teachers have to get second job in oklahoma

That works to some extent. But you still run into the problem of super high achieving kids having very little room to improve, and very low achieving kids having very little motivation or ability to improve.

Like I said, replace the teacher with a doctor, and replace the students with patients.

Imagine telling a cancer doctor that he/she was going to be paid based on whether or not the patients survived or showed improvement. There are just too many aspects that are out of the doctor's control to base salary on outcome.

I think teachers have talked themselves into a corner on this issue. If there are too many aspects outside of the teachers control to base salaries on outcome then that's fine. But then they can't just demand greater pay based on their role in those outcomes. Your doctor bills you because he takes responsibility for your treatment and can tell you if his proposed course of treatment is yielding positive results based on testing. If he's not making a difference, you can just go to another doctor. You don't have those options with teachers.

I think teachers have to decide how they want to be measured relative to student outcomes. And then their pay will based on that.

It's the only profession I can think of where the professional claims that they shouldn't be judged on outcomes.

That said, as much I like smaller, more efficient government, this is a great example of why tax cuts have to be applied strategically.
 
I think teachers have talked themselves into a corner on this issue. If there are too many aspects outside of the teachers control to base salaries on outcome then that's fine. But then they can't just demand greater pay based on their role in those outcomes. Your doctor bills you because he takes responsibility for your treatment and can tell you if his proposed course of treatment is yielding positive results based on testing. If he's not making a difference, you can just go to another doctor. You don't have those options with teachers.

I think teachers have to decide how they want to be measured relative to student outcomes. And then their pay will based on that.

It's the only profession I can think of where the professional claims that they shouldn't be judged on outcomes.

That said, as much I like smaller, more efficient government, this is a great example of why tax cuts have to be applied strategically.

I have a lot of disagreements with this post and I will respond to it in about half an hour when I get home.
 
I think teachers have talked themselves into a corner on this issue. If there are too many aspects outside of the teachers control to base salaries on outcome then that's fine. But then they can't just demand greater pay based on their role in those outcomes.

Your doctor bills you because he takes responsibility for your treatment and can tell you if his proposed course of treatment is yielding positive results based on testing. If he's not making a difference, you can just go to another doctor. You don't have those options with teachers.

Doctors take responsibility for treating patients to the best of their ability, and they track whether the treatment is yielding positive results. That is exactly what teachers do. Teachers take responsibility for educating students to the best of their ability, and they track whether the education is yielding positive results through formative and summative assessment. That is exactly the same.

Doctors still get paid if the patient does not get better. Doctors still get paid if the patient dies.

The only difference you have pointed out here is that some people can choose a different doctor, while they may not be able to afford to send their kid to a different school. Is that all you can base this "merit pay" on? The fact that parents can't choose the teacher?

I think teachers have to decide how they want to be measured relative to student outcomes. And then their pay will based on that.

What do you mean by this? In what way will their pay be determined based on the answer to that question?

Are you saying that teachers should only be paid well if they demand to be paid based on student outcomes?

Could you imagine telling a doctor at MD Anderson: "Look, you need to decide between two options. First option, you take a massive pay cut. Second option, you only get paid well if your patient recovers."



It's the only profession I can think of where the professional claims that they shouldn't be judged on outcomes.

This is way off. Teachers take the same amount of responsibility for outcomes as most other professionals. They take full responsibility for doing their job to the best of their professional abilities. They cannot take full responsibility for the outcomes because it's impossible to do so. And you know what? Many teachers do take full responsibility and lose sleep over it anyways.

So what other professionals take only partial responsibility for outcomes?

Cops: Take responsibility for doing their best, but absolutely do not take responsibility for crime they just couldn't prevent.

Fireman: Take responsibility for doing their best, but absolutely do not take responsibility for failing to save people who they just couldn't save.

Doctors: Take responsibility for treating patients to the best of their ability, but absolutely do not take responsibility for not saving people who were too sick to save.

Lawyers: Take responsibility for defending or prosecuting, but absolutely do not take full responsibility for not successfully defending someone who was guilty, or prosecuting someone who was innocent.

Pizza Delivery: Take responsibility for getting the pizza there as fast as possible, but do not take responsibility for traffic.

Dentists: Take responsibility for cleaning your teeth, but do not take responsibility if you get cavities.

You get the point. I could make a list of 100 professions that cannot take full responsibility for the outcome. I think it's unfair to pin something so absurd to teachers and pretend that they are unique in that way.


Imagine telling a cop: "Hey, we're moving to a merit pay system based on outcomes. If there is a lot of crime next month, expect a huge pay cut."
 
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Doctors take responsibility for treating patients to the best of their ability, and they track whether the treatment is yielding positive results. That is exactly what teachers do. Teachers take responsibility for educating students to the best of their ability, and they track whether the education is yielding positive results through formative and summative assessment. That is exactly the same.

Doctors still get paid if the patient does not get better. Doctors still get paid if the patient dies.

The only difference you have pointed out here is that some people can choose a different doctor, while they may not be able to afford to send their kid to a different school. Is that all you can base this "merit pay" on? The fact that parents can't choose the teacher?

How can teachers take responsibility for educating students to the best of their abilities when they claim that they don't dictate the outcomes? If they're really taking responsibility for the outcomes then they should get paid based on the outcomes.

Doctors can tell you with some degree of confidence what the problem is and that if you follow the course of treatment, you will get the following results. Doctors treat each patient individually and diagnose the specific problem that they claim they are treating. If an external factor is at play, they identify it and tell you. If you don't have a 100% chance of recovering, they tell you that too.

Teachers do none of that. They teach a generic lesson plan to a room of kids and recycle that lesson plan year over year. They do not teach to the individual. They do not identify the non-school factors at play and give the families a "treatment plan". They don't take anywhere near the responsibility over outcomes that doctors do.

What do you mean by this? In what way will their pay be determined based on the answer to that question?

Are you saying that teachers should only be paid well if they demand to be paid based on student outcomes?

Could you imagine telling a doctor at MD Anderson: "Look, you need to decide between two options. First option, you take a massive pay cut. Second option, you only get paid well if your patient recovers."

Uhm...what do you think it means when insurance companies deny payment over courses of treatment that they consider unlikely to be successful? Or when patients sue physicians over misdiagnoses or improper treatment? It means that doctors know that their ability to get paid is based on pursuing the most successful course of action for the patient directly in front of them. Teachers deal with none of that because they distance themselves from outcomes.

