Florida To Link Teacher Pay To Standardized Test Scores

[Melmart1]

jochejaam, education is about the only place that both liberals and conservatives can agree on even 2% of the time-- it's a TOTAL MESS. The question I ask all of the MUY PARTISAN people of this forum is.. If you hate standardized testing, what is the alternative? How will we get the 'results' we want w/o standardized testing?

[jochhejaam]

jochejaam, education is about the only place that both liberals and conservatives can agree on even 2% of the time-- it's a TOTAL MESS. The question I ask all of the MUY PARTISAN people of this forum is.. If you hate standardized testing, what is the alternative? How will we get the 'results' we want w/o standardized testing?

Melmart, unfortunately you can't force parents, children or anyone for that matter to adhere to a constructive set of priorities. Teaching to standardized testing is the educational systems way of hiding the fact that as a whole Public School students are leaving the system without a proper education.

I put a large part of the blame on the parents who aren't dedicated to their children receiving a good education. Playing the blame game I'd put some of it on the Teacher's Unions and also place some on the legislators that believe morality and education do not mix.

Can anyone show that a lack of morality has nothing to do with the decline of education in the Public Schools? IMO I don't think it can be done yet some in this forum scream bloody murder when someone suggests that morality should be interwoven into the Schools cirriculum.
Go figure...

As is often the case identifying a cause does not provide a cure.

[Clandestino]

i don't understand while people about standardized tests... , most colleges have standard multiple choice tests and when you get out, many jobs that require certifications/licenses also require them... standardized tests are a fact of life

[Clandestino]

also, what about the other countries that are supposedly so much smarter than us like japan and germany... you don't think they have standardized tests?

[DarkReign]

also, what about the other countries that are supposedly so much smarter than us like japan and germany... you don't think they have standardized tests?

Yup....only a load more and a whole uva lot more difficult.

[scott]

Can anyone show that a lack of morality has nothing to do with the decline of education in the Public Schools?

Can you show there is a "lack or morality"?

[Phenomanul]

I don't see why my idea, incentive pay for Science and Math teachers, wouldn't work in a public school system. It's not easy to become a teacher, especially in Texas, you have to have the degree, or pass a state exit exam in the topic you want to teach. Then there's student teaching, certification courses, other exams and what not. How many Mathematicians/Scientists want to jump all those hurdles, and all for the priveledge of earning less than $40,000? Not too many, you have to really want to teach. Then you could be the smartest, most energetic, most caring teacher in the world, and your students could still be as dumb as rocks. Where's the incentive there?

Yes, we have to reform the way we teach our kids, but the private versus public school isn't the debate we should be having. The debate I think we should be having is how much emphasis we put on extra-curricular activities like Band, Football, Vollyball, and what-not in Texas. Just think if we put as much emphasis into Math or Science compe ions as we put into a single high-school football or basketball game. Just think if students took as much pride in winning debates and compe ions as they took in running track. It shouldn't be geeky to be smart, but schools don't emphasis educational compe ions because they pale in comparison to Football, basketball, , even tennis.

The dirty little secret is that it is much, much, much more difficult to get a athletic scholarship than it is to get a educational scholarship if you dedicate yourself in High School.

You have finally posted something that I agree with 100%

Note: other times a comment here or there would drop my agreement rating to 80% or 70%....

[Nbadan]

You have finally posted something that I agree with 100%

Note: other times a comment here or there would drop my agreement rating to 80% or 70%....

70% not too bad actually. You must be a moderate or a traditional moderate-conservative

[Darrin]

First, more time in the classroom. Why students don't go year-round is beyond me. How about a 280 day school year instead of a 180?

Second, I can memorize anything, and so can little kids. This won't do jack and to raise the overall intelligence of the American schoolchild. They will be empty thoughts. Knowing what that means, and being able to think critically, to relate principles to everyday problems, these are things that can't be measured by a written exam.

[Nbadan]

First, more time in the classroom. Why students don't go year-round is beyond me. How about a 280 day school year instead of a 180?

Adding more days means higher variable costs. The State legislature, not school boards or administrators determine how many days TX kids go to school per year.

[Darrin]

Adding more days means higher variable costs. The State legislature, not school boards or administrators determine how many days TX kids go to school per year.

