Education Next最新文献

{"title":"The Business Model.","authors":"Jay P. Greene","doi":"10.4135/9781452229805.n83","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4135/9781452229805.n83","url":null,"abstract":"LIKE THE MAKERS OF HOT DOGS, PSYCHOMETRICIANS, economists, and other testing experts know too well what goes into the creation of achievement tests. Their intimate knowledge of the technical difficulties involved in measuring student achievement makes a number of these testing experts some of the most vocal (and persuasive) opponents of testing. But the flaws in techniques like value-added assessment do not automatically lead to the conclusion that those techniques shouldn't be used to hold educators accountable. Testing may be imperfect, but the alternative--the old system, which allowed us to know very little about the performance of educators--is far, far worse. To be sure, many of the technical criticisms of value-added testing are correct. It's true that there is more random error in measuring gains in test scores than in measuring the level of test scores. It's true that there is some uncertainty as to whether gains in one area of the test scale are equal to gains at another point in the test scale. And it's true that factors besides the quality of the schools can influence the gains that students achieve. But, on balance, these downsides hardly outweigh the benefits to be reaped from being able to measure and reward productivity in education. Consider what is likely to continue to happen in education without high-stakes value-added assessment. Unless productivity is measured, however imperfectly, it is not possible to reward teachers, administrators, and schools that contribute most to student learning. If we do nor reward productivity, we are unlikely to encourage it. If we do not encourage it, we should not expect more of it. In fact, this is precisely what has been happening in U.S. education during the past few decades. Between 1961 and 2000, spending on education tripled after adjusting for inflation, from $2,360 to $7,086 per pupil. During that time, student performance, as measured by scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and high-school graduation rates, has remained basically unchanged. Whenever spending triples without any significant improvement in outcomes, there is a serious productivity crisis. Yet U.S. public schools just keep chugging along, resisting serious attempts at reform. Meanwhile, private firms in the United States have been able to achieve steady gains in productivity because the discipline of competition has forced them to adopt systems for measuring and rewarding productivity. Firms that fail to measure and reward productivity lose out to their competitors who do. Moreover, the systems that private companies use to measure and reward productivity are far from flawless. In fact, the challenge of measuring productivity in the private sector is often as great as or greater than in education. Imagine a soft-drink company that wishes to measure and reward the productivity of its sales force. The company might determine bonuses (and even decisions on layoffs) based on its salespeople's succe","PeriodicalId":38945,"journal":{"name":"Education Next","volume":"40 1","pages":"20-22"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2002-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76168503","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Break the link","authors":"Frederick M. Hess","doi":"10.4324/9780203938690.CH7.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203938690.CH7.9","url":null,"abstract":"Picture Gerard, a 28-year-old business consultant who majored in economics at Williams College and graduated with a 3.7 GPA. Gerard has been working for a consulting firm in Stamford, Connecticut, but is looking for a new, more fulfilling position. He has demonstrated strong interpersonal skills and work habits. In addition, though he didn't major in math, he aced several calculus courses in college. Yet if Gerard were to apply through normal channels to teach math at a junior high school in the Hartford public school system, his application wouldn't even be considered. Why? Because he isn't a certified teacher. Why shouldn't principal or a faculty hiring committee in the Hartford schools even be allowed to look at Gerard's application, to judge his qualifications against those of other candidates? The assumption undergirding the contemporary approach to teacher certification is that public school hiring personnel are either unable or unwilling to gauge the quality of applicants. Our response has been to embrace a bureaucratic solution that handcuffs the capable and incapable alike and supposedly keeps weak teachers out of the classroom. As a result, having discouraged or turned away Gerard and hundreds like him, many large school systems resort to last-minute fill-ins who reach on emergency certificates. This is not to suggest, even for a moment, that candidates with \"real world\" experience or high GPAs are necessarily qualified or equipped to become teachers or that professional preparation for teachers is unimportant. It is only to say that some potential applicants might be more effective teachers than the alternatives that are currently available to public schools. The central premise underlying teacher certification is that--no matter what their qualifications are--anyone who has not completed the specified training is unsuited to enter a classroom and must be prohibited from applying for a job. Presumably, the danger is that; in a moment of weakness, a school official otherwise will mistakenly hire such an applicant rather than an appropriately trained teacher. It is essential to remember what we often seem to forget, which is that allowing someone to apply for a job is not the same as guaranteeing him employment. Making applicants eligible for a position simply permits an employer to hire them in the event that they are deemed superior to the existing alternatives. The argument against certification is not that unconventional applicants will be good teachers; it is only that they might be. If one believes this, case-by-case judgments are clearly more appropriate than an inflexible bureaucratic rule. Imagine if colleges and universities refused to hire anyone who lacked a Ph.D. They would lose the talents and insights of \"lay practitioners\" like poet Maya Angelou, journalist William Raspberry, or former public officials such as Alan Simpson, Julian Bond, and Al Gore. The artists and writers in residence\" at dozens of public universities wo","PeriodicalId":38945,"journal":{"name":"Education Next","volume":"10 1","pages":"22-28"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2002-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88587402","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Teaching the Teachers.","authors":"June Kronholz","doi":"10.5040/9780755626236.ch-009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5040/9780755626236.ch-009","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":38945,"journal":{"name":"Education Next","volume":"10 1","pages":"8-15"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85512997","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}