Trump's Education Plan

Oompa Loompa said:

Yes. It is correct.

https://thehill.com/opinion/education/579750-many-of-americas-black-youths-cannot-read-or-do-math-and-that-imperils-us/

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Richard T said:

It's possible, so I looked the research question up. Looks like my instincts were right. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0742051X20313810 The study is Australian but it cites other studies too for its findings.

"Again though, this evidence is not clear cut, suggesting that there is some effect for experience but that this is limited and not cumulative. For example, some research across national and international contexts provides evidence of an early effect for experience whereby beginning teachers quickly improve, but this association declines after their initial adjustment to the field."

Basically the research seems to indicate what I was trying to say. That there is not a linear progression in years of service and performance. There is initial improvement, then it plateaus. If this is so then why the pay raises beyond cola for older teachers? No real reason. It is just a reward for staying on the job. Perhaps it is good for retention but the low starting salaries for newer teachers hurts on that end. I will note the decline is far faster than I expected. Burn out happens though.

• Teaching quality observed for 80 teachers with 0–3, 4–5, and >5 years’ experience.
• No evidence of less competence for teachers with 0–3 years’ experience.
• Some evidence of decline in teaching quality in teachers with 4–5 years’ experience.

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comana said:

How would this merit be established? Teachers with the highest performing students get a higher wage? I can see teachers with higher seniority or influence with the principal getting assigned the best students while those with less influence getting the leftovers. I don’t think this is the type of competition that provides a positive learning environment.

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keith99 said:

I like the idea of merit-based pay. But the implementation is a problem. There is no direct way to measure how good a teacher is. If student performance is used that means results on a standardized test and almost inevitably teaching to the test. As it stands most teachers prefer teaching the good students, having your pay depend on how your students perform will increase the desire of teachers to get the best students to teach.

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iluvatar5150 said:

And what I was trying to get at before was that schools largely don’t respond to market incentives, and when they do, they’re often low quality and expensive. We’ve had the equivalent of “vouchers” in higher ed for decades and very few new universities have popped up as a result. What we’ve gotten instead are some middling trade schools that often have sticker prices rivaling those of the ivies.

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