2008 October 16 Archive at The Core Knowledge Blog

Archive for October 16th, 2008

We Don’t Need No Stinking Teaching Certificates!

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 16, 2008 in Education News. 3 Comments

Tens of thousands of teachers are blocking highways and seizing government buildings across Mexico to protest a federal education reform ending their longtime practice of selling their jobs or giving them to their children, the Houston Chronicle reports.

We’re fighting to guarantee jobs for our kids,” Oscar Miranda said as he helped teachers stage a protest in front of the governor’s office in Cuernavaca, the capital of Morelos. “Throughout history,” Miranda said, “the sons of carpenters have become carpenters. Even politicians’ children become politicians. Why shouldn’t our children have the same right?

Hat tip for this item to the Gadfly, which wryly notes, “As the Holy Rabbi would say, it could always be worse.”

Quote of the Day

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 16, 2008 in Core Knowledge. 0 Comments

“’Critical thinking’ and ‘problem solving’—which progressives like me promote—have been taken to their extreme absurdity. We’ve disconnected them from their base—deep knowledge.”

-Deborah Meier, “A Disrespect for Knowledge” at the blog Bridging Differences

Those Who Can’t (Work on Wall Street) Teach

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 16, 2008 in Education News. 1 Comment

“It’s too early to say for sure,” writes USA Today’s Greg Toppo, “but a few observers believe public schools could be the beneficiaries of a brainpower shift from the trading floors of Wall Street and the hedge funds of Greenwich, Conn., to classrooms nationwide.”

New applications to Teach for America and the New York City Teaching Fellows are showing a sudden uptick in the number of would-be teachers with business and finance backgrounds. As Toppo puts it, your child’s next math teacher could be an absolute whiz.

On the other hand, there’s a potential downside, which USA Today does not mention. In hard economic times, underqualified and low-performing teachers are less likely to seek more renumerative employment elsewhere, and more likely to dig in their heels even when pressured from above. High unemployment makes a steady government paycheck a much sweeter deal than in boom times.

Eyes on the Prize

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 16, 2008 in Education Practice, Educational Policy and Higher Education. 2 Comments

OK, class, let’s review…

1. Paying school kids to improve their standardized tests with everything from cell phone minutes to cold, hard cash is good.
2. Paying bonuses to teachers whose students do well on standardized tests is also good.
3. Paying college students to retake the SATs and improve the school’s rankings is very, very…bad?

Baylor University finds itself in the crosshairs over their decision to offer incoming freshmen a $300 credit at the campus bookstore to retake the SAT. Students who raised their scores by 50 points or more received $1,000 a year in merit scholarship aid. Faculty at the school are criticizing the policy as “academically dishonest.” Although no one is saying so directly, it’s widely assumed Baylor’s goal is to move up the annual U.S. News college rankings by having the frosh retake the test and report the higher scores.

I’m shocked, shocked! I’ve said many times in this space that I’m agnostic on the whole miasma of incentives. As a pragmatist, I’m willing to consider any legitimate means to improve student achievement, even I find the idea of bribing children to act in their own best interests a bit revolting. But let’s not delude ourselves that incentives, whether internal or external, do not subvert intrinsic motivation and invite widespread gaming of the system. Incentives are by definition gaming the system. What Baylor has done is at worst a few degrees lower down the inevitable slippery slope. I’ve seen plenty of elementary school students fail miserably on standardized tests, retake the test after a few desultory weeks in summer school and suddenly they’re on grade level. Now that’s shocking.

“I’m just astounded that rankings would drive policy to such an extent,” Philip A. Ballinger, the director of admissions at the University of Washington in Seattle tells the Times. “It’s just rotten all around. It’s just like all of a sudden people removed their brains and went to Mars.”

He was referring to the Baylor scandal.