Many Still Think The Sun Orbits The Earth

[Laize]

As a teacher, let me respond.

Teachers aren't opposed to meritocracy. They're opposed to the proposed measurement of said merit.

Are you going by test scores? That's garbage data, because it's highly tied to their scores coming into the class, and a teacher can get hurt on those tests because another teacher in the prior grade did a poor job, forcing this teacher to re-teach some material that should have been covered.

Are you going by improvement? A teacher teaching a gifted-students class likely won't "improve" them a lot, but that doesn't mean they did a poor job.

And lastly; a great deal of these are affected by the school's location; lower-income schools get less funding, and the parents of lower-income kids tend, on the average, to be less involved in their children's education, which leads to reduced performance by those kids, through no fault of the teachers. Teachers exist to offset that, but they can't completely overcome it.

In short; there's no metric that can be applied across schools absent that context that accurately describes the "merit" of a teacher. It simply doesn't exist, and teachers know that, and every proposed system to do so would end up hurting the teachers who've taken on the most challenging classrooms.


Why do teachers oppose standardized tests? Because they're so generic that they're useless. It encourages teachers to "teach to the test", rather than focusing on a broader and more integrated curriculum. Anything that won't be on the test gets discarded as irrelevant, and long-term understanding is shelved in favor of short-term memorization that won't matter the day after the test. Testing in itself is a poor evaluation tool, on its own, and standardized tests are the worst form of such. Particularly when these tests are multiple-choice, which standardized tests often are for ease of marking.


Vouchers get opposed because it encourages an idea of "good schools" versus "bad schools", when the goal should be to make the choice of school effectively irrelevant. They also get used for religious schools in some districts, which is a bad idea unless they're bound to obey the same curriculum as the public schools.

Pretend for a moment we can prevent vouchers from being used for religious schools (we can).

You tell me a comprehensive way we can fire under-performing teachers and reward good teachers. You say it needs to be individualized, but then that places the burden of proof on the student and their family to prove the teacher is shit rather than for the teacher to prove they're doing their job.

The vast majority of teachers aren't making anything close to six figures, dude. If I got a full-time position, I'd be starting at around $42,000, and that's with additional training I've already done that guarantees me a wage bump. Teacher wages are pretty equivalent to professions with similar training requirements, once you adjust for the 10 months they work per year for their standard salary.

In the state of NJ you can earn, with a bachelors degree in teaching, what many people attain MBAs for. And work far less.

[Kujako]

In the state of NJ you can earn, with a bachelors degree in teaching, what many people attain MBAs for. And work far less.

But that's with the 50% "must be in NJ" surcharge.

[Laize]

But that's with the 50% "must be in NJ" surcharge.

Yeah.... NJ is a much nicer place to live now than people give it credit for. It's expensive as hell, and densely packed... but very nice.

[Masoner]

http://science.time.com/2014/02/17/g...ity-and-earth/



While not to surprising, it is very disappointing that such a basic concept is lost.

Back when Obama was seeking a second term people used to ask random people if they wanted Osama bin laden to be reelected as President and the majority of them said "yes of course he is doing a great job".

[Laize]

Back when Obama was seeking a second term people used to ask random people if they wanted Osama bin laden to be reelected as President and the majority of them said "yes of course he is doing a great job".

I'm sure those people justified their ignorance with "Well it doesn't affect my daily life".

It's the same fucking thing everywhere. "Oh I don't have to know X, it doesn't affect my everyday life."

I don't get how people can be so content being ignorant pustules of humanity.

[OneSent]

I wonder how many people in this thread still think Pluto is a planet.

[minteK917]

I wonder how many people in this thread still think Pluto is a planet.

Probably very little, forums like this arent representative of your average population. Sometimes its a good thing, sometimes not.

[Kujako]

I wonder how many people in this thread still think Pluto is a planet.

Don't be silly. Pluto is a dog and for some reason the only Disney animal that can't talk.

[Endus]

Pretend for a moment we can prevent vouchers from being used for religious schools (we can).

You tell me a comprehensive way we can fire under-performing teachers and reward good teachers. You say it needs to be individualized, but then that places the burden of proof on the student and their family to prove the teacher is shit rather than for the teacher to prove they're doing their job.

If we want to equate education to a business for a moment, the students and their families are the customers. Customers don't fire employees. Their bosses do.

What you're talking about is what the school administration exists to do. A student and their family should have next to no capacity to get a teacher fired. None. Not unless there's a demonstrable pattern of behaviour that can be documented. Otherwise, every time someone's special snowflake gets a D, there'll be calls to have their teacher fired, rather than accepting that little Susie did a poor job.

Obviously, a truly bad teacher will get regular complaints, but that's the "pattern of behaviour" that I mentioned. And the reality is; this is how decisions are made to terminate in pretty much every professional position. There is no reason teachers should be treated more cavalierly.

