Oh god, my sides are aching.

[Starry Messenger]

More bright ideas from Frederick Hess, right-wing asshole and also used as an education resource on the DLC website, just so we get a hint of what is coming down the pike next from the bright boys at central casting.


Proposals for a Cost-Conscious Era: Gold Star Teachers
By Frederick Hess 10/13/2010

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http://educationnext.org/proposals-for-a-cost-conscious-era-gold-star-teachers/

Given today’s shrinking budgets and the tough half-decade that looms for K-12 funding, we can no longer afford to remain wedded to “this…and that” reform or to be blasé about whether we’re getting sufficient bang for our buck. However, the kind of shift in mindset that’s necessary will not happen on its own. After all, for decades, K-12 schooling has been a place where superintendents and principals earn much grief for making cuts but little recognition for smart savings or boosting cost-effectiveness. What’s needed most are politically viable proposals that make it easier for local, state, and national leaders to get serious about K-12 productivity.

<snip>

For decades, the go-to school improvement recipe has been to reduce class size. Any challenge to this status quo encounters a buzz saw of opposition from parents and teachers who like small classes. That’s why national teacher-student ratios are down to 15:1 today. Yet the research backing across-the-board class reduction is thin, at best. International evidence shows no simple relationship between class size and student achievement. Some high-performing nations boast middle or high school class sizes of 40 to 50 students. Small classes are costly and the need to keep adding bodies forces school systems to be less selective and training to be less focused.

Given that 55% of K-12 spending funds teacher salaries and benefits, you can’t cut costs without boosting the productivity of good teachers–which requires increasing class size. But trying to sell that argument to parents or teachers is a dead end. Hence, the Gold Star program offers teachers who are at least reasonably effective the opportunity, should they so choose, to teach more kids per class and to be rewarded for taking on a larger workload. Such a state-level program would offer a chance to reshuffle the incentives and create a productivity-enhancing dynamic.

Teachers whose students post larger-than-normal gains for at least two consecutive years would be eligible to opt into the program. While I have consistently explained that value-added data systems have real limitations, they do provide a systematic way to identify teachers whose students are at least improving in math and reading at better-than-average rates. This gives some assurance that these teachers are at least reasonably effective. Participating teachers would teach up to 50% more students than normal–say, 36 students rather than 24–and would be rewarded for their increased workload. Continued participation would depend on a teacher’s students continuing to make larger-than-normal gains. Given data limitations, states would be advised to pilot such programs in grades four through eight.

Teachers and taxpayers would also win big. On average, given current teacher salaries and benefits, increasing class size by one student saves something like $3,000; so allowing a talented teacher to instruct 36 rather than 24 saves up to $36,000. Awarding the teacher half that amount yields an $18,000 productivity bonus (a 35% bump for the median teacher). The state and district would split the other $18,000. Even on a trial basis in grades four through eight, such a program could help states shave school spending by two or three percent–tallying hundreds of millions in some cases while rewarding excellent educators.

EARTH MATH DOES NOT WORK THIS WAY FRED.

[Angry Dragon]

1. Damn ........ that is really a good idea

Why stop there, perhaps we could increase the class size to 100, or 200, or one teacher for each grade no matter the number of students.
Just think how much money could be saved.

[zeemike]

2. Oh yes let's have a race to the bottom

With the goal to have factory schools for profit the produces a generation of kids that cannot think and will always be obedient to the corporation that educated them...science fiction becoming real in our time.

[Tansy_Gold]

3. The two best classes I was ever in, both in public schools.

One class, my fifth grade class, had 20 students.

The other, my Spanish IV class, had 9 students.

No one, absolutely NO ONE, is going to tell me that larger classes equal better learning.

And don't the charter schools usually promote themselves by hyping their small class size? What's good for charter isn't good for public? But you say they're the same, you charter school supporters?

Spare me.

IN MY PERSONAL AND NEVER REALLY HUMBLE OPINION, small classes equal better learning. Just ask all the home schoolers. . . .. well, no, don't. :evilgrin:



Tansy Gold, who remembers every student in that fifth grade class and where they sat, and who will never ever ever forget the absolutely fabulous Mrs. Patricia Quast who taught that class.

[Sabriel]

4. Why stop there? Online is the answer

You could have literally hundreds of students per teacher, each sitting in a little cubicle, working away at online worksheets and tests.

Hey, if it's good enough for my teacher education institution, it's good enough for K-12, right?

[Starry Messenger]

5. And then we could slip a little data entry work into the curriculum.

You know, "worker training" wink, wink--just so they get the feel of it. Cube rat from cradle to grave.

[Reader Rabbit]

6. This man is insane.

I wonder how many children he has been with in a room at one time.

[Starry Messenger]

7. Nailed it RR.

:banghead: Yet idiots like this are the go-to guys for education policy in this country.