"I actually don't want qualified teachers [ones with graduate degrees] in the classroom. I want highly effective teachers [test score manipulators] in the classroom." -- John Deasy, LAUSD Superintendent
The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) should stop compensating teachers for completing graduate-level coursework, according to a new report released by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ)... While many industries award bigger salaries to workers who have completed higher levels of education, there is no proven correlation between completing graduate classes and being a highly effective teacher. -- Huffington Post
Who knew that when teachers earn graduate degrees there is no guarantee that their students' test scores will go up? And according to NCTQ, this is an "evidence based" finding. In other words, public schools should not use taxpayers' money to reimburse teachers for pursuing a graduate degree. It's just not worth the money when the correlation coefficient is so low. Gerald Bracey we need you now!
For those that forgot stat 101, correlation does not mean causation. Example: If you take a sample of people involved in automobile accidents on their way to work and ask the sample if they had breakfast and then checked the correlation between eating breakfast and automobile accidents -- it would be through the roof. But what does this mean? Nothing from a cause and effect stand point. Eating breakfast does not cause car accidents -- period. Remember, correlation does not mean causation. However, this simple statistical rule doesn't seem to matter to the reformers. Remember, the reformers actually want to degrade the profession of teaching and dismantle public schools.
How about a small dose of reality? Graduate degrees were not designed to improve test scores. Back when we believed education was supposed to help children understand their world and learn how to thrive in an imperfect democracy, we also believed that a teacher who earned a graduate degree would be better prepared to serve this purpose. Now that the reformers have somehow convinced the public that schools are failing and that only higher test scores and teachers that are capable of elevating test scores are of value, of course that must mean that graduate degrees are a waste of "limited" resources.
But wait! What about the latest research that demonstrates high test scores are probably more of an indicator that children are actually losing ground educationally?
"So what?" I imagine the reformers, LAUSD and the NCTQ saying. They all believe in standardized tests and a heavy test-prep focus in classrooms. It allows them to blame teachers for failing to bring up test scores and it allows them to push policy positions that will dismantle public education in America.
Also, as long as a simple reliance on standardized test scores dominates discussions of teacher effectiveness, the reformers will make so-called "evidence-based" claims that graduate degrees are a waste of money and continue to push an anti-teacher narrative. This narrative de-professionalizes teaching, reduces wages, and eventually turns teaching into low skilled labor. Also, John Thompson recently revealed, NCTQ's use of sketchy "evidence" in producing the report that LAUSD is using to de-fund graduate degrees for teachers.
A powerful graduate degree provides time for deep reflection about issues such as diversity, ELLs, and the socio-economic status of children. It pushes a teacher to examine the different teaching and learning contexts. This professional degree was never intended to bring up test scores. However, I have a feeling that the real reason the reformers want to do away with graduate degrees has more to do with the fact that if done well, a graduate degree might actually help teachers understand the teacher de-professionalization narrative and provide them with the intellectual tools needed to expose and organize in an effort to change the narrative. And, maybe even more horrible, they might read something from Gerald Bracey or worse -- Diane Ravitch.
In summary, graduate degrees and test scores don't correlate highly -- so what?
Follow Timothy D. Slekar on Twitter: www.twitter.com/slekar
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So what? The whole purpose of spending money to help teachers obtain masters degrees was done with the intention and goal of providing better teachers in the classroom and improving student achievement. If getting a grad degree doesn't do that, then the program isn't achieving its aims or purpose. We should be focusing on how we can help teachers get better at their craft in the classroom with the money we are spending to send them to grad school.
While teachers may be improving themselves by getting a grad degree, that isn't helping the students. Our focus MUST be on what's best for the students not the adults.
Even better would be to help teachers pay for additional undergraduate classes in the areas they teach.
Pay the teacher based on the grade they get. An A would be a free class. A B would get you 75% tuition. A C is only 50%. Anything less and the teacher pays the full cost of the class.
I recently paid for a freshman level class in economics after the principle asked me to teach it. The class was great. The cost to me was high but I thin my student really befitted from my increases knowledge. This is what economists call a positive externality.
However, I do understand and support the reliance on standardized test scores. They really are the best way to gauge what people know. Without them, you have 50 states with 50 different educational standards producing students that are somehow magically supposed to work together in the professional world.
I agree with the article though that test preparation is way out of hand and just learning how to score well on a test doesn't mean you actually know a lot. That is more of a failing of the tests themselves, not the concept of standardized testing.
The standardized test should be re-structured such that you can't just prep for them, you have to actually learn and understand the subject in its entirety. Then test scores really will reflect teacher performance and student knowledge. Easier said than done though I realize.
I agree that teaching to the test defeats the whole point of even having the test in the first place. But there must be some way of reforming the standardized testing system rather than doing away with it.
The Asian philosophy of education is simple: It is the teacher's responsibility to impart knowledge - It is the STUDENT'S responsibility to be receptive of that knowledge!
That's where we fall apart.
We also fall apart in the area of parent accountability. Teachers endure more scrutiny than the people who actually produced the children and are supposedly charged with rearing them to be decent, productive citizens. Go freaking figure....
1) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-shatzky/educating-for-democracy-f_b_883132.html
2) Including: "There are many other reasons besides good schooling that lead to academic success in Finland that are not comparable to the United States: an almost homogeneous ethnic population, a much smaller disparity in wealth between rich and poor, a more equitable system of school funding, and an excellent health and social welfare system for all. But certainly relying on the teacher, well-trained, highly selected, and autonomous in choosing the way they teach is an important element in achieving excellence in education. Generally, when someone admires another person or country for outstanding achievement, they try to emulate its practices. As far as Finland is concerned, we show our admiration by following the opposite of its example"
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Again, what education program did you say you were in charge of, Timothy?