As for what I mean. Teachers need to say "We are responsible for X percentage of student outcomes." Then we can base their pay off the percentage of the outcomes they believe they are responsible for. Which is something teachers never seem willing to drill down on - fine, they're not responsible for everything, how much are they willing to take responsibility for?

Can you imagine your doctor saying to you "I'm giving you the same treatment plan as the last patient with minimal alterations. And I want you to pay me even though I put no effort into personalizing your treatment. Besides, I take no responsibility for if this treatment plan will even work for your needs. Whether you have a cold or a broken leg, you just getting Tylenol and told to get some rest - the body heals itself."


This is way off. Teachers take the same amount of responsibility for outcomes as most other professionals. They take full responsibility for doing their job to the best of their professional abilities. They cannot take full responsibility for the outcomes because it's impossible to do so. And you know what? Many teachers do take full responsibility and lose sleep over it anyways.

So what other professionals take only partial responsibility for outcomes?

Cops: Take responsibility for doing their best, but absolutely do not take responsibility for crime they just couldn't prevent.

Fireman: Take responsibility for doing their best, but absolutely do not take responsibility for failing to save people who they just couldn't save.

Doctors: Take responsibility for treating patients to the best of their ability, but absolutely do not take responsibility for not saving people who were too sick to save.

Lawyers: Take responsibility for defending or prosecuting, but absolutely do not take full responsibility for not successfully defending someone who was guilty, or prosecuting someone who was innocent.

Pizza Delivery: Take responsibility for getting the pizza there as fast as possible, but do not take responsibility for traffic.

Dentists: Take responsibility for cleaning your teeth, but do not take responsibility if you get cavities.

You get the point. I could make a list of 100 professions that cannot take full responsibility for the outcome. I think it's unfair to pin something so absurd to teachers and pretend that they are unique in that way.


Imagine telling a cop: "Hey, we're moving to a merit pay system based on outcomes. If there is a lot of crime next month, expect a huge pay cut."

Your list is inaccurate.

Cops aren't paid to prevent crime. And they absolutely are paid on outcomes. Promotions, firings, etc. based on their professional stats.

Fireman do take responsibility for putting out fires and preventing them from spreading. That is their job. They are not paid to save everyone or even save every building. Their job is loss mitigation, not loss prevention.

Doctors - covered above.

Lawyers take full responsibility for their jobs. Because the part that is out of their control, the judge and the jury is told to the client up front. Lawyers say you have a XX% chance of prevailing. Lawyers take cases on contingency. Lawyers aren't paid to determine outcomes because cases can only have 1 winner even though there are 2 lawyers. Every case means 1 lawyer is going to lose, it's actually part of the job.

Pizza delivery does take responsibility for traffic. They say 30 minutes or less. Not 30 minutes or less if traffic is good. They take responsibility whether there's traffic, if it's raining, if it's snowing. No matter what they get it to you in the time frame or they take the penalty.

Dentists aren't paid to prevent cavities. They're paid to clean your teeth. Teachers are paid to educate the children.

The point is that your examples don't understand exactly what it is those professionals are being paid for. Teachers are being paid to educate. Their job includes finding ways to help students engage the material and pass metrics. They test the students because the students are expected to internalize the material but the teachers are the ones who are paid to make it happen. Their job is to overcome the external factors to make the students successful.

And cops, as a profession, are judged on crime rates. When the unions go to negotiate, crime rates are absolutely part of the conversation. And when individual officers under perform their jobs (which is not crime prevention), they are judged on it.

See, no one is saying there aren't external factors. What I'm saying is that teachers can't claim the external factors outweigh their role when it comes to evaluating them and then claim that they are the most important factor...when it comes to paying them.

But I'll simplify it - what percentage of student test outcomes will you say an average teacher is responsible for?
 
How can teachers take responsibility for educating students to the best of their abilities when they claim that they don't dictate the outcomes? If they're really taking responsibility for the outcomes then they should get paid based on the outcomes.

Doctors can tell you with some degree of confidence what the problem is and that if you follow the course of treatment, you will get the following results. Doctors treat each patient individually and diagnose the specific problem that they claim they are treating. If an external factor is at play, they identify it and tell you. If you don't have a 100% chance of recovering, they tell you that too.

Teachers do none of that. They teach a generic lesson plan to a room of kids and recycle that lesson plan year over year. They do not teach to the individual. They do not identify the non-school factors at play and give the families a "treatment plan". They don't take anywhere near the responsibility over outcomes that doctors do.



Uhm...what do you think it means when insurance companies deny payment over courses of treatment that they consider unlikely to be successful? Or when patients sue physicians over misdiagnoses or improper treatment? It means that doctors know that their ability to get paid is based on pursuing the most successful course of action for the patient directly in front of them. Teachers deal with none of that because they distance themselves from outcomes.

As for what I mean. Teachers need to say "We are responsible for X percentage of student outcomes." Then we can base their pay off the percentage of the outcomes they believe they are responsible for. Which is something teachers never seem willing to drill down on - fine, they're not responsible for everything, how much are they willing to take responsibility for?

Can you imagine your doctor saying to you "I'm giving you the same treatment plan as the last patient with minimal alterations. And I want you to pay me even though I put no effort into personalizing your treatment. Besides, I take no responsibility for if this treatment plan will even work for your needs. Whether you have a cold or a broken leg, you just getting Tylenol and told to get some rest - the body heals itself."




Your list is inaccurate.

Cops aren't paid to prevent crime. And they absolutely are paid on outcomes. Promotions, firings, etc. based on their professional stats.

Fireman do take responsibility for putting out fires and preventing them from spreading. That is their job. They are not paid to save everyone or even save every building. Their job is loss mitigation, not loss prevention.

Doctors - covered above.

Lawyers take full responsibility for their jobs. Because the part that is out of their control, the judge and the jury is told to the client up front. Lawyers say you have a XX% chance of prevailing. Lawyers take cases on contingency. Lawyers aren't paid to determine outcomes because cases can only have 1 winner even though there are 2 lawyers. Every case means 1 lawyer is going to lose, it's actually part of the job.

