He did not base his expectations of his students on their background, home environment, previous educational failure, or anything else like that.

He based his expectations of them on the fact that if you take those who believe even that they are trapped in a cycle of failure from which there is no escape, expect excellence from them, and then prove that you care about them as you work to help them to accomplish excellence, you break the cycle of failure and open up a whole new world of possibility.

His students rose to his expectations, and passed the AP Calculus exam. College-level calculus being learned by the students at a school in which the kids were so disadvantaged, they couldn’t be expected to learn basic algebra. At least, that’s what the school administration told him.

School politics finally became too much for Escalante, and he and others who were involved with his program moved on. The school has since drifted back into mediocrity.

“If he wants to teach us that bad, we can learn.”

“Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve.”
Robert Lewin

You’re right, I am not a teacher, therefore I have no right to have any input, here. I am just a member of the dumb masses who must just submit to those who are obviously superior.

Status Quo.

But if the system in place isn’t working or being used properly, it isn’t a good system and should be replaced. How else can teachers be evaluated but by their performance; aren’t the results in the students? I recall once a competency exam being proposed and teachers fought it. It seems that any time an evaluation method to more equitably grade teachers comes out, it is always a resounding ‘NO’ from the teachers or their union. If this one won’t work and the one in place isn’t working what is the alternative?

As I have said repeatedly, I am not against good teachers, it’s the bad ones who need to be replaced. You sound like one of the good ones and I don’t mean to be disrespectful to the good and dedicated professionals out there. However, is it right for an average or below average teacher to enjoy the fruits of your labors?

But I agree, some type of evaluating is needed. This is as good as any; I haven’t heard anyone present a better idea on here; all everyone can seem to say is ‘no’ it won’t work.

I would still go back and address tenure and unions. I, for one, do not believe that any public employee should be unionized. There should be some sort of civil service program to protect them from politics, however.

Whereas I figure the value of a job is shown by the result if done improperly. Another factor which kicks in is: How many could do it just as well and how much are they happy to do it for?

Quite often people compare compensation by skewed views. Some will look only at money, some will looke at benefits, some will look at pressure of the job or location.

For that matter, teachers can be publicly funded or privately, just as doctors are so again, we’re still talking fruit even if the fruits differ.

By the way, I’m not for it or against it, just considering some things which I believe should be considered as opposed to raw numbers. For example in the later string, Wes mentions sometimes firefighters fail to save a house but that does not immediately mean he failed in his job. Sometimes the house burns down and nobody reports it until the next day.

It’s not anybody’s fault, simply the way the world is. If he wasn’t ready to go when called or didn’t know his job when called upon to do it or if he hadn’t maintained his equipment and kept it in place as he should, THEN it would be his fault.

If the fault lay with building construction or wiring, you want to fix THAT not just blame the firefighter after the fact.

I think we all want a system of testing results based on opportunity and responsibility.

David for dampening fires, not children (well, sometimes them too)

You’re right, you didn’t say anything about ’status quo’, I did.

It seems that everyone is against this program, but no one has tossed out a better one. I just seems that everyone is against any kind of evaluating of teachers. No system is going to be perfect on this non-perfect world. It just seems as if it is too easy to say ‘no’ instead of providing alternatives.

I still maintain that comparing public employees to private employees when discussing salaries and compensation is illogical and has no merit.

The best way to eliminate unions is to make them irrelevant. To do that you need to act in a manner which would convince people they will be treated fairly without a union to stand up for them.

The worst way would be to outlaw them because the first amendment of the Constitution guarantees freedom of association.

{Stolen from Wikipedia: [Freedom of assembly, sometimes used interchangeably with the freedom of association, is the individual right to come together and collectively express, promote, pursue and defend common interests. The right to freedom of association is recognized as a human right, a political freedom and a civil liberty.] }

Eliminating all politicians is also known as throwing out the baby with the bath water, better just to get rid of the bath water or bad politicians, keep the baby.

How do you know which ones are bad? Quite often you don’t. Just as you don’t know the replacements will be good. You can research them yourself, listen to what they say, how they act, what they do. Or you can trust some other group to do the same and then you have to research the group to be sure THEY are honest.

You won’t be able to eliminate federal interference as long as people keep voting for it. Politicians are voted in based on promises of bringing home federal dollars, voted out based on failure to bring in federal dollars.

I wish we didn’t but we tend to favor federal control over local control because we can see the local flaws and we can idealize the federal saints.

David who often votes for losers

I don’t recall saying that.

My main thought is that the cure should actually help and not just change things for the sole sake of changing things. To keep beating the medical analogy to death, remember how doctors once thought illness was caused by bad blood so they bled sick people? They didn’t check to see if it actually helped and we now know they killed quite a few, including George Washington, I think.

I knew of a case where a fellow had a wife with cancer. He knew cancer was treated with radiation and he worked with gamma ray sources in the oil field. He figured he would save his wife by getting her a radiation source by stealing the Cesium 137. He took it home in his pocket. He didn’t know that radiation works by killing and the main thing was to kill the cancer without killing the tissue around it. He killed the tissue around his pocket while carrying it home, lost his leg.

The cure needs to cure, the fix needs to fix.

REGARDING:
“The comparison of teacher anything to doctor or lawyer anything is apples and oranges. It just has no merit and is an invalid one.”
AND
“several of the examples you gave in an earlier post were medical in nature and are irrelevant to the argument.”

of course apples aren’t oranges and oranges aren’t apples but both are fruit. Thus you can look for similarities for comparison. That should apply to all jobs. That’s why I said if you can actually test for the teacher’s contribution or lack of contribution, that is a good test.

I dealt with the idea of doctors because it was brought up and because I figure there are areas of comonality.
Both require education to be effective.
Both can do harm if not done properly.
Both can deal with some people who won’t listen.
Both can be overwhelmed by case load.
Both do best if dealing in specialized cases. (plastic surgeon not doing brain surgery, Calculus teacher not teaching typing–not that they definitely couldn’t but that it would wasteful of talent and resources)
Both are sensitive to charges of incompetence and less effective if those they serve believe it to be so.
Both require hard work.

REGARDING:
“Some of the others are clearly bad parenting and have nothing to do with the school system.”

Which was the point. If they are the reason for performance, good or bad, they don’t reflect the teacher performance, good or bad.

I believe the teachers worry because current tests of their performance DO grade them on what you agree has nothing to do with the school system.

David for accurate testing