In the state of NJ you can earn, with a bachelors degree in teaching, what many people attain MBAs for. And work far less.

This is outrageously untrue. http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/a...-u-s-mba-grads

This cites a recent study showing MBA graduates median starting salary to be $90,000/year, not counting signing bonuses.

This site pegs starting NJ teachers averaging $38,500/year.

This site doesn't give an average, but it lists the starting salaries for NJ by district, one PDF giving the districts with over $40,000, the second over $50,000. The highest starting salary listed there is $55,693/year. But regardless; their starting salaries are half those of the MBAs.

Yes, they only work 9 or 10 months out of the year, but it's pretty darned clear they aren't making anywhere close to MBA-levels of income, even controlling for the 9 or 10 months they work.

[Laize]

If we want to equate education to a business for a moment, the students and their families are the customers. Customers don't fire employees. Their bosses do.

What you're talking about is what the school administration exists to do. A student and their family should have next to no capacity to get a teacher fired. None. Not unless there's a demonstrable pattern of behaviour that can be documented. Otherwise, every time someone's special snowflake gets a D, there'll be calls to have their teacher fired, rather than accepting that little Susie did a poor job.

Obviously, a truly bad teacher will get regular complaints, but that's the "pattern of behaviour" that I mentioned. And the reality is; this is how decisions are made to terminate in pretty much every professional position. There is no reason teachers should be treated more cavalierly.

Okay hang on a second. If we're the customers then why are you, in the same breath, not allowing us to "shop" where we want?

Education either IS a business and we don't get to fire the teachers but can choose which ones we patronize, or it ISN'T a business and we can't choose which teacher we can patronize but we can register complaints and have some say in their continued employment.

So which is it?

This is outrageously untrue. http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/a...-u-s-mba-grads

This cites a recent study showing MBA graduates median starting salary to be $90,000/year, not counting signing bonuses.

This site pegs starting NJ teachers averaging $38,500/year.

This site doesn't give an average, but it lists the starting salaries for NJ by district, one PDF giving the districts with over $40,000, the second over $50,000. The highest starting salary listed there is $55,693/year. But regardless; their starting salaries are half those of the MBAs.

Yes, they only work 9 or 10 months out of the year, but it's pretty darned clear they aren't making anywhere close to MBA-levels of income, even controlling for the 9 or 10 months they work.

Fair enough. NJ teachers still, however, get some of the sweetest deals in the country and many can retire well before 65 thanks to generous pension benefits. The NJEA has been fucking us over for a long time now.

[Deleted]

Well even Cruz has followers and the republicans actually got votes last election. The world is filled with retards.

[Endus]

Okay hang on a second. If we're the customers then why are you, in the same breath, not allowing us to "shop" where we want?

Because it isn't actually a business. I was making an analogy for the purpose of pointing out where the power to fire already resides.

Education either IS a business and we don't get to fire the teachers but can choose which ones we patronize, or it ISN'T a business and we can't choose which teacher we can patronize but we can register complaints and have some say in their continued employment.

So which is it?

The latter. That's how the system already works.

When people say "teachers are impossible to fire", what they mean is "I complained about my kid getting a bad grade/kid hates their teacher, and the teacher didn't get fired". That's because they're a single data point, and likely the only people complaining, meaning it isn't even remotely close to reason to fire the teacher. There's plenty of circumstances that can get a teacher fired, it's just that your child not liking them isn't one of them.

Fair enough. NJ teachers still, however, get some of the sweetest deals in the country and many can retire well before 65 thanks to generous pension benefits. The NJEA has been fucking us over for a long time now.

It's a decent living. I don't side with the people who claim teachers get paid poorly, for the most part (some regions, yes, but not most in the US). Those people usually don't adjust for the reduced work year, and teachers are usually either doing skills development (at their own cost) in that downtime, or working summer school for additional pay.

I'm just disputing that their pay is somehow not commensurate with the training required. Here, I need a professional degree in teaching in addition to my Bachelor's degree in my field, which you need to qualify for the professional program. It's no different in that regard than becoming an architect, which is a similar professional program in Ontario, at least. And, yes, teacher salaries end up being comparable to architects, on a monthly basis. Which they should, given the training required.

And any issues in NJ are regional; they aren't an overall issue with teachers in general.

[Adam Jensen]

Even the world's only consulting detective can't grasp basic astronomy.

[Deleted]

Because it isn't actually a business. I was making an analogy for the purpose of pointing out where the power to fire already resides.



The latter. That's how the system already works.

When people say "teachers are impossible to fire", what they mean is "I complained about my kid getting a bad grade/kid hates their teacher, and the teacher didn't get fired". That's because they're a single data point, and likely the only people complaining, meaning it isn't even remotely close to reason to fire the teacher. There's plenty of circumstances that can get a teacher fired, it's just that your child not liking them isn't one of them.



