Teachers' Strike!

[Bruce Wayne]

I thought the reasons for striking were the Government's refusal to negotiate on changes to pay, working conditions and pensions. In particular the introduction of performance related pay and the end to automatic incremental pay rises.

The Government blames the economy for having to do these things. Far better it really sorted out tax avoidance and evasion and perhaps purchasing and procurement which singularly has to be the biggest waste of public funds.

It's ludicrous that we want the best possible public services, particularly in health and education, yet do not support their right to proper and appropriate pay levels. Reducing the salary levels of teachers will reduce the level of teaching over time, what sort of investment in the future of Britain is that?

Given the huge variance in teacher quality, why not pay the good ones more, and the worse ones less? Isn't that proposal part of what the strikes are about though?

I mean I'm sure in your business if someone was half as effective as another employee, you wouldn't want to pay them the same salary.

 

[Kurt.]

Given the huge variance in teacher quality, why not pay the good ones more, and the worse ones less? Isn't that proposal part of what the strikes are about though?

I mean I'm sure in your business if someone was half as effective as another employee, you wouldn't want to pay them the same salary.

I watched a bit of Question Time last night Bruce and the question of how do you judge a teachers ability was raised.... How would you differentiate between good and bad teachers ? It could be very dangerous territory to tread into.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

I'm far from an expert so no idea, but there presumably must be a way of doing it.

 

[Brennan]

Thinking paying teachers based on 'performance' would be a terrible idea myself. The worse students would be left behind in favour of those more likely to achieve top grades and we'd see teachers focussing even more on how to do well on exams, rather than on actually teaching students something.

A study by Stuart Tannock (professor at the Graduate School of Education at the University of California) for CEPR reported that despite the appeal of PRP systems when they are regularly introduced in states around America, a series of negative, unintended consequences arose (Tannock, p.7-9):

• competition between teachers for limited performance bonuses fostered ‘jealousy, resentment, and divisiveness, and undermine the spirit of workplace collaboration’;
• morale amongst teachers plummeted, and perceptions of ‘merit’ awards were viewed as ‘subjective, arbitrary, unfair, and prone to favoritism and discrimination’;
• performance criteria create incentives for teachers to ‘teach to the test’, narrow curriculums to focus on those that are part of the PRP measure, and often cause teachers to ‘shun low-achieving students and “hard-to-serve” schools, where gains in student test scores or other measures of learning often are more difficult to produce’; and
• administrative costs (mostly through lack of productivity) sky-rocket as principals or other school supervisors spend time reviewing teacher performance, and overall costs of teacher salaries rose, resulting in PRP being capped or suspended.

http://alexwhite.org/2011/05/performance-pay-for-teachers-is-a-terrible-idea-and-heres-why/

 

[Bruce Wayne]

And yet there was a study via Stanford (I posted it earlier in the thread) showing the opposite. Such is life I suppose.

I know stack ranking has had disastrous consequences at Microsoft, and rumours are its not widely appreciated at Google. I suppose the key is to get the things you're actually measuring right so that it's healthy rather than unhealthy.

 

[Foot Long Hot Dog]

Thinking paying teachers based on 'performance' would be a terrible idea myself. The worse students would be left behind in favour of those more likely to achieve top grades and we'd see teachers focussing even more on how to do well on exams, rather than on actually teaching students something.

Just because one PRP plan failed, does not mean that the principle is not the way to go.

Your point about teachers focussing on the kids more likely to achieve top grades & thus leaving the others behind, is negated if the KPI is around the total pass rate %age.

 

[Brennan]

Just because one PRP plan failed, does not mean that the principle is not the way to go.

Your point about teachers focussing on the kids more likely to achieve top grades & thus leaving the others behind, is negated if the KPI is around the total pass rate %age.

So then the better kids suffer because they're already going to pass.

And it still doesn't change the fact that any nationally executed performance based scheme will force teachers into narrowing the syllabus and focussing on what will get you through the exam.

 

[larrygobfiend]

Really? How many exactly? You clearly have a great insight into the profession that must have taken a great deal of research, please enlighten us further.

Despite how I come across I actually went to school and witnessed lazy sh1thouse teachers for myself. I also said there are plenty of teachers who DO deserve more money. It's pretty much the same with everything.

Does that answer your question Mr Precious or are you still under the illusion that ALL people in the teaching profession are fantastic.

 

[Reidy's Bottle Of Grecian]

Thinking paying teachers based on 'performance' would be a terrible idea myself. The worse students would be left behind in favour of those more likely to achieve top grades and we'd see teachers focussing even more on how to do well on exams, rather than on actually teaching students something.



http://alexwhite.org/2011/05/performance-pay-for-teachers-is-a-terrible-idea-and-heres-why/

Not necessarily as the aim would be to get the kids who are struggling UP the level of grades, if a kid can advance by 4 grades in a year then up 4 is up 4, no matter where those 4 grades are on 'the ladder,' in fact it could be argued that those at the top that you say would get more attention are close to the ceiling and therefore cant advance by as many grades.

 

[Tubey]

Not necessarily as the aim would be to get the kids who are struggling UP the level of grades, if a kid can advance by 4 grades in a year then up 4 is up 4, no matter where those 4 grades are on 'the ladder,' in fact it could be argued that those at the top that you say would get more attention are close to the ceiling and therefore cant advance by as many grades.

It doesn't work in practice though, as the ultimate aim for a teacher is to achieve the end result by any means necessarily as they're always tied to performance. So to get those four grades up from the lower end, you'd have to either simplify the syllabus or dedicate more time to the easier parts of the subject, weakening the time the more able have with the upper levels of the subject.

