Will Charlie Crist Crack?

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

I wonder if you realize that every single teacher's association in FL was against this. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find any teachers that were for it. Are you claiming that they are all incompetent?

Teacher's association is synonymous with teachers' union, no? Why not just say teachers' unions? Sure, unions get their power from an employer's reluctance to dump the best just to get rid of the worst.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

*Require that school systems evaluate and pay teachers primarily on the basis of student test scores. Testing experts say this is an invalid assessment tool.

If you oppose objective evaluation, what do you propose instead?

Cycloptichorn wrote:

*Require that experience, advanced degrees or professional certification not be considered when paying teachers.

I believe this is in error. Is there some way in which it is supposed to contradict any position of mine?

Cycloptichorn wrote:

*Require that new teachers be put on probation for five years and then work on one-year contracts, which would allow any principal to easily get rid of any teacher who bothered them in any way.

Yes, "put on probation sounds ever so much worse than "being denied tenure", doesn't it? POM makes the statement that teachers can't, or shouldn't be subject to evaluation for twenty years. Fine. Then you think unevaluated teachers should be granted tenure, anyway. This is not our first difference of opinion.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

*Require the creation of new annual tests for every subject that is not measured already by state assessments or other tests, such as the Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate end-of-course tests.

I think I have already noted your, and unions' objections to objective evaluation.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

This is nothing more than an attempt to further and codify the Republican dream when it comes to education: school measurement by Test Score, and Score only, as if that gave you any clue how well kids have been educated.

From what would you prefer to measure how well kids have been educated? How well they play together?

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@roger,

And an easy insult is often the mark of the incompetent as well.

I opposed the state mandated tests vigorously because, initially, the tests were composed by for profit companies to sell to states. The authors of these tests were not educators but recent unemployed college grads who used text books to 'design' tests, often missing the real point of each issue covered.

In school systems like many in MA where students generally start college and so take the SAT, the state competency tests are redundant: with 85% of the student body taking the SAT, why add another layer of testing. Those who do not take the SATs would probably not consider college anyway.

Now, let's discuss merit pay.

My daughter who reads and/or speaks five languages was let go from a Spanish teaching job because she completed a master's degree and earned a permanent certificate because she then became too expensive.

The principal of a middle school in suburban Boston hired a man who not only lacked a teaching certificate but a college education to teach media. He was promoted within a year to chair media for the entire system. The administration wanted not to renew the principal who hired him when her 3-year contract was up but the community objected. At that point, it somehow came to be known that the principal and the media director were having an affair. Both lost their jobs.

At the high school in the same system, the chairman of the English department was known to be made to feel inferior should a teacher from a "selective" school be hired. She made life miserable for a teacher with a HArvard degree. I happened to sub for him the day he went for his interview at another school, which hired him. His students told me how the dept chair appeared daily in his classroom. The kids were driven nuts by her behavior.

While most tenured teachers are evaluated annually, and non-tenured teachers are evaluated twice a year, this same chair decided to evaluate a Tufts grad five times. Frankly, the man was smart, handsome, hip and had real connection with students . . . he was exactly the sort of teacher that boys need to see in order to know teachers are not nerds. The chair made him a nervous wreck.

Another teacher was "cut" after she began working on a master's at Bread Loaf during the summer. She moved on from that system, ranked 29th in the state, to the school ranked third.

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@roger,

Quote:

From what would you prefer to measure how well kids have been educated? How well they play together?

Please, do not be ridiculous. It is not helpful to the conversation.

I believe that standardized tests are a useful tool, but not one which accurately describes whether or not someone has been educated. You can teach a monkey to do well on a test, but that doesn't mean you've made them one whit smarter.

I do not propose that we base our school funding on measurements on how students do on standardized tests whatsoever. Instead, I propose we measure them by the levels of success achieved by the students after they are out of school, and then some time again after they are out of school. Good teachers don't teach kids facts, they teach them how to learn and how to self-educate throughout their lives.

Quote:

Quote:
Cycloptichorn wrote:

*Require that experience, advanced degrees or professional certification not be considered when paying teachers.

I believe this is in error. Is there some way in which it is supposed to contradict any position of mine?