Pizza delivery does take responsibility for traffic. They say 30 minutes or less. Not 30 minutes or less if traffic is good. They take responsibility whether there's traffic, if it's raining, if it's snowing. No matter what they get it to you in the time frame or they take the penalty.

Dentists aren't paid to prevent cavities. They're paid to clean your teeth. Teachers are paid to educate the children.

The point is that your examples don't understand exactly what it is those professionals are being paid for. Teachers are being paid to educate. Their job includes finding ways to help students engage the material and pass metrics. They test the students because the students are expected to internalize the material but the teachers are the ones who are paid to make it happen. Their job is to overcome the external factors to make the students successful.

And cops, as a profession, are judged on crime rates. When the unions go to negotiate, crime rates are absolutely part of the conversation. And when individual officers under perform their jobs (which is not crime prevention), they are judged on it.

See, no one is saying there aren't external factors. What I'm saying is that teachers can't claim the external factors outweigh their role when it comes to evaluating them and then claim that they are the most important factor...when it comes to paying them.

But I'll simplify it - what percentage of student test outcomes will you say an average teacher is responsible for?

This is all way off again. I don't think you understand what teachers are currently required to do.

They teach a generic plan, not individualized? Way, way off. It is required and part of the evaluation system here in Maryland that teachers individualize lesson plans. They read IEPs, they study 504s, they attend meetings with parents to help create IEPs and 504s, they make modifications based on input from parents, special education teachers, and psychologists, and they focus on individual strengths. They often change plans from class to class, and each class requires different materials depending on the student group. They also attend a weekly planning meeting with coworkers to compare data to see what is working best for those particular students. This is all documented and evaluated.


Seriously, reading this quote I just wonder what awful school district you attended or send your kids to.

.Teachers do none of that. They teach a generic lesson plan to a room of kids and recycle that lesson plan year over year. They do not teach to the individual. They do not identify the non-school factors at play and give the families a "treatment plan". They don't take anywhere near the responsibility over outcomes that doctors do.

^ If that was true then teachers would have nothing to complain about. But that is a huge crock of shit.

What it sounds like you are doing, is almost intentionally downplaying the amount of work teachers put in. I don't know why you would want to do that. You are doing the equivalent of saying, "Meh, police officers sit in their cars handing out speeding tickets." You are stripping a pretty complicated situation down to the simplest, and least respectable description possible.

Doctors can tell you with some degree of confidence what the problem is and that if you follow the course of treatment, you will get the following results. Doctors treat each patient individually and diagnose the specific problem that they claim they are treating. If an external factor is at play, they identify it and tell you. If you don't have a 100% chance of recovering, they tell you that too.

Teachers absolutely can tell you with some degree of confidence what the problem is, what needs to be done to improve by both the teacher and the student, and what the results could be. They teach the kids individually to the best of their ability (since they are not one on one, like a doctor, they are often one on thirty). If an external factor is at play of COURSE the teacher identifies it.

The only difference there is that a teacher will never tell most students they don't have a chance. They will bust their ass, lose sleep, stay in contact with the family, and put in tons of extra hours trying to help the kid.

Teachers' roles are like doctors trying to individually treat 30 patients an hour. Not adult patients, but fucking kid patients who do not always want to get better, and have parents who don't always want them to get better. Teachers are like doctors that have to convince their patients to want to be healthy, to want to take their medicine, to care about their well-being, and convince them there is a future for them if they do.
 
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This is all way off again. I don't think you understand what teachers are currently required to do.

They teach a generic plan, not individualized? Way, way off. It is required and part of the evaluation system here in Maryland that teachers individualize lesson plans. They read IEPs, they study 504s, they attend meetings with parents to help create IEPs and 504s, they make modifications based on input from parents, special education teachers, and psychologists, and they focus on individual strengths. They often change plans from class to class, and each class requires different materials depending on the student group. They also attend a weekly planning meeting with coworkers to compare data to see what is working best for those particular students. This is all documented and evaluated.


Seriously, reading this quote I just wonder what awful school district you attended or send your kids to.

Let's not be disingenuous nor devolve to insulting people's education. It's also interesting because I grew up in Maryland. Individualized per student. Teachers do not create 1 lesson plan for Johnny and a different lesson plan for Samantha. They create a lesson plan for the entire classroom.

IEP's are not required, neither are 504's. So teachers only deal with those when either the parents request one or some specific circumstance necessitates one. Again, they're not breaking out IEP's for every kid in the class room.

I think you might be underestimating just how much I know if you're going to try and pass off IEP's and 504's as something that the majority of students get to experience (and that's without talking about the disability component that usually drives those requests).



^ If that was true then teachers would have nothing to complain about. But that is a huge crock of shit.

What it sounds like you are doing, is almost intentionally downplaying the amount of work teachers put in. I don't know why you would want to do that. You are doing the equivalent of saying, "Meh, police officers sit in their cars handing out speeding tickets." You are stripping a pretty complicated situation down to the simplest, and least respectable description possible.

No, I'm not downplaying it. I'm not even suggesting that they don't do a lot of work. I'm saying that it's not individualized per student work. Which is why your doctor comparison lacks merit.

I'm not stripping it down, I'm just not over selling it either. I know teachers, principals, administrators, etc. Are you seriously going to try and tell me that teachers don't reuse parts of their lesson plans year over year? That they don't pull lesson plan information from other teachers? That every year that they teach, say the Revolutionary War, the teacher is crafting an entirely new lesson plan with entirely new activities? Of course not. Listen, you can disagree with me but when you try to paint these things in a way that doesn't reflect the reality, it undermines the argument.

Teachers absolutely can tell you with some degree of confidence what the problem is, what needs to be done to improve by both the teacher and the student, and what the results could be. They teach the kids individually to the best of their ability (since they are not one on one, like a doctor, they are often one on thirty). If an external factor is at play of COURSE the teacher identifies it.

The only difference there is that a teacher will never tell most students they don't have a chance. They will bust their ass, lose sleep, stay in contact with the family, and put in tons of extra hours trying to help the kid.

Teachers' roles are like doctors trying to individually treat 30 patients an hour. Not adult patients, but fucking kid patients who do not always want to get better, and have parents who don't always want them to get better. Teachers are like doctors that have to convince their patients to want to be healthy, to want to take their medicine, to care about their well-being, and convince them there is a future for them if they do.