What always happens with schemes like this is that the teachers adopt a tickbox exercise of stumbling through the syllabus so the most intelligent know everything required to pass the exam, hoping that the net result evens itself out in regards to the poor results from the less able.

I know a school now who actually take kids out of the SATs test so as to avoid them bringing down the overall score. I've also known one kid being told an answer in the middle of an exam by the deputy head so that they'd get it right. And so on...

Performance targets are a fallacy - it's the overarching framework which needs to be right so that you organically increase standards throughout the school through good practice. This is done by being ahead of the curve on educational systems, ensuring good parental involvement away from the school to promote learning practices in children from an early age and supporting parents with a training system designed to alleviate stress and understand how to pro-actively address classroom situation so as to best deal with the educational experience.

 

[Foot Long Hot Dog]

So then the better kids suffer because they're already going to pass.

And it still doesn't change the fact that any nationally executed performance based scheme will force teachers into narrowing the syllabus and focussing on what will get you through the exam.

Do you think it's both fair & acceptable for a teacher who really makes a difference in the classroom & deliver excellent results, due to their hard work, commitment & dedication (& I'm sure most, if not all of us, have encountered teachers who fall into this category)....are earning the same, as those teachers who lack their drive & passion & deliver below average results? (& I'm equally sure that most of us, will have seen teachers who fall into this category also)

Surely over time, this would prove to be a massive frustration if you were in the former category?

 

[Tubey]

Do you think it's both fair & acceptable for a teacher who really makes a difference in the classroom & deliver excellent results, due to their hard work, commitment & dedication (& I'm sure most, if not all of us, have encountered teachers who fall into this category)....are earning the same, as those teachers who lack their drive & passion & deliver below average results? (& I'm equally sure that most of us, will have seen teachers who fall into this category also)

Surely over time, this would prove to be a massive frustration if you were in the former category?

They don't earn the same though - those with the quality and drive achieve professional qualifications and develop in their careers to become head teachers and so on. In fact, in the link Brennan gave on the other page:

The overwhelming evidence in both England and the USA suggests that a more effective way for teaching standards to improve is through improving professional development, accreditation and qualifications, measures that are not necessarily encapsulated in performance-pay.

To do that, you develop a system that rewards good teaching through progression, and in that same system you have facilities which allow effective training to take place.

Just because you wave a financial carrot in their face isn't going to make bad teachers become good ones.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

It doesn't work in practice though, as the ultimate aim for a teacher is to achieve the end result by any means necessarily as they're always tied to performance. So to get those four grades up from the lower end, you'd have to either simplify the syllabus or dedicate more time to the easier parts of the subject, weakening the time the more able have with the upper levels of the subject.

What always happens with schemes like this is that the teachers adopt a tickbox exercise of stumbling through the syllabus so the most intelligent know everything required to pass the exam, hoping that the net result evens itself out in regards to the poor results from the less able.

I know a school now who actually take kids out of the SATs test so as to avoid them bringing down the overall score. I've also known one kid being told an answer in the middle of an exam by the deputy head so that they'd get it right. And so on...

Performance targets are a fallacy - it's the overarching framework which needs to be right so that you organically increase standards throughout the school through good practice. This is done by being ahead of the curve on educational systems, ensuring good parental involvement away from the school to promote learning practices in children from an early age and supporting parents with a training system designed to alleviate stress and understand how to pro-actively address classroom situation so as to best deal with the educational experience.

That's one of the supposed benefits of flipping the classroom, so rather than deliver a 'lecture' to the pupils during the day, and they do exercises via homework at night, they watch the lecture online at home, then go through exercises during class, where the teacher can then provide individual support.

If you reward a teacher with progression, aren't you then taking that teacher out of the classroom? I don't know that many head teachers actually teach much, as they're in what is essentially a management position (which they may well not be trained for either).

 

[Reidy's Bottle Of Grecian]

I keep hearing this about the kids education being down to the parents.

I DO get involved as much as possible in helping my kids with homework, projects etc BUT for a start I find Maths (my strongest subject back in the day of beads a slate & chalk) is taught completely differently, in fact it has changed from 1 of my kids to another. There are folk that struggled with the subjects themselves at school, so if the responsibility is put upon those people to 'educate' their kids then they are surely not going to receive the same level of education ?
Are the teachers, by keep saying it's up to the parents as much as them to educate the kids, actually undermining their own profession ? Cos on one hand they are telling us how difficult teaching is, yet on the other they are telling parents that they should be doing some of it.
Quite how if parents are working unsociable shift patterns, or even long daytime hours, is maybe something that teachers can explain to us all.


Parents are responsible for ensuring that their kids attend school, behave themselves whilst there, complete their homework/ Assignments ON TIME, be as involved as they can in their child's education, but the actual educating at the end of the day is down to the schools no matter which way you look at it.

Afterall, if teaching is so easy then why cant we all just walk into a school and become one ?

 

[Foot Long Hot Dog]

They don't earn the same though - those with the quality and drive achieve professional qualifications and develop in their careers to become head teachers and so on. In fact, in the link Brennan gave on the other page:

To do that, you develop a system that rewards good teaching through progression, and in that same system you have facilities which allow effective training to take place.

Just because you wave a financial carrot in their face isn't going to make bad teachers become good ones.

I think the fact that the best teachers career paths automatically seems to take them out of the classroom is partially the issue here tbh. Maybe the pay scales should make it possible for great teacher to remain doing great work & being paid what they could earn by moving into a more administrative role?

As for the financial carrot not making bad teachers into good ones, maybe not, but as with any PRP plan, there always has to be a consequence for failure, otherwise they're useless. So it'd either expose them & result in ultimately their dismissal, or they'd be given the resource required to improve their performance to an acceptable level.