What do you mean, 'this is in error?' The bill certainly contained exactly this language. Do you mean that you don't agree with that language?

I believe that reliance on some universal test scores as an evaluation of schooling is incredibly lazy on the part of people who advocate it, not to mention ignorant. Education is a multi-faceted thing that is not directly measurable by test scores.

I continue to assert that you either have little experience with education yourself, or just don't care to be educated on this issue.

I would also add that the bill in question, to make every single thing in FL schooling subject to standardized tests, which was introduced by Jeb Bush, would be taken more seriously maybe if Jeb's brother wasn't the primary vendor of Test Prep materials for the state.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@roger,

You wrote:
POM makes the statement that teachers can't, or shouldn't be subject to evaluation for twenty years. Fine. Then you think unevaluated teachers should be granted tenure, anyway. This is not our first difference of opinion.

That is not what I said and I will not be misquoted, although, perhaps, your misquote is evidence that your reading skills are below grade level.

Until a student is either in college or at work, there is no way to know whether that teacher was successful.

Recently, teachers have been quitting after five years in the classroom. The lack of respect, the poor pay, the long hours (try correcting papers) drive teachers away, so, it really doesn't matter how good or bad they are, does it? After all, they will be out in five years.

Then, there is a division almost along political lines as to how a teacher should be educated. I went to college and grad school when the left wing students all wanted to revive the seven liberal arts, to make the curricula of all schools more challenging and to guarantee that teachers majored in the subject they wished to teach and not in education. The right has always watered the curriculum. I took the 23 hours of education mandated by the state of MI to earn a certificate but refused to take more. I had to take enough hours of English to be certified: one course above the 200 level each in grammar and expository writing, a course in Shakespeare and one in American Literature, 1830-65 in addition to 30 hours of assorted English and American lit courses. My daughter, on the other hand, studied Spanish, French and Portuguese in college then did a master's in education. She will tell you that anyone with common sense can teach and that education courses are a waste of time.

I recently read that only half of those who leave college with teaching credentials actually teach. One of the reasons why this number is low . . . aside from budget cutting having reduced the number of positions . . . is the process of applying for a teaching position is humiliating. There are schools that demand up to nine letters of recommendation.

In most fields, it is the personality that matters and teaching is no exception. I can think of a teacher at the middle school my kids attended. I respected him enormously and my daughter adored him. My son hated him. Same family, different reactions among family members to this individual.

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@Irishk,

More evidence of his plan to run as an Independent.

He's a career politician. He will do anything to stay in power.

2 Replies

We, as a nation, should have solved the matter of education years ago. Certainly, if the wishes of the left-wing graduate students I knew in Detroit had been granted, schools would be better. It is shame that

1.) teachers have to deal with disrespectful parents who ridicule them at home and in public;

2.) that parents send their kids to school ill-prepared to learn;

3.) that recess and gym are cut, giving the kids no physical outlet, depriving them of muscle development and coordination and not allowing them the break that helps them learn;

4.) that music and art and sports have been forfeited;

5.) that testing became a battle cry.

When I was subbing, a parent cornered me, criticizing the high school for having four tracks. To her mind, those tracks cost money. How? The same number of students still had to be taught, and they used the same number of text books and the same amount of paper. While some schools have successfully mixed the bottom tier with the upper level students, teaching those who come to school and tell the teacher, "I hate books because my mother hates books" in the same classroom with those who complain that the school does not teach Native Son or White Teeth or White Noise or Shakespeare or Chaucer certainly is a challenge.

All students may be created equal, but why slow a bright student down and why humiliate a slow one?

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

More evidence of his plan to run as an Independent.

He's a career politician. He will do anything to stay in power.

Could be. The polling seems to show him with a very slight edge or being even with Rubio should he run as an Independent. Those numbers include Republicans, though, and I'm wondering how much of their support he could retain if he switches parties after swearing he wouldn't and also his veto of the education bill which I gather had tremendous Republican support.

I looked it up and the deadline for filing is in eleven days. Wonder what the polls will show then?

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@plainoldme,

There is nothing, at all, either reasonable or realistic about your ridiculous claim that it take 20 years to determine if a teacher is any good.