So you admit that they're not like a doctor in the most important element of their jobs - treating the individual vs. treating a group. Then you can't turn around and claim that teachers are like doctors because they're not remotely similar in how they treat their "patients".

You would never go to a doctor who sees all 30 patients at the same time and hands out the same treatment plan to all 30 patients at the same time. You would rightly notice that if the doctor is giving every patient the same treatment, it's unlikely that it's tailored to your needs. And in that case, the doctor would certainly not be able to claim ownership over your specific outcomes...because he's not treating you.

But you still never answered my simplification of the issue: What percentage of student outcomes can we responsibly assign to your average teacher? Taking into account all of the things that teachers say they have no control over. When we only consider what they do have control over - what percentage of student outcomes is attributable to that?
 
Let's not be disingenuous nor devolve to insulting people's education. It's also interesting because I grew up in Maryland. Individualized per student. Teachers do not create 1 lesson plan for Johnny and a different lesson plan for Samantha. They create a lesson plan for the entire classroom.

IEP's are not required, neither are 504's. So teachers only deal with those when either the parents request one or some specific circumstance necessitates one. Again, they're not breaking out IEP's for every kid in the class room.

I think you might be underestimating just how much I know if you're going to try and pass off IEP's and 504's as something that the majority of students get to experience (and that's without talking about the disability component that usually drives those requests).

My comment was not intended to insult your level of education, but to question the practices of the teachers at your schools and your kid's school if that is what is occurring there.

A teacher cannot write 30 lesson plans for each class. You are applying an unachieveable and ridiculous standard here. If you want to have this conversation, stay on the reservation please.

Did you go to private school or public school? And what year did you graduate high school?

IEPs and 504s are not required for every student, they are ways of individualizing education for students who need individualization. I never claimed every single student gets one. Further individualizing on a student to student basis occurs in the classroom as a means of reaching individual students. That is why teachers are required to attend meetings on a weekly basis to discuss techniques and the data that is being produced with those techniques. The students complete strength-finder tests at the beginning of the year and the teachers use that information to build lessons. This is all stuff that you may not have experienced 10-20 years ago, obviously.

Doctors treat one person at a time. Teachers teach 25-30 per class, and may have 200 per semester. Don't try to pass that off as a non-issue and speak as though they can actually achieve complete individualized instruction for every single student or that it could even be reasonably expected.



No, I'm not downplaying it. I'm not even suggesting that they don't do a lot of work. I'm saying that it's not individualized per student work. Which is why your doctor comparison lacks merit.

No, it doesn't lack merit. I am applying the appropriate comparisons while acknowledging the obvious difference between treating ONE person vs 30 people.

I'm not stripping it down, I'm just not over selling it either. I know teachers, principals, administrators, etc. Are you seriously going to try and tell me that teachers don't reuse parts of their lesson plans year over year? That they don't pull lesson plan information from other teachers? That every year that they teach, say the Revolutionary War, the teacher is crafting an entirely new lesson plan with entirely new activities? Of course not. Listen, you can disagree with me but when you try to paint these things in a way that doesn't reflect the reality, it undermines the argument.

Of course teachers re-use lessons. Do you think Doctors create new treatments for each individual patient? You don't think they have a common course of action, which is then sometimes modified based on the patient? Give me a break man.

When I go to the doctor because I have strep-throat, does he sequence my genome? Or does he give me anti-biotics he gives everyone and send me out in 5 minutes?

You are applying this ridiculous standard to teaching that no profession would ever be held to.


So you admit that they're not like a doctor in the most important element of their jobs - treating the individual vs. treating a group. Then you can't turn around and claim that teachers are like doctors because they're not remotely similar in how they treat their "patients".

You would never go to a doctor who sees all 30 patients at the same time and hands out the same treatment plan to all 30 patients at the same time. You would rightly notice that if the doctor is giving every patient the same treatment, it's unlikely that it's tailored to your needs. And in that case, the doctor would certainly not be able to claim ownership over your specific outcomes...because he's not treating you.

Most doctors do almost exactly that. Like I said, you think you're being treated different for Strep than everyone else? There are differences and similarities, but both occupations are doing as much individualization as possible given their unique circumstances.

But you still never answered my simplification of the issue: What percentage of student outcomes can we responsibly assign to your average teacher? Taking into account all of the things that teachers say they have no control over. When we only consider what they do have control over - what percentage of student outcomes is attributable to that?

This is a question you would never demand of any profession with as many contributing factors as education.

Go ask a doctor "what percentage" of the outcome he or she takes responsibility for when treating a cancer patient. You'd get many different answers, and many would look at you as if you asked the dumbest question possible.

It is a silly question, one without an answer, and one I have never heard asked of anybody other than a teacher.
 
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@panamaican

I think there's an argument to be made that teaching as a profession should be evaluated on looser and more holistic criteria when compared with something like doctors. Where doctors can be judged on an objective measure (deaths as a result of treatment), an objective measure simply doesn't exist for teaching. We've tried to do that with standardized achievement tests, but those only test the ability to take the test versus real actionable knowledge. It's like the argument of whether or not college is meant to teach job skills or to broaden the ability of the student to think critically. Well, it's both, but the emphasis should be on creating a more educated populace instead of drones that can only do directly what they've been shown. You can have a great test taker that is absolutely useless outside of that sterile environment, while you can also have a student that gets the material but folds under pressure. While we would praise the teacher for the useless student, a metric just doesn't exist that would credit the teacher for that bad test taker's performance anxiety.

It's not something that necessarily can be standardized unless we simply want teaching to be an exercise in rote memorization like some of the confucian societies. Is it a measure of success if you can name 1000 facts but not understand the underlying reasons those facts are true? I call that a failure if we're being honest.

That is generally the reason I unconditionally support teacher pay increases. Raise standards, attract competitive candidates, and you can stack the deck to increase the amount of positive outcomes. I don't necessarily think an objective performance metric is the end all be all when it comes to something as intangible as critical thinking skills.
 
My comment was not intended to insult your level of education, but to question the practices of the teachers at your schools and your kid's school if that is what is occurring there.

A teacher cannot write 30 lesson plans for each class. You are applying an unachieveable and ridiculous standard here. If you want to have this conversation, stay on the reservation please.

Did you go to private school or public school? And what year did you graduate high school?