You were the one who brought up that correlation doesn't equal causation when your critics pointed out that graduate degrees don't improve student test scores.
"If you take a sample of people involved in automobile accidents on their way to work and ask the sample if they had breakfast and then checked the correlation between eating breakfast and automobile accidents -- it would be through the roof." Really? If you're only interviewing accident victims, the correlation between "did you eat breakfast" and "did you have an accident" isn't defined, and even if you included everyone, it's hard to see why breakfast eating would actually be correlated, much less what would be the supposed 3rd factor causing both.
It's a silly analogy, which, with combined with the rest of the article, can only lead me to conclude that you don't believe statistical evidence is even possible. Yet you're still convinced that graduate degrees obviously make for better teachers -- but that no other observable characteristic could.
Maybe you are willing to admit that graduate degrees for teachers don't have an effect on student test scores, but that student test scores aren't a good measure of student performance. So what is? And how do you plan to measure it? (Hopefully with a bit more thought put into it than this article.)
It's one thing if I say "people who crash their cars had breakfast, therefore breakfasts cause crashes." But that's not the correct analogy. What critics are saying is "people who have breakfast don't get into car crashes any more frequently than people who don't have breakfast, therefore breakfasts have nothing to do with it." Slekar is responding, "well, correlation doesn't equal causation -- therefore we don't know breakfasts don't cause accidents, and I think they do."
This doesn't mean that teachers shouldn't be lifelong learners. Everyone should. It's an issue of whether that means a teacher with an MA should automatically make more than one without
A good graduate experience opens up your mind in unimaginable ways. The point is not just to accumulate knowledge, but to gain new ways of thinking. In my view a graduate degree should be a must for teachers. I would suggest a graduate degree in some specific field, not just "education".
If you want to become a teacher, major in the field of your choice and take additional classes in psychology, computer technology and philosophy. Get some field experience as part of your studies and you are good to go!
The graduate level curriculum in these fields is focused on developing a deeper understanding of the concepts developed in the upper undergraduate curriculum, so its effect on your understanding of lower level material is marginal at best. To even convey that understanding requires introducing concepts to your students which are far outside the scope of the material.
For ex: Heine-Borel Theorem (1st yr. graduate level) gives insight to the Bolzano-Weierstrass Theorem (3rd yr. undergraduate), which gives insight into the structure of the real numbers. Now I can give my high school students a qualitative discussion about the latter insight, but the former is well beyond their scope.
If the system is going give out money for degrees they should make sure the degrees are really useful.
If a teacher is unfortunate enough to have a degree in a real field they are subjected to a brutal campaign of indoctrination through subjugation by the ideological managers within their school districts (curriculum supervisors, coaches, etc). The system is altogether evil and the single best action that could be undertaken to change it is to stop financing the schools of education via tuition reimbursement for advanced degrees.
"Altogether evil"? Really?
The field of education is designed to not only obfuscate this, but is at core completely opposed to this basic notion. The ideology of Constructivism has disdain for content knowledge (low-level thinking) and considers a teacher communicating that knowledgeas tantamount to inhibiting student learning. The only knowledge which is "meaningful" is that which is "discovered" by the student. The teacher no longer teaches, but rather facilitates the process of discovery. If this garbage was standard practice throughout the world, or in our elite prep schools, I would be tempted to consider it. However, what we have is a situation where the poor to middle class children of this country are at best, lab rats to the scoundrels in the fields of education, at worst, they are the target consumer market for the various industries(Publishing, Tech) that they are shilling for.
Needless to say this sounds like a great mechanism to weed out the most qualified teachers, and create a nation of people devoid of knowledge and primed to get ripped off. Is this altogether evil? I think it depends which end of the income spectrum you reside.
Deasy and his predecessors at LAUSD and elsewhere in this country exhibit the militant ignorance as to what is really making good teaching impossible and in this case they would rather shot the messenger, who happens to be in the form of highly educated teachers, to insure homogeneous mediocrity. How low can public education go. At perdaily.com we have spoken true to power for 2 years about what is wrong in public education and, more importantly how to fix it.
Sir, I think you need go back and review STAT 101.
Are you actually making the extraordinary and astounding claim that there is a high correlation between eating breakfast and getting in an auto accident? In other words, breakfast-eaters would be significantly over-represented among accident participants, while non-breakfast eaters would be significantly under-represented?
That is a claim that demands support. Or, you don't know what correlation means.
Anything more is not correlation!
Those kids that didn't show up, didn't do any work, and didn't respect their education were that way because of YOU. If you had only been a competent teacher, they'd have been in their desks, happily working away. Perhaps you'd have had to go to their houses in the morning to wake them up and drive them in. Perhaps you'd have had to feed and clothe them. Perhaps you'd have had to take them from their parents when they were born and raise them to be respectful. So what? That's what you're getting paid to do. And if you're not willing to do it, we'll fire you and find someone who can.
Remember always that learning is a passive activity, and it's possible for a teacher to teach a kid who's unwilling, or even not there. You just have to teach harder.
You can lead a horse to water. If he doesn't drink, then prep the I.V. drip... or the enema... We'll get that horse hydrated one way or another!