Property Tax

[Jay Barracato]

Re: Property Tax

I am terribly sorry to hear about the 2581 absences. If it makes you feel any better, there are some of us who don't even miss a day when we are sick. Maybe there is hope for us yet.

Max,

the problem with making educational decisions based on group statistics is that education fundamentally remains something an individual must do for themselves, not something teachers do to students. Most current discussions of educational policy miss this point. The same thing is seen in American athletics; when the team of highly paid athletes does not perform up to expectations, they fire the coach.

Another part of the game is the fact that while it ultimately doesn't matter where your knowledge and thinking skills come from once you have a position, having a degree is often important in gaining the position. Knowledge gained from the school of hard knocks is almost always useful, but they refer to it as hard knocks for a reason. Knowledge from the school of hard knocks may not always be accessible when it is needed and while it may be nice to understand things in hindsight, it is not until you can apply that understanding to current events that the knowledge is useful.

So my advice to students is always: be greedy about your education, because knowledge, unlike prestige,power, or money, is not diminished when it is shared. Learn all you can from anyone you can, but ultimately, be willing to gather information and analyze things for yourself. Recognize when your information sources are feeding you their conclusions rather than data. Recognize that intelligence/expertise in one field doesn't always translate to expertise in other fields.

As for the students who spent an entire year with me and didn't learn a thing, but instead treated my classroom like their own private episode of Jackass, at the end they are the ones who are poorer,not me.

 

[John Roberts]

Re: Property Tax

I included parents and even industry in a longer rant about education that I deleted. (this is worthy of it's own thread).

Max,

the problem with making educational decisions based on group statistics is that education fundamentally remains something an individual must do for themselves, not something teachers do to students.

Not sure exactly what educational decisions are, but I recall taking standardized tests when I was young puke so these are not new. I will concede that teachers do not have complete control over a students willingness to learn, if you will concede that teacher's effort and ability makes a difference. If the teachers can't make a difference we need to tear the whole thing down and start over.

Most current discussions of educational policy miss this point. The same thing is seen in American athletics; when the team of highly paid athletes does not perform up to expectations, they fire the coach.

A teacher is a lot like a coach...They not only provide the knowledge needed to advance, but "inspire" the students/players to drink from the well of knowledge. I only pay attention to basketball but there is no accident that teams under coaches like Phil Jackson and Popovich who have the talent to lead and inspire do well. By the time players reach that level in sport, they all have the physical tools, it is just a matter of directing that talent. Firing coaches may seem like a scapegoat, but firing the players leaves holes in the team. Just like sending children away for not learning is not a solution.

Another part of the game is the fact that while it ultimately doesn't matter where your knowledge and thinking skills come from once you have a position, having a degree is often important in gaining the position.

Not sure what game you are talking about, education, industry, life? In industry and life, it isn't just about attaining a position, it's about creating value to keep that position. Tenure may make sense for judges so they can be free to make unpopular (non political) decisions, but teachers should be fired like bad coaches if they don't create value in their students.

I don't have a degree, but recall when hiring engineers I was more impressed by what they did before, than any wall paper they had. I have hired junior engineers with degrees that were far from the sharpest sticks in the bunch, and non degreed individuals that had real talent. A degree used to demonstrate that the student had the discipline to matriculate for several years and learn the minimum course material.

These days I am not so sure. It seems more people are attending college and learning less. Yes, a degree is often a criteria for gaining employment at large soulless corporations. :-(

Knowledge gained from the school of hard knocks is almost always useful, but they refer to it as hard knocks for a reason. Knowledge from the school of hard knocks may not always be accessible when it is needed and while it may be nice to understand things in hindsight, it is not until you can apply that understanding to current events that the knowledge is useful.

While i am biased by my own life experience, I have encountered examples of both. Degreed engineers with little hands on knowledge and self taught technician engineers who were a little weak on esoteric theory but knew which end of a soldering iron gets hot. I would much rather guide the self taught engineer over a hard spot, than explain something that should be painfully obvious. (note: during my unfinished matriculation I had lab courses to presumably give a hands on component but these are never the same as years of hands on experience. )

So my advice to students is always: be greedy about your education, because knowledge, unlike prestige,power, or money, is not diminished when it is shared. Learn all you can from anyone you can, but ultimately, be willing to gather information and analyze things for yourself. Recognize when your information sources are feeding you their conclusions rather than data. Recognize that intelligence/expertise in one field doesn't always translate to expertise in other fields.

amen... Education is not a zero sum game... if you share what you know with another you have two heads full of knowledge.

As for the students who spent an entire year with me and didn't learn a thing, but instead treated my classroom like their own private episode of Jackass, at the end they are the ones who are poorer,not me.

I understand that you must play the hand you are dealt. My argument is not with individual teachers, but higher up the food chain when the administrata seem incapable or unwilling to tackle the difficult issues. These issues are not just inside the classroom but in the community too.

If we don't measure it we don't know where we stand, which looks like we need to improve the current system. If you want to argue that having students learn just the standard course material is not enough we can discuss that, after they master the standard course material.

I have been following this for years and teachers must be frustrated by the new improved teaching strategy du jour (I recall "new math" back in the 60s). NCLB is very unpopular with educators, but is a long term process that can't change things overnight. The new improved education strategy this year is some different standardized curriculum. Ironic, after the new curriculum was announced they discovered that the teachers didn't learn all of it in their college studies.

