredited, organized around a principal and a mission for what they want their school to accomplish and offer parents.  If the school wants to use standardized tests and their results as part of its self-assessment and/or sales pitch, it can do so.  If it doesn't, it doesn't.  In this model, teachers would be hired by schools on a yearly basis and could switch schools as often as desired between contracts.  salaries could be negotiated, or there could be a set scale set by the federal government based on location, years of service, subjects taught, etc.

The problem with the current state-based "one size fits none" approach (or, Hod forbid, a federal version of the same) is that it measures success as defined by administrators, not parents or students.  It isn't the administrators who the education system is supposed to serve, however.

The only lasting school system reform I have read about was conducted in Harlem in the 80s and involved total school choice and total school flexibility in organization.  The teacher unions killed it when the superintendent who created it retired, though, because it offered no real job security. 

[grumbler]

... There's no great mystery about measuring performance.

I wonder why only the Brain knows this.  There are a gazillion books on effective performance measurement, all of them useless if the brain shares the secret.

[The Brain]

... There's no great mystery about measuring performance.

I wonder why only the Brain knows this.  There are a gazillion books on effective performance measurement, all of them useless if the brain shares the secret.

You seem confused.

[Caliga]

I don't think we should waste any time or money trying to measure student and teacher performance.  Let the SATs/ACTs do that like they always have.

[DGuller]

Let's start questioning basic assumptions.  Should performance even be incentivized?  Is that really the only motivator out there?  I get incentives, but incentives can always backfire unless designed very carefully.  They work when the objective is quantifiable, but they can be worse than useless when it is not fully or largely quantifiable.

Of course performance should be incentivized.  The only other options are to disincentivize performance or ignore it.

You can't incentivize performance without being able to measure it.  And if you can't measure it fully, ignoring it may be a better option.  People are capable of doing a good job for reasons other than direct performance incentives.  Incentives work best where they can work, but they can't work everywhere.

[Martinus]

(although there still is a point being made that a teacher teaching difficult kids from troubled backgrounds - and gets an average grade of C - is doing much more than a teacher teaching middle class kids who get an average grade of A)

I think we can, for the sake of discussion, assume that we all understand that any performance measure has to take external variable not under the school or teachers control into account.

Only that, as DGuller points out, the external variable may be impossible to measure and/or may be so important that any inherent performance measure becomes impossible or irrelevant.

[Martinus]

Teacher performance is very easy to measure: just do what other professions do. Problem solved. There's no great mystery about measuring performance.

I can't think of any other profession which is comparable to public teaching.

[MadImmortalMan]

I grew up in Monroe County. I had elementary school in Brockport. Seriously, the place was ahead of everywhere else I've been. When we moved away, I felt like I was taken back in time a couple years.

[The Brain]

Teacher performance is very easy to measure: just do what other professions do. Problem solved. There's no great mystery about measuring performance.

I can't think of any other profession which is comparable to public teaching.

[Eddie Teach]

I can't think of any other profession which is comparable to public teaching.

Private teaching.

[crazy canuck]

My solution would be a federal funding mechanism and a parental choice school model.  No school districts with their bureaucratic overheads, just a healthy accreditation system like private schools have.  Every school is private, every parent gets to send their kid to any school  they want to (and can get their kid into and physically present at every school day), and the funding goes with the kid.

What makes a school successful?  Getting enough parents to entrust their children's educations to it.  Some schools could be college prep, some could be more vocationally oriented, some built around the arts or performing arts, some around sports.

Every parent and every student leaves an evaluation when they leave the school, and schools are required to have some system to track (even if very grossly) the success of their students for, say, five years after graduation.  Parents have that data available when they choose schools (new schools will obviously be more of a crap shoot for parents than established schools).  A "school" consists of a group of teachers sufficient to get accredited, organized around a principal and a mission for what they want their school to accomplish and offer parents.  If the school wants to use standardized tests and their results as part of its self-assessment and/or sales pitch, it can do so.  If it doesn't, it doesn't.  In this model, teachers would be hired by schools on a yearly basis and could switch schools as often as desired between contracts.  salaries could be negotiated, or there could be a set scale set by the federal government based on location, years of service, subjects taught, etc.