IEPs and 504s are not required for every student, they are ways of individualizing education for students who need individualization. I never claimed every single student gets one. Further individualizing on a student to student basis occurs in the classroom as a means of reaching individual students. That is why teachers are required to attend meetings on a weekly basis to discuss techniques and the data that is being produced with those techniques. The students complete strength-finder tests at the beginning of the year and the teachers use that information to build lessons. This is all stuff that you may not have experienced 10-20 years ago, obviously.

Doctors treat one person at a time. Teachers teach 25-30 per class, and may have 200 per semester. Don't try to pass that off as a non-issue and speak as though they can actually achieve complete individualized instruction for every single student or that it could even be reasonably expected.

So you state that it's impossible to write 30 different lesson plans but still want to compare level of accepted professional responsibility between doctors and teachers. And you're claiming that I'm going off the reservation? Your doctor comparison is significantly flawed based on that detail alone. Doctors individualize for every patient, every single time. Teachers do not. So doctors take personal responsibility for each patient based on an individualized treatment plan. Teachers do not. Teachers write a generic lesson plan for the 30 kids, a statement you disagreed with previously. Yet you are now stating that it's impossible to write individualized plans. Well, if the teaching plans are not specific per student then they are generic. We have come full circle here.

Not liking the way that sounds doesn't change what it is going on.

And if you are openly agreeing that teachers are not individualizing because it's too much work then how are you arguing that they are taking on the same level of personal responsibility as doctors? If doctors treat patients on an individual by individual basis, as evidenced by the individual treatment plans, and teachers teach on a group by group basis with occasional bouts of individuality, as evidenced by their inability to create individual treatment plans, then doctors are taking on far more responsibility than teachers.

I never passed this off as a non-issue. I said it's the primary reason the doctor comparison fails.



No, it doesn't lack merit. I am applying the appropriate comparisons while acknowledging the obvious difference between treating ONE person vs 30 people.

But once you acknowledge the obvious difference, that they are treating their charges in a completely different setting with completely different abilities to apply that treatment, there are no remaining appropriate comparisons. Because the ability to individualize the treatment is the core component of measuring personal responsibility for the individual outcomes.

See, teachers grade students individually but they don't teach to them individually. Doctors get judged on individual patient outcomes but they also treat their patients individually. There is no comparison.




Of course teachers re-use lessons. Do you think Doctors create new treatments for each individual patient? You don't think they have a common course of action, which is then sometimes modified based on the patient? Give me a break man.

When I go to the doctor because I have strep-throat, does he sequence my genome? Or does he give me anti-biotics he gives everyone and send me out in 5 minutes?

You are applying this ridiculous standard to teaching that no profession would ever be held to.

Nope, I agree that doctors reuse treatment strategies...on an individual by individual basis. Teachers do not. We came to this point because you kept trying to argue that the plans were individualized. But since you've agreed that it's impossible for them to actually do so, there isn't anything to discuss.



Most doctors do almost exactly that. Like I said, you think you're being treated different for Strep than everyone else? There are differences and similarities, but both occupations are doing as much individualization as possible given their unique circumstances.

Most doctors do not bring 30 patients into a room and tell everyone to go home and do the same thing. That's a silly thing to suggest.

To illustrate that, here's a question: Is 1 on 1 tutoring in math almost exactly like taking math with 30 other kids at the same time with just the one teacher?

The 2 professions, teachers and doctors, are doing as much individualization as possible given their unique circumstances but their circumstances are so far apart that they cannot be compared to each other.



This is a question you would never demand of any profession with as many contributing factors as education.

Go ask a doctor "what percentage" of the outcome he or she takes responsibility for when treating a cancer patient. You'd get many different answers, and many would look at you as if you asked the dumbest question possible.

It is a silly question, one without an answer, and one I have never heard asked of anybody other than a teacher.

I'm going to disagree with you here. Anecdotally, my dad a doctor. My brother's a doctor. They will tell you on an individual by individual basis, the amount of impact that they can have on a specific patient's recovery. So, if it's a particularly bad case of cancer, they'll say "You can go do X, Y, and Zexactly as I ask but you're going to die within 3 years anyway". (Or you'll still have a limp or you're going to have pain there for the rest of your life even if you follow my treatment plan perfectly). Or they can say "If you do these things as I ask, you have a X% chance of fully recovering." Doctors are very forthright about the limitations of their roles in patient outcomes.

Teachers equivocate. They say "Even if we do everything perfectly, we still won't say how much of a role we have in the actual outcome because of other stuff."

Everyone else tries to put a number on it. LAwyers say "you have a X% chance of winning this case if you do exactly what I tell you." Doctors say "This treatment has an X% chance of solving your health issue." Economists say "There's a strong/medium/minimal chance that this will happen in the economy." Firefighters say "If we get there within X minutes then there's a Y chance we can prevent the fire from spreading." Police say "There's a Y chance of solving a case if we get X information in a Z amount of time."

Teachers say "We can't/won't tell you what percentage role we play in student outcomes."
 
@panamaican

I think there's an argument to be made that teaching as a profession should be evaluated on looser and more holistic criteria when compared with something like doctors. Where doctors can be judged on an objective measure (deaths as a result of treatment), an objective measure simply doesn't exist for teaching. We've tried to do that with standardized achievement tests, but those only test the ability to take the test versus real actionable knowledge. It's like the argument of whether or not college is meant to teach job skills or to broaden the ability of the student to think critically. Well, it's both, but the emphasis should be on creating a more educated populace instead of drones that can only do directly what they've been shown. You can have a great test taker that is absolutely useless outside of that sterile environment, while you can also have a student that gets the material but folds under pressure. While we would praise the teacher for the useless student, a metric just doesn't exist that would credit the teacher for that bad test taker's performance anxiety.

It's not something that necessarily can be standardized unless we simply want teaching to be an exercise in rote memorization like some of the confucian societies. Is it a measure of success if you can name 1000 facts but not understand the underlying reasons those facts are true? I call that a failure if we're being honest.

That is generally the reason I unconditionally support teacher pay increases. Raise standards, attract competitive candidates, and you can stack the deck to increase the amount of positive outcomes. I don't necessarily think an objective performance metric is the end all be all when it comes to something as intangible as critical thinking skills.