It's a decent living. I don't side with the people who claim teachers get paid poorly, for the most part (some regions, yes, but not most in the US). Those people usually don't adjust for the reduced work year, and teachers are usually either doing skills development (at their own cost) in that downtime, or working summer school for additional pay.

I'm just disputing that their pay is somehow not commensurate with the training required. Here, I need a professional degree in teaching in addition to my Bachelor's degree in my field, which you need to qualify for the professional program. It's no different in that regard than becoming an architect, which is a similar professional program in Ontario, at least. And, yes, teacher salaries end up being comparable to architects, on a monthly basis. Which they should, given the training required.

And any issues in NJ are regional; they aren't an overall issue with teachers in general.

Your teachers are mainly paid what is minimum wage in the civilized world, most of the time even less than that.

[Adam Jensen]

More people believe the universe centers around them.

Honestly, in terms of perspective, it does.

But yeah, we aren't the physical center of the universe, the "center" of the universe is an absurd concept due to the mechanics of the expansion of the universe.

[Deleted]

Honestly, in terms of perspective, it does.

But yeah, we aren't the physical center of the universe, the "center" of the universe is an absurd concept due to the mechanics of the expansion of the universe.

You think the universe expanding changes the center of the expansion?

[Vermicious]

A friend of my sister's was such a person. She didn't believe the sun orbited the earth, but she did believe that the moon and the sun were the same thing... according to her the sun went down, cooled off and came back up as the moon. I wish I was joking. And this was no kid, this girl was already a young adult at the time. Needless to say I think she was pretty straightened out on the concept after that was revealed.

So she never saw the moon up during the daytime? It's like that quite often.

[Reeve]

XKCD covered the basics of 'ignorance';


It's quite safe to say that even something as universally accepted as the Earth orbiting around the Sun is news to some people. You can mock them, or try to educate them. Mocking them is more amusing (and I'll definitely confess to leading idiots to find out that the fire is hot so to speak), but educate them and you'll tip the balance of the world just a little bit more in favour of intelligence. You can of course do both, as in the comic above.

xkcd has covered pretty much everything.

[Garnier Fructis]

You think the universe expanding changes the center of the expansion?

There was never a center to begin with.

Well, I haven't learned it yet so I'm going to be that guy that read a Brian Greene book and feels he's qualified to talk about it, but the way Greene described it was that the expansion happened everywhere, so that there was never any real "center."

[Varabently]

I would attribute this to the fact that many jobs that adults have aren't "knowledge" jobs. They are "work" jobs where you do the same thing over and over. They are transactional, which requires attention to detail and focus, but those things don't help you retain knowledge. People in general undervalue education; if they didn't college education would be free instead of for-profit. That's not to say that transactional jobs aren't good jobs, but they just don't foster ongoing education.

How many people did you know in high school who really enjoyed science and math classes? Or any classes for that matter? Probably very few. I for one found physics and calculus utterly fascinating because I like to understand how things work. That's why I end up in knowledge jobs because that's knowledge work. Transactional work puts me to sleep, literally.

Until we can improve our schools such that we produce more knowledge workers and rely on computers for transactional work, we will continue to have uneducated masses. I can't tell you how widespread misunderstanding like this is. Here's another great example: statistics. People in general just don't get how probability and statistics work. If they went to college and paid attention they would, but they didn't, so they don't.

The average person thinks that it's more likely to flip a coin 10 times and get 5 heads 5 tails than to flip a coin 10 times and get 10 tails. That's simply not true. Each of those results is equally likely. The chances of getting a specific series of heads or tails ten times is just .5^10. They aren't both equally representative of what we know to be the probability of a heads vs a tails (50:50), but that's irrelevant. Edit: I should correct this since 5 heads and 5 tails doesn't indicate a specific series of them, but rather the end result, whereas 10 tails is a specific series. Let's say 1 head 1 tails 1 head 1 tails, etc. That has the same probability as 10 tails in a row.

We see this in WoW loot drops (not in LFR because there are controls for a string of bad luck). People will say a drop is "due" because it hasn't dropped in a while. Unless Blizz is artificially changing the odds (they could be?), each week doesn't change the odds in favor of one piece or another. It's a set % per drop no matter how many times you kill a boss. Anyone who has seen triple of a certain token drop week after week or go months without a weapon drop knows this feeling.

I got super off topic, sorry. Yes, the earth orbits the sun, but the sun orbits something else, which orbits something else and so on (I think?). So while it's sad that people don't know this, it just means they aren't interested in science. That's the scary part. It's like when people use computers 40 hours a week but don't know what an IP address is or have any idea whatsoever how to use it.