Most kids who want to be educated know which teachers are good and which ones are bad within the first month that they have them, and the ones who only thought they didn't want to be educated will know by the end of the term.

Tie the compensation of administrators to results and the favoritism you complain of will disappear.

Basing teacher compensation on merit rather than longevity will not solve each and every problem of the public educational system, but it will be a big first step.

Finally...it is not at all surprising that someone who is "against" merit pay would think Obama is "very middle of the road."

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Quote:

From what would you prefer to measure how well kids have been educated? How well they play together?

Please, do not be ridiculous. It is not helpful to the conversation.
Quote:

Ridiculous in what way? I ask what you would prefer to measure. Do you answer? Yes, you come back and tell me " Instead, I propose we measure them by the levels of success achieved by the students after they are out of school, and then some time again after they are out of school. "

And you accuse me of being ridiculous? If we are trying to improve education, we really can't wait 10, 15, or whatever years to decide if someone should have been entrusted with our children.

You don't even intend to be taken seriously, do you?

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

Which is why he has an arranged marriage to hide his real proclivity.

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

I would guess, then, that all of your teachers earned merit pay.

As Cyc said, good teachers do not teach facts, but facts are what matters. It is too bad my facts get in the way of your delusions.

1 Reply

@roger,

Quote:

And you accuse me of being ridiculous? If we are trying to improve education, we really can't wait 10, 15, or whatever years to decide if someone should have been entrusted with our children.

You don't even intend to be taken seriously, do you?

I did not say 10 or 15 years.

You haven't presented any analysis or point of view at all, other then to say that you believe that it's appropriate to pay teachers based on student's test scores and no other factor. I don't know why you think that is a serious position, seeing as you haven't presented any evidence showing that this would be a good thing in any way.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

0 Replies

http://article.nationalreview.com/431786/five-reasons-charlie-crist-shouldnt-go-independent/rich-lowry

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

Reasons 2 and 4 will be his biggest challenges. He should have continued as governor.

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@plainoldme,

This is at least the second time you have tried to introduce Crist's sexual preferences into the discussion.

If I didn't know that Liberals, fundamentally, can't be homophobic I would have to think you have a problem with Gays.

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

I have a problem with hypocrites. I also have a problem with stupidity.

1 Reply

Crist supported Obama's economy crippling stimulus bill and as payback for this support,
Obama went to Florida to drum up support for Crist... the famous PrezBO kiss of death...

This idiot must now run as an independent... I hope Rubio kicks his ass.

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@roger,

roger

You will not receive honest answers to these questions, but you will receive a boat load of hackneyed Liberal arguments.

Anyone with confidence and pride in their performance will welcome raises based on merit.

It cannot possibly take 20 year to determine if a teacher is any good, but such a notion makes it damned easy for poor performing teachers to continue to collect undeserve salaries for their entire career.

What possible incentive can there be for a teacher to excel if he or she can make the same amount of money phoning it in as striving to to do the job right?

Oh yes, I forgot: Teachers are the angelic souls of our society. Each and everyone of them is in it "for the kids," and not a one will eff off despite the fact that the system practically begs them to.

Whereas corporate executives who work 12 hours a day, do so only because that is what is required to satify their voracious greed, and because that's 12 more hours in a day wherein they get to practice their favorite pastime: Screwing wonderful people like teachers.

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@plainoldme,

plainoldme wrote:

I would guess, then, that all of your teachers earned merit pay.

As Cyc said, good teachers do not teach facts, but facts are what matters. It is too bad my facts get in the way of your delusions.

Your posts are so much nonsesnse that it's pretty futile to respond to any of them.

Nevertheless...

I don't know whether or not my teachers received merit pay, but I doubt they did. I can tell you that only a small percentage of them earned merit pay, and it never took more than a year to figure out which ones did not.

Quote:

...good teachers do not teach facts, but facts are what matters...

Clearly you did not have the benefit of a good teacher when it came to learning how to frame a cohesive thought or expression.

Oh wait, I read your profile:

You are an ex-hippy, teaching English at a Community College.

I could not have constructed a better profile for you.

God help your students.

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Will Charlie Crist Crack?

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