How to deal with poor or underperforming teachers?

[brendan]

What to do with poor teachers?
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/too-easy-it-seems-to-give-poor-teachers-a-pass-mark/2007/08/31/1188067365985.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21471824-661,00.html
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22429740-601,00.html
http://www.theage.com.au/news/education-news/poor-teachers-blamed-for-low-scores/2007/09/14/1189276985630.html

There is ample empirical evidence to show that the quality of teaching definitely matters:
http://www.acer.edu.au/documents/Rowe_ACER_Research_Conf_2003_Paper.pdf
http://econrsss.anu.edu.au/%7Ealeigh/pdf/TQPanel.pdf
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~oreo/research/prof%20quality/prof%20quality%20oct6%202006.pdf
http://www.chicagofed.org/publications/workingpapers/papers/wp2002-28.pdf
http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/edt/eofb/subs/sub111.pdf
http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/15/4e/c4.pdf

Trends in teacher quality: http://www.sprc.unsw.edu.au/seminars/2006%20Program/Leigh.pdf

Pay the better teachers more than the poor teacher?
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22668399-5000117,00.html
"Perhaps the teachers' unions should have thought of what they could do to address issues of teacher quality before they launched their industrial campaign.

There are some very capable and dedicated teachers, who deserve to be well rewarded, but to use them as an alibi to justify a wage rise that rewards the worthy along with the unworthy is simply another way of exploiting the worthy.

Dr MARK LOPEZ is an educational consultant"

So how should poor performing teachers dealt with?

The first article quotes the NSW Primary Principals Association stating that the previous system took at least 25 weeks (2x10 week programs and a 5 week review). That is an extremely long time.

[brendan]

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22682645-13881,00.html

"SCHOOL teachers are experts in educational theory and psychology but know little about the subject they are teaching, neglecting to update their knowledge and skills.

University of Queensland executive dean of arts Richard Fotheringham yesterday said few teachers undertook postgraduate studies in their discipline, and those who did pursue further study focused on educational theories and failed to keep abreast of developments in their field."

What are your experiences with teachers? Is it true?

[Galelleo]

I think that there will always be some teachers who are better at teaching than others. The ones who have a passion and the knowledge are always the best.

I also think that they should valued higher than others in terms of salary etc... because its an education system, its meant to educate, and theyre better at educating. its as simple as that.

As it stands, there arent enough teachers, so they cant pick the good ones out, they have to pick up all of them. (to some extent anyway), so the crappier ones get in amongst the good ones.

I dont think its a big issue though, there are always some people who are better in their field than others.
And ultimately, its up to the students how well they perform.

[Collin Li]

I think the number of teachers will rise if we allow freely unequal wages amongst teachers.

This will reward good teachers, improve quality and competition, so that the demand for teachers will be higher*, and most likely increase the wages of teachers overall, and hence the quantity of teachers will grow.

* demand for teachers is higher with unequal wages because a fixed (low) wage will not attract good quality teachers, so the returns of "labour" are low.

[Odette]

I think the number of teachers will rise if we allow freely unequal wages amongst teachers.

This will reward good teachers, improve quality and competition, so that the demand for teachers will be higher*, and most likely increase the wages of teachers overall, and hence the quantity of teachers will grow.

* demand for teachers is higher with unequal wages because a fixed (low) wage will not attract good quality teachers, so the returns of "labour" are low.

True I agree.

[Galelleo]

Exactly, you'll get more people (who are liekly better at the job) applying to be teachres because theres more incentive = salary.

[brendan]

What about closing down the failing schools?

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has threatened schools that if they do not lift their game, they could be closed or taken over:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7070190.stm

New York City Mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, threatened to do the same for his public schools:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/education/06reportcards.html?em&ex=1194498000&en=253f98e6c98debac&ei=5087%0A

[Collin Li]

Sounds good to me.

[Galelleo]

then the students would go to better schools?

[melanie.dee]

i think pay should be performanc based too. not like ahhhh your students are all geting 45+ you must be the best! despite the fact that they are teaching at a selective school, and it might really be the teacher at i duno some random high school that brought up the average from 28 to 35 that is equally is a fantastic teacher. so more like, performance judged on an individual case, level of student satisfaction, just the overall feeling as to that teachers performance.

i dont get why we accept underforming, SHIT teachers, and they somehow think they all deserve to be getting payed the same etc. i seriously dont get it. if you're inherently crap at any other profession, then its cya later find another career path. if you're slacking off, then its pull your weight or you're out. i dont get why teaching should be any different. if we allow inefficiencies, we're making our schools uncompetitive and ultimately accepting low standards for educating our kids when we should we working to work maximising standards in education and teaching

[Collin Li]

Yeah, performance-based pay is a great idea, but the rules for it should not be determined by government (not sure if this was a proposal), rather by principals who have an incentive for their school to thrive.

Unions, governments, or whatever, need to stop telling us how to manage our industry, economy or lives.

[brendan]

Sack the crap teachers says a government advisor:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7088383.stm

Sub-standard teachers should be removed from schools to make way for better colleagues, a key government education adviser has suggested.

Sir Cyril Taylor said he has estimated there are about 17,000 "poor" teachers in England and Wales.

[brendan]

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~muralidh/Karthik_Muralidharan_JMP_Teacher_Incentives_In_Developing_Countries.pdf

"Performance pay for teachers is frequently suggested as a way of improving educational outcomes in schools, but the empirical evidence to date on its effectiveness is limited and mixed. We present results from a randomized evaluation of a teacher incentive program implemented across a representative sample of government-run rural primary schools in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. The program provided bonus payments to teachers based on the average improvement of their students' test scores in independently administered learning assessments (with a mean bonus of 3% of annual pay). Students in incentive schools performed significantly better than those in control schools by 0.19 and 0.12 standard deviations in math and language tests respectively. They scored significantly higher on "conceptual" as well as "mechanical" components of the tests suggesting that the gains in test scores represented an actual increase in learning outcomes. Incentive schools also performed better on subjects for which there were no incentives. We find no significant difference in the effectiveness of group versus individual teacher incentives."

The key to this study is that the bonus payments were not made according to the average of the students' test scores but rather the average improvement - i.e. a "value-added" measure.

It is commonly argued that giving teachers financial incentives to improve their students test scores would 'dumb down' the learning or cause teachers to 'teach to the test' resulting in lessons that are mechanical in which encourages rote-learning. However, an interesting finding of this study is that, "Incentive schools do significantly better on both mechanical components of the test (designed to reflect rote learning) and conceptual components of the test (designed to capture deeper understanding of the material), suggesting that the gains in test scores represent an actual increase in learning outcomes."

[brendan]

What are they doing about underperforming teachers in New York?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/15/education/15teacher.html?_r=1&ex=1352869200&en=d5f28c60439293a9&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin
"The Bloomberg administration is beginning a drive to remove unsatisfactory teachers, hiring new teams of lawyers and consultants who will help principals build cases against tenured teachers who they believe are not up to the job. It is also urging principals to get rid of sub-par novices before they earn tenure."

[kido_1]

You could just simply go to TSFX or, if you can't afford it, to some Asian Dr. for maths.