The problem with the current state-based "one size fits none" approach (or, Hod forbid, a federal version of the same) is that it measures success as defined by administrators, not parents or students.  It isn't the administrators who the education system is supposed to serve, however.

The only lasting school system reform I have read about was conducted in Harlem in the 80s and involved total school choice and total school flexibility in organization.  The teacher unions killed it when the superintendent who created it retired, though, because it offered no real job security.

We have system loosely based on this concept.  We have not abandoned public schools but they receive funding, in large part, based on the number of students attending the school.  The notion is similar as the schools have an incentive to attract as many students as they can reasonably educate.

But it doesn't work as well as one might think.  When it was introduced people made decisions based on bad information.  People flocked to the schools in more affluent neighbourhoods from upper middle class neighbourhoods assuming the schools would be better.  There is no objective data that they were but that was the assumption.  As a result schools in affluent areas became over crowded.  Schools didn't want to turn away students because of the funding formula.  Schools in upper middle class areas emptied out and many were eventually closed because of the lack of demand.  There is now very little room in the school system to offer a real choice.  All desirable public schools are essentially packed.

The result?  As one would expect the number of Private schools grew substantially over the same time but not enough to meet space requirements if cost was not an issue.   But cost is an issue.  Although private schools are also eligible for the per student payment the amount is nowhere near the private school cost and the current amount of private school spaces seems to be roughly equivalent to the number of students who's families can afford private school.  At least judging from the fact that no new private schools of a significant size have opened in the last 5 years or so.

So we are still left with the basic problem.  How can one judge what makes a good school and whether it has good teachers.  Without that kind of information people make random or poor choices.

[crazy canuck]

The people "in charge" of allocating funds are not making that claim - they are claiming that the gross results in many cases have been unacceptable, and if those results do not improve, funding will no longer be there at the same levels.

Ok but how are they concluding that the gross results are unacceptable?  What are the measuring and is what they are measuring validly related to the conclusions they have made.  If what they are measuring is not valid then it makes no sense to withdraw funding based on the invalid measure.

[Eddie Teach]

But it doesn't work as well as one might think.  When it was introduced people made decisions based on bad information.  People flocked to the schools in more affluent neighbourhoods from upper middle class neighbourhoods assuming the schools would be better.  There is no objective data that they were but that was the assumption.  As a result schools in affluent areas became over crowded.  Schools didn't want to turn away students because of the funding formula.  Schools in upper middle class areas emptied out and many were eventually closed because of the lack of demand.  There is now very little room in the school system to offer a real choice.  All desirable public schools are essentially packed.

This sounds odd to me for a couple reasons. One, I've always considered the upper middle class as well as the rich to be "affluent". Also, why aren't the schools in lower or lower middle class areas funneling upward? You don't have to be affluent to be able to drive your kids to school.

[crazy canuck]

But it doesn't work as well as one might think.  When it was introduced people made decisions based on bad information.  People flocked to the schools in more affluent neighbourhoods from upper middle class neighbourhoods assuming the schools would be better.  There is no objective data that they were but that was the assumption.  As a result schools in affluent areas became over crowded.  Schools didn't want to turn away students because of the funding formula.  Schools in upper middle class areas emptied out and many were eventually closed because of the lack of demand.  There is now very little room in the school system to offer a real choice.  All desirable public schools are essentially packed.

This sounds odd to me for a couple reasons. One, I've always considered the upper middle class as well as the rich to be "affluent". Also, why aren't the schools in lower or lower middle class areas funneling upward? You don't have to be affluent to be able to drive your kids to school.

It is a matter of perspective.  I live in the affluent neighourhood of North Vancouver.  But when the change occurred the even more affluent neighourhood schools in West Vancouver had a large spike of North Van students. 

[Admiral Yi]

You can't incentivize performance without being able to measure it.  And if you can't measure it fully, ignoring it may be a better option.  People are capable of doing a good job for reasons other than direct performance incentives.  Incentives work best where they can work, but they can't work everywhere.

I don't think anyone has established that performance can't be measured.