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Crimpergirl
Sport climber
Boulder, Colorado!
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Sep 20, 2010 - 05:23pm PT
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JE - I am working, but quickly glanced at the manuscripts. One take-away I see focuses on measurement issues. Measurement as it stands is poor and acting on it seems ill-advised. Some quotes:
Quoted from Lang:
"Since tests are only very imperfect measures of the desired outcomes of education, we should avoid any automatic consequences for teachers or schools based solely on measures derived from tests."
Quoted from Staiger & Rockoff:
"Second, estimates of teacher effectiveness based on student achievement data are noisy measures and can be thought of as having reliability in the range of 30 to 50 percent."
Quoted from Neal:
"The No Child Left Behind law is flawed for many reasons, but the most important is that it is built around proficiency targets. Proficiency rates are not useful metrics of school performance because universal proficiency is not a socially efficient goal for principals and teachers."
Quoted from Hanushek & Rivkin:
"First, we will argue that the requirements for “highly qualified” teachers are unlikely to have had any perceptible effect on the
performance of students."
Not related to measurement, but interesting is this quote from Munane and Papay:
Overall, we find that teachers overwhelmingly support the principles underlying the No Child Left Behind legislation, including that schools should be held accountable for educating all children well. However, teachers are concerned that the incentives created by some provisions of the law have elicited unintended responses that reduce the quality of education provided to at least some children."
Swamped with more. Maybe I'll find more time later. Anyone else have thoughts?
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Sep 21, 2010 - 01:57am PT
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Thanks, Crimpie. I was somewhat bemused that out of five papers, only one (by non-economists) bothered to ask teachers what they thought. That's why the first thing I did after quickly reading them was to send them to all the teachers and administrators I know.
Still, we make statements about effective education all the time, and yet those who've tried (I'm just getting started in this. My daughter, the high school math teacher, piqued my interest) all point out the terribly unreliable measurements. We must base our statements on what works and what doesn't on some measurement. What is it?
The real problem is that a great many people have no faith in mere grades, graduation or promotion to a higher grade as a measure of learning. My daughter deals with ninth graders who cannot do simple arithmetic, but were promoted on anyway, as just one example. A standardized test, while quite inaccurate, is at least an objective measure. Those opposed to using just testing to measure learning have done a poor job of promoting a meaningful alternative.
I'm hoping there's some rational way out of this, but my initial review of this and other literature leads me to believe that there really is some serious misalignment, at least, in the way we teach in America.
John
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Wonder
climber
WA
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Sep 21, 2010 - 02:06am PT
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Jeessse, you guys & gals are making this to hard. It takes one word...
Fluoride.
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justthemaid
climber
Jim Henson's Basement
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Sep 21, 2010 - 09:39am PT
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I come from a family of educators. If I wasn't leaving for Facelift in a few hours I'd pipe in, but I do need to (sidebar)comment...
RJ: I generally gloss over your posts but...
a) Your explosives joke is inappropriate in the extreme. 911 is still an extremely emotional issue for many Americans.
You disrespect the memory of the victims. If we are boring you- why don't you find something relative to link?
Why step in line with the rest of the "phucking ignorant Americans" by posting an uncreative and insensitive joke?
b) FYI. No picture of ANy celebrity ever gets printed before every singe pixel is photo shopped to make them look perfect.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Sep 21, 2010 - 10:06am PT
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I can tolerate the blather, but the oversize photo that takes forever to load on dial up is a real PITA.
C'mon Rox, pinch it off for a change.
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Bertrand
climber
California
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Sep 21, 2010 - 11:57am PT
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OP, I've been wondering the same thing myself.
Especially two years ago when Barack Obama was elected president. The guy has a grade-school level of economics understanding, and some people STILL think he knows what he is doing.
Well, at least we keep our problems to ourselves. OH WAIT....we also go around apologizing to other countries for the actions of our countrymen. So, we're ignorant AND un-unified! That's the disgrace.
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Crimpergirl
Sport climber
Boulder, Colorado!
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Sep 21, 2010 - 05:31pm PT
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JE. Agreed. We have some measurement though imperfect. And we both know that no measurement is perfect, some are just less perfect than others. Several of these authors noted that while problematic, qualitative assessments point to similar outcomes (though there are not a lot of qualitative studies to point to it sounds).