I disagree with the core component here. Teachers, just like doctors, should be evaluated on some objective criteria. I'm not saying that standardized test scores must be the metric but there has to be some objective tool to measure the effectiveness of individual teachers.

I also agree to the importance of teacher increases to raise standards and bring in better candidates. But not without some methodology by which you can determine if your better candidates are actually doing their jobs effectively.

When teachers have great kids from great families and they go to college, they assign a significant amount of credit to the role of teaching and good schools in those kids outcomes. But when teachers have difficult kids from bad families, they assign a minimal amount of responsibility to teaching in those kids outcomes. Any profession that takes the credit for wins but not the blame for failures needs to be more closely scrutinized.

Or put another way - when was the last time you heard a teacher say "We had no role in Johnny getting into a great college, it was mostly his family and we can't be expected to influence him more than them." Nope, they mostly say "Johnny had great teachers who helped prepare him for his future college life by doing X, Y, Z."
 
So you state that it's impossible to write 30 different lesson plans but still want to compare level of accepted professional responsibility between doctors and teachers. And you're claiming that I'm going off the reservation? Your doctor comparison is significantly flawed based on that detail alone. Doctors individualize for every patient, every single time. Teachers do not. So doctors take personal responsibility for each patient based on an individualized treatment plan. Teachers do not. Teachers write a generic lesson plan for the 30 kids, a statement you disagreed with previously. Yet you are now stating that it's impossible to write individualized plans. Well, if the teaching plans are not specific per student then they are generic. We have come full circle here.

Again, you're mischaracterizing and seemingly doing it intentionally to win an argument.

Doctors do not individualize everything they do. They do the same exact thing for most patients. You have strep, I have strep, we are both getting the same antibiotics and being sent on our way. They make changes to that "generic" plan based on individual needs, but not everybody needs a change of plans.

That is how teachers operate, but are forced to do it on a larger scale because of how many students they have.

And if you are openly agreeing that teachers are not individualizing because it's too much work then how are you arguing that they are taking on the same level of personal responsibility as doctors? If doctors treat patients on an individual by individual basis, as evidenced by the individual treatment plans, and teachers teach on a group by group basis with occasional bouts of individuality, as evidenced by their inability to create individual treatment plans, then doctors are taking on far more responsibility than teachers.

I never passed this off as a non-issue. I said it's the primary reason the doctor comparison fails.

First of all, Doctors do not always have super individualized treatment plans. They often use a generic plan, and change it to accommodate special needs. Sound familiar?

And treating patients one-on-one is not proof that doctors take "far more" responsibility for the outcome, it just proves that they have a more convenient task based on numbers. Go to MD Anderson and you will see people dying on a daily basis. The doctors are not being paid based on whether those people survive.

"Hey Doctor, what percentage of blame to take for that dead cancer patient?"

Good luck with that.


But once you acknowledge the obvious difference, that they are treating their charges in a completely different setting with completely different abilities to apply that treatment, there are no remaining appropriate comparisons. Because the ability to individualize the treatment is the core component of measuring personal responsibility for the individual outcomes.

See, teachers grade students individually but they don't teach to them individually. Doctors get judged on individual patient outcomes but they also treat their patients individually. There is no comparison.

Teachers do teach to students as a group and individually. You think teachers do not spend a significant portion of their day directly next to individual students helping them learn? Breaking down tasks based on their own strengths and ability level?

Nope, I agree that doctors reuse treatment strategies...on an individual by individual basis. Teachers do not. We came to this point because you kept trying to argue that the plans were individualized. But since you've agreed that it's impossible for them to actually do so, there isn't anything to discuss.

They are individualized to the greatest extent that is possible for one person to achieve, or for a team of them to achieve.


Most doctors do not bring 30 patients into a room and tell everyone to go home and do the same thing. That's a silly thing to suggest.

Who does this? Who claimed that they did?


I'm going to disagree with you here. Anecdotally, my dad a doctor. My brother's a doctor. They will tell you on an individual by individual basis, the amount of impact that they can have on a specific patient's recovery. So, if it's a particularly bad case of cancer, they'll say "You can go do X, Y, and Zexactly as I ask but you're going to die within 3 years anyway". (Or you'll still have a limp or you're going to have pain there for the rest of your life even if you follow my treatment plan perfectly). Or they can say "If you do these things as I ask, you have a X% chance of fully recovering." Doctors are very forthright about the limitations of their roles in patient outcomes.

Teachers equivocate. They say "Even if we do everything perfectly, we still won't say how much of a role we have in the actual outcome because of other stuff."

This is incredibly flawed. The prognosis that a doctor gives is assuming the patient takes the medicine, goes through the treatments, etc. If the patient does not, then the doctor's best guess does not mean shit. Same with teachers.

You literally just said that doctors can, on an individual by individual basis, give an educated guess at how much of an impact they can have on a patient if the patient does everything they are responsible to do as well. They are still often completely wrong, of course.

Then you go on to say teachers can't do that. Yes, they can. Ask a teacher about an individual student, and they will give an educated guess as to how they can effect that individual student if that student does everything they say.

That's not what we're talking about here. We are not talking about individual students, their individual willingness to do everything the teacher asks, and their eventual outcomes. We are talking about an entire school's test results, with 1,000 different students and a thousand different situations.

Ask a doctor how much responsibility he takes for a patient who refuses to take their medicine.



Everyone else tries to put a number on it. LAwyers say "you have a X% chance of winning this case if you do exactly what I tell you." Doctors say "This treatment has an X% chance of solving your health issue." Economists say "There's a strong/medium/minimal chance that this will happen in the economy." Firefighters say "If we get there within X minutes then there's a Y chance we can prevent the fire from spreading." Police say "There's a Y chance of solving a case if we get X information in a Z amount of time."

Teachers say "We can't/won't tell you what percentage role we play in student outcomes."

Complete nonsense. Police officers offer odds when asked if they will solve a case? Or they give a percentage when asked how much of a role they play? No they don't. That's completely absurd.

Doctors can guess, based on their experience. That is what teachers can do too.

But doctors would never, ever, agree to have their pay based on the outcomes of their patients. They would never, ever allow doctors at MD Anderson to be paid based on whether or not patients were recovering or dying. That is absurd. Patients die every single day. Imagine the outrage if at the end of every year, somebody counted up how many patients lived and died, and paid the doctors based on that.