That is true, but it's not spending more money than it is making a longterm investment in the future of this nation. I'm only five years removed from public high school, and almost half of the year was spent re-informing students of the material they should've learned last year. If there's not a 77-day layoff, meant originally to have children available to harvest crops, perhaps more information could be conveyed in a single school year, and therefore more comprehension.

[boutons_]

March 29, 2006

Op-Ed Columnist

Facts and Folly

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

I was leaving for a trip the other day and scooped up some reading material off my desk for the plane ride. I found myself holding three do ents: one was the Bush administration's National Security Strategy for 2006; another was a new study by the Economic Strategy Ins ute en led "America's Technology Future at Risk," about how America is falling behind the world in broadband. And the third was "Teaching at Risk," a new report by the Teaching Commission, headed by the former I.B.M. chairman Louis Gerstner Jr., about the urgent need to upgrade the quality and pay of America's K-12 teachers.

The contrast was striking. The Bush strategy paper presupposes that we are a rich country and always will be, and that the only issue is how we choose to exercise our power.

But what the teaching and telecom studies tell us is that key pillars of U.S. power are eroding, and unless we start tending to them in a strategic way, we aren't going to be able to project power anywhere.

Because we've long been rich, there is an abiding faith that we always will be, and those who dare question that are labeled "defeatists." I wouldn't call Lou Gerstner a defeatist. He saved I.B.M. by acknowledging its weaknesses and making dramatic changes — beginning with scrapping I.B.M.'s arrogant assumption that because it was such a great company, it could do extraordinary things with average people. Mr. Gerstner understood that an extraordinary company could stay that way only if it had a critical mass of extraordinary people. This is the message of his Teaching Commission: We cannot remain an extraordinary country without a critical mass of extraordinary teachers.

"If teaching remains a second-rate profession, America's economy will be driven by second-rate skills," Mr. Gerstner says. "We can wake up today — or we can have a rude awakening sooner than we think."

The Teaching Commission notes that "our schools are only as good as their teachers," yet this "occupation that makes all others possible is eroding at its foundations." Top students are far less likely to go into teaching today; salaries are stagnant; nearly 50 percent of new teachers leave within five years. To remedy this, the commission calls for raising teachers' base pay, finding ways to reward the best teachers, raising standards for acquiring a teaching degree and testing would-be teachers, on the basis of national standards, to be certain they have mastered the subjects they will teach (theteachingcommission.org).

Meanwhile, the report by the Economic Strategy Ins ute, a nonpartisan think tank, is equally harrowing. It notes that while the U.S. led the world in broadband Internet access in 2000, it has now fallen to 16th place. In 2000, 40 percent of the world's telecom equipment was produced in America. That share is now 21 percent and falling. The U.S. ranks 42nd for the percentage of people with cellphones.

In an age when connectivity means productivity, when communications infrastructure is at the heart of any innovation ecosystem, these things matter for job creation and growth. The lack of ultra-high-speed networks in the U.S. "makes it impossible for U.S.-based companies to enter key new business sectors" — one reason venture capitalists are moving their R.&D. start-ups to Asia, E.S.I. noted.

"The wealth and long-term economic growth of the United States," it added, "have long depended upon technological advancement as a means of competing with our foreign rivals. ... America's emphasis has always been on achieving such high levels of productivity that it could be the low-cost producer while still paying high wages." The study offers a variety of regulatory and investment prescriptions (econstrat.org).

It's not surprising that the Bush strategy paper is largely silent about these educational and technological deficits, as well as about the investment we need to make in alternative fuels to end our oil addiction. Because to acknowledge these deficits is to acknowledge that we have to spend money to fix them, and the radical Bush tax cuts make that impossible. It would be one thing if we were going into debt to solve these problems that affect our underlying national strength. But we are going into debt to buy low-interest houses and more stuff made in China.

We're like a family that is overdrawn at the bank just when the parents need to send their kid to college, buy a computer and a D.S.L. line, and replace a gas-guzzling furnace. Whatever "strategic plan" that family has for advancement, it won't get anywhere until it rebalances its books.

Maureen Dowd is on a book tour.

* Copyright 2006The New York Times Company