I do think that over-reacting on the basis of poor measures is very problematic, but the question is - what to do instead?
Heck if I know.
I don't advocate it, but I wonder if teacher assessments of one another would provide useful info. I mean, each of us know who the slacker non-performers at our own work is (or are). I'd be curious to see if such assessments correlate to testing scores. (Certainly not saying that such colleague assessments would be the way to go, but it'd be cool to see).
One last thing, one author mentioned that teachers are the most overly assessed profession there is and it seems the case from where I sit. I mean, we don't fire police officers who work beats with increasing or relatively higher crime rates. We don't fire the fund manager who oversees a loss in our portfolio (poor people would all be out of work if that was the case). We don't fire nurses and doctors who have a high rate of patient death. We don't fire the grocery store checker when prices go up or food spoils.
I know some of these are not exactly comparable, but the point is that teachers are really under a magnifying glass more so than many other very important professions.
BTW, tell your daughter that I'm a college professor and I see the poor preparation of students at my level too - even at times in grad school. For example, the next Crim/Criminal Justice major that spells homicide as "homocide" is going to get whacked by me. :)
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Sep 21, 2010 - 05:48pm PT
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Ever go to the deli counter at the supermarket and ask for 6 ounces of something and watch the clerk vapor lock because the scale gives a digital readout in pounds and he/she can't do the fifth grade math?
I have to satisfy myself that they have likely reached the pinnacle of their career, rather than putting them out of their misery.
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Sep 21, 2010 - 08:39pm PT
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Especially two years ago when Barack Obama was elected president. The guy has a grade-school level of economics understanding, and some people STILL think he knows what he is doing.
McCain..
nuff said.
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Wonder
climber
WA
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Sep 24, 2010 - 12:30am PT
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Sep 21, 2010 - 02:48pm PT
Ever go to the deli counter at the supermarket and ask for 6 ounces of something and watch the clerk vapor lock because the scale gives a digital readout in pounds and he/she can't do the fifth grade math?
I have to satisfy myself that they have likely reached the pinnacle of their career, rather than putting them out of their misery.
I don't know whats worst the old poor retired person who always thinks its your fault when thing go wrong or the dumb teenage chick who says "it's the computer, I cant do anything about it."
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Sep 24, 2010 - 01:15am PT
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I don't know whats worst
Since we were talking about a deli counter, did you mean what's wurst?
John
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Douglas Rhiner
Mountain climber
Tahoe City/Talmont , CA
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Sep 28, 2010 - 10:17am PT
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And yet another layer on the cake.
[url="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/09/28/survey-americans-know-little-religion/"]Survey: Many Americans Know Little About Religion[url]
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Sep 28, 2010 - 11:16am PT
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You know, I was just thinking this after watching "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"
the other night. I realize the screenplay was based on the Tennessee Williams
play but what are the chances that a modern Hollywood movie would use words
like 'mendacity'? If that movie were released today it would be lucky to get
shown on a couple of hunnerd screens nationwide.
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Anastasia
climber
hanging from a crimp and crying for my mama.
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Sep 28, 2010 - 11:55am PT
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Well, 50% of the population has below average intelligence. Plus most only have an IQ of a 100 so... Just do what I do. Think for yourself and don''t worry about what's in other people's heads. Especially since trying to figure them out will just get you in trouble.
AFS
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Sep 28, 2010 - 12:00pm PT
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Good advice, Anastasia, except for the fact that we all pay for the collective
ignorance through ignorance inflation and higher insurance rates.
I was at the DMV the other day and noticed that some genius had cleverly
managed to avoid the 8" steel columns filled with concrete in order to punch
a goodly sized hole in the block wall beyond - DOH!
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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 28, 2010 - 12:43pm PT
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Weschrist, at least you are smart enough to know that is funny.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Sep 28, 2010 - 03:31pm PT
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My wife once went to a Metals shop in Casper and wanted to buy some 3/16" steel plate to do a welding project. The dumb phuck in the yard asked her is that thicker than 3/8"? She had to then teach him how to read a tape measure!
P.S. Yeah, she can weld better that I can, and run a milling machine and lathe, too.
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