A teacher can certainly give an educated guess as to what will happen if a student has a certain IQ, is given a certain amount of study time, has proper nutrition, is not abused, and gives full effort on their assignments. That is not reality though.

Ask your dad how different his prognosis is if he has absolutely no idea whether a patient is going to take his medicine on a consistent basis, go through the therapy he needs, eat the food he's supposed to, etc.
 
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It's interesting that private school teachers make far less yet never whne. Meanwhile the kids in private schools excel at a rate of 3x.

I'm all for merit based pay for public school teachers. I'm equally in favor of vouchers so we can send our kids to private schools rather than pay for the families that mass-breed and don't care about their children lowering the bar for all.

https://www.theatlantic.com/educati...paid-less-than-public-school-teachers/280829/
 
Again, you're mischaracterizing and seemingly doing it intentionally to win an argument.

I said in the beginning - teachers write generic teaching plans, they do not individualize. You said that's not true, that they do individualize. Then you said that teachers can't be expected to individualize. You've changed your definition of what teachers do, while I've said the same thing over and over again.

Doctors do not individualize everything they do. They do the same exact thing for most patients. You have strep, I have strep, we are both getting the same antibiotics and being sent on our way. They make changes to that "generic" plan based on individual needs, but not everybody needs a change of plans.

That is how teachers operate, but are forced to do it on a larger scale because of how many students they have.

Doctors meet with an individual patient and treat their specific illness. Teachers meet with 30 kids and give them all the same lesson.

Your analysis keeps failing for a very simple reason - the doctor doesn't decide he's going to treat you for strep throat before he's individually examined you and verified that you need treatment for strep throat. The teacher does.

First of all, Doctors do not always have super individualized treatment plans. They often use a generic plan, and change it to accommodate special needs. Sound familiar?

No, they don't use a generic plan. They don't come up with a plan until after they've individually examined the patient.

So, no, it's not remotely familiar to teachers who set their curriculum before they've met the students that they're teaching and who don't change their curriculum based on individual student needs.

And treating patients one-on-one is not proof that doctors take "far more" responsibility for the outcome, it just proves that they have a more convenient task based on numbers. Go to MD Anderson and you will see people dying on a daily basis. The doctors are not being paid based on whether those people survive.

"Hey Doctor, what percentage of blame to take for that dead cancer patient?"

Good luck with that.

They take more responsibility because they take responsibility on a patient by patient basis. It is not more convenient - if doing it individually was more convenient then education would have gone in that direction and we wouldn't have a doctor shortage.

And of course you will see people dying on a regular basis. Just like you see kids who supposedly got taught failing basic exams even though the teachers gave them passing grades in that material.




Teachers do teach to students as a group and individually. You think teachers do not spend a significant portion of their day directly next to individual students helping them learn? Breaking down tasks based on their own strengths and ability level?

Yes, they spend a significant portion of their day next to individual students teaching their generic lesson plan before moving on to the next lesson the next day regardless of if the student is still struggling. Or leaving the student to twiddle their thumbs if they've mastered the generic lesson plan so that the teacher can spend 10 minutes with 1 of 30 kids during a 60 minute session.

I mean, I guess since the teacher is spending a few minutes with a handful of the 30 kids the teacher might call that great but I'd guess that all 30 kids would probably like individual attention every day in every subject and, frankly, the teacher does not have the time to provide it. Which is unlike when you visit your doctor and you get 100% of the doctor's attention during your appointment.



They are individualized to the greatest extent that is possible for one person to achieve, or for a team of them to achieve.

No one's arguing otherwise. It's just a fairly low level of individualization.


Who does this? Who claimed that they did?

you did when you said that doctors and teachers do almost exactly the same thing. Well, a doctor bringing 30 patients into a room and telling everyone to go home and do the same thing is what teachers are doing. They bring 30 students into a room and then send them home to do the same thing as everyone else that was in the room. When you actually compare how they do things, the 2 professions do not do almost exactly the same thing.




This is incredibly flawed. The prognosis that a doctor gives is assuming the patient takes the medicine, goes through the treatments, etc. If the patient does not, then the doctor's best guess does not mean shit. Same with teachers.

You literally just said that doctors can, on an individual by individual basis, give an educated guess at how much of an impact they can have on a patient if the patient does everything they are responsible to do as well. They are still often completely wrong, of course.

Then you go on to say teachers can't do that. Yes, they can. Ask a teacher about an individual student, and they will give an educated guess as to how they can effect that individual student if that student does everything they say.

That's not what we're talking about here. We are not talking about individual students, their individual willingness to do everything the teacher asks, and their eventual outcomes. We are talking about an entire school's test results, with 1,000 different students and a thousand different situations.

Ask a doctor how much responsibility he takes for a patient who refuses to take their medicine.

You missed the point. I'll state it differently. If you have cancer, the doctor will tell you your chances of survival based on the prescribed treatment. If you have a cold, the doctor will tell you your chances of recovery based on the prescribed treatment. They tell you the individual, the chance that this treatment will solve this specific type of problem.

So if a student walks into a classroom, the teacher can tell him the chance of passing the state test based on the teacher's lesson plan and their individual circumstances? And if the answer is "yes", then what's the issue with judging teachers against those outcomes? If the lesson plan guarantees that the student will pass the exam then the best teachers who best teach the lesson plan will have higher passage rates amongst their students than bad teachers.

And if the response is that the lesson plan can be outweighed by non-teacher related events then that's fine too. Teachers can then determine just what role their teaching plays in those outcomes. And they can still be evaluated by actual student outcomes.



Complete nonsense. Police officers offer odds when asked if they will solve a case? Or they give a percentage when asked how much of a role they play? No they don't. That's completely absurd.

Doctors can guess, based on their experience. That is what teachers can do too.

Actually doctors and cops don't have to guess. There's a huge body of research that tells them. Maybe some doctors and some cops don't familiarize themselves with the hard numbers but there are hard numbers. So you can judge the profession and thus judge if individual professionals are in line with their professional averages.

But doctors would never, ever, agree to have their pay based on the outcomes of their patients. They would never, ever allow doctors at MD Anderson to be paid based on whether or not patients were recovering or dying. That is absurd. Patients die every single day. Imagine the outrage if at the end of every year, somebody counted up how many patients lived and died, and paid the doctors based on that.

But they do so all of the time. It's why they agree to let insurances set the compensation rates. It's why insurance companies deny treatments that they consider ineffective or experimental or a variety of other reasons.

Doctors have agreed to have their pay set based on patient outcomes. It's a slightly more complex economic relationship because insurance companies act as the evaluator, not the doctors themselves.

You have unfortunately simplified it down to life vs. death but doctor compensation is far more complex than that and patient outcomes are a huge driver of the compensation model they operate under.


A teacher can certainly give an educated guess as to what will happen if a student has a certain IQ, is given a certain amount of study time, has proper nutrition, is not abused, and gives full effort on their assignments. That is not reality though.

Ask your dad how different his prognosis is if he has absolutely no idea whether a patient is going to take his medicine on a consistent basis, go through the therapy he needs, eat the food he's supposed to, etc.

But my dad doesn't give an educated guess. He gives the researched recovery rates based on the treatment. And if he knows that a patient won't take pills, he might prescribe a liquid. If the patient doesn't like surgery, he'll prescribe some alternative method. And for every change, there is a recovery percentage associated with it. He's not out there guessing.

Laproscopic surgery has 95% success rate 1 year out with this specific complication occurring in 4% of patients, hypothetically. That's not guess work, that's recorded research across a range of patients, some of whom follow directions, some of who do not. So if a doctor doing laproscopic surgery has an 85% success rate, everyone knows that the doctor isn't very good. And the market will decrease his compensation accordingly. Insurances will drop him, he will be sued. His malpractice insurance will increase. He'll still make more money than average non-doctor but he won't make more than the really good doctors.

Teachers refuse to give you the success rate for their specific lessons plans and they refuse to be held accountable when the outcomes don't match.

But to come back to my query - are you saying that, at best, teachers can only offer an educated guess about how effective their teaching methods are?[/QUOTE]
 
It's interesting that private school teachers make far less yet never whne. Meanwhile the kids in private schools excel at a rate of 3x.

I'm all for merit based pay for public school teachers. I'm equally in favor of vouchers so we can send our kids to private schools rather than pay for the families that mass-breed and don't care about their children lowering the bar for all.

https://www.theatlantic.com/educati...paid-less-than-public-school-teachers/280829/
I'm not sure where you're getting that from. Vouchers do not improve student achievment, Stanford researcher finds.

In Milwaukee, where the nation’s second-largest (after Indiana’s more recent) voucher program has been operating for almost 20 years, only a quarter of students attend their neighborhood school. “If choice were the answer, Milwaukee would be one of the highest-scoring cities in the country,” Carnoy said.

But test score data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tell a different story. Among black eighth-graders in 13 urban school districts, Milwaukee – where black students make up more than 70 percent of all voucher recipients – ranked last in reading and second-to-last in math.

In cases where test scores did improve, Carnoy said, the increase appeared to be driven by increased public accountability, not vouchers. A four-year study in Milwaukee found no greater gains in state test scores among voucher students attending private schools until the legislature announced that all private schools accepting voucher students would be required to take the test and that the results would be made public. Researchers concluded that publicizing the results for the first time pressed these schools to focus more teaching on elements that might appear on the test, which helped increase their scores.
 
It's the only profession I can think of where the professional claims that they shouldn't be judged on outcomes.

the loudest teachers complain about this, but most just want a fair measure of their performance.

a famous analogy is that of a blueberry pie factory: if you're making blueberry pies, guess what happens if the blueberry distributor sends you a batch of rotten blueberries? you send them back or get your money back. teachers cannot send illiterate 15 year olds away. cannot send students away who were beaten or raped the night before. cannot send students away who are drug dealers (unless theyre caught, of course).

most teachers will not complain about a "growth" measure. if you can prove that you got that illiterate 15 year old to a much better spot than he came in at, then you did the best you could.
 
the loudest teachers complain about this, but most just want a fair measure of their performance.

a famous analogy is that of a blueberry pie factory: if you're making blueberry pies, guess what happens if the blueberry distributor sends you a batch of rotten blueberries? you send them back or get your money back. teachers cannot send illiterate 15 year olds away. cannot send students away who were beaten or raped the night before. cannot send students away who are drug dealers (unless theyre caught, of course).

most teachers will not complain about a "growth" measure. if you can prove that you got that illiterate 15 year old to a much better spot than he came in at, then you did the best you could.

And that's fair. Of course, if you apply the standards from kindergarten on then you will have fewer illiterate 15 year olds to deal with. That's not purely the teachers' fault.

My only gripe is when there's a hue and cry against any metric that is predicated on student outcomes.
 
And that's fair. Of course, if you apply the standards from kindergarten on then you will have fewer illiterate 15 year olds to deal with. That's not purely the teachers' fault.

My only gripe is when there's a hue and cry against any metric that is predicated on student outcomes.

yea there are some teachers who do that. theyre usually the loudest, and the ones who have bad scores on any metric. in my experience, anyway.
 
A couple of brief, factual points about teacher pay:

1. There is a huge gap between the highest paid and lowest paid states (70k+ vs. ~40k). So, it makes little sense to talk about "teacher pay" as if it is one thing.

2. States that pay the worst do the worst on all assessments.

3. National average teacher pay has fallen significantly vs. the private sector over recent decades.

teachers_earnings.png


"In the 1970s teachers made about 7 percent less than non-teachers, after controlling for education and other characteristics or about $3,800 per year. Over the last decade, that gap has increased so that teachers earn about 19 percent less than non-teachers—a difference of almost $11,000 a year."
https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/...omic-imperative-of-attracting-great-teachers/
 
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A couple of brief, factual points about teacher pay:

1. There is a huge gap between the highest paid and lowest paid states (70k+ vs. ~40k). So, it makes little sense to talk about "teacher pay" as if it is one thing.

2. States that pay the worst do the worst on all assessments.

3. National average teacher pay has fallen significantly vs. the private sector over recent decades.

teachers_earnings.png


"In the 1970s teachers made about 7 percent less than non-teachers, after controlling for education and other characteristics or about $3,800 per year. Over the last decade, that gap has increased so that teachers earn about 19 percent less than non-teachers—a difference of almost $11,000 a year."
https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/...omic-imperative-of-attracting-great-teachers/

We definitely need to pay them more. But because the stakes are so much higher, we need to evaluate them more too.
 
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