This is too important for us to throw up our hands and say it's too hard.

It is amusing and depressing when we see these street interviews of young people on the street who know J-Lo's latest perfume scent, but not even basic geography or history, or... A witness in a high profile court case that can not even read cursive. This is 2013, we have so much better information tools available today than when I was a kid, we should have gotten on top of this by now.

jay: thank your for your effort in the good fight.

JR

 

[Jay Barracato]

I included parents and even industry in a longer rant about education that I deleted. (this is worthy of it's own thread).

Not sure exactly what educational decisions are, but I recall taking standardized tests when I was young puke so these are not new. I will concede that teachers do not have complete control over a students willingness to learn, if you will concede that teacher's effort and ability makes a difference. If the teachers can't make a difference we need to tear the whole thing down and start over.

A teacher is a lot like a coach...They not only provide the knowledge needed to advance, but "inspire" the students/players to drink from the well of knowledge. I only pay attention to basketball but there is no accident that teams under coaches like Phil Jackson and Popovich who have the talent to lead and inspire do well. By the time players reach that level in sport, they all have the physical tools, it is just a matter of directing that talent. Firing coaches may seem like a scapegoat, but firing the players leaves holes in the team. Just like sending children away for not learning is not a solution.

Not sure what game you are talking about, education, industry, life? In industry and life, it isn't just about attaining a position, it's about creating value to keep that position. Tenure may make sense for judges so they can be free to make unpopular (non political) decisions, but teachers should be fired like bad coaches if they don't create value in their students.

I don't have a degree, but recall when hiring engineers I was more impressed by what they did before, than any wall paper they had. I have hired junior engineers with degrees that were far from the sharpest sticks in the bunch, and non degreed individuals that had real talent. A degree used to demonstrate that the student had the discipline to matriculate for several years and learn the minimum course material.

These days I am not so sure. It seems more people are attending college and learning less. Yes, a degree is often a criteria for gaining employment at large soulless corporations. :-(

While i am biased by my own life experience, I have encountered examples of both. Degreed engineers with little hands on knowledge and self taught technician engineers who were a little weak on esoteric theory but knew which end of a soldering iron gets hot. I would much rather guide the self taught engineer over a hard spot, than explain something that should be painfully obvious. (note: during my unfinished matriculation I had lab courses to presumably give a hands on component but these are never the same as years of hands on experience. )

amen... Education is not a zero sum game... if you share what you know with another you have two heads full of knowledge.


I understand that you must play the hand you are dealt. My argument is not with individual teachers, but higher up the food chain when the administrata seem incapable or unwilling to tackle the difficult issues. These issues are not just inside the classroom but in the community too.

If we don't measure it we don't know where we stand, which looks like we need to improve the current system. If you want to argue that having students learn just the standard course material is not enough we can discuss that, after they master the standard course material.

I have been following this for years and teachers must be frustrated by the new improved teaching strategy du jour (I recall "new math" back in the 60s). NCLB is very unpopular with educators, but is a long term process that can't change things overnight. The new improved education strategy this year is some different standardized curriculum. Ironic, after the new curriculum was announced they discovered that the teachers didn't learn all of it in their college studies.

This is too important for us to throw up our hands and say it's too hard.

It is amusing and depressing when we see these street interviews of young people on the street who know J-Lo's latest perfume scent, but not even basic geography or history, or... A witness in a high profile court case that can not even read cursive. This is 2013, we have so much better information tools available today than when I was a kid, we should have gotten on top of this by now.

jay: thank your for your effort in the good fight.

JR

The fundamental problem is we have no idea what those tests are measuring. At this point we are graduating students who have spent their entire academic career under NCLB and it is pretty clear that after spending 100s of millions of dollars on testing that the data is meaningless for informing/reforming classroom instruction.

One of the major problems with public education is that it is public and as such everyone thinks they should have equal say in all the decisions. This creates an institutional memory that is generational. That means the view of the classroom is based in memories of their own education rather than current practice. As such there is rarely money/support for anything outside that narrow framework.

The second problem with the public in public education is that any problem in the community is also a problem in the schools and we operate under such a set of expectations that we will solve all these problems for the community sometimes it us amazing we teach any content at all. Drugs, poverty, bullying, suicide, hunger, it is all up to us to solve.

Like you, I acknowledge that my viewpoint is colored by my life experiences which include 23 years in high school classrooms, 16 years as a college instructor, and walking away from a doctoral study that was 80% complete when the economy tanked and it was clear no one around me professionally cared what I was learning.

So I will leave you with one piece of data that i found interesting: the countries that consistently score the best on the international exams do the least amount of standardized testing of their own, leave more curricular decisions to the professional judgement of the classroom teacher, and in general treat the profession with a greater degree of respect.

 

[John Roberts]

Re: Property Tax

The fundamental problem is we have no idea what those tests are measuring. At this point we are graduating students who have spent their entire academic career under NCLB and it is pretty clear that after spending 100s of millions of dollars on testing that the data is meaningless for informing/reforming classroom instruction.

It is debatable whether standardized test data is meaningless or whether it has been misused or ignored. I do not suggest that the teacher is the only variable controlling variable results. Judgement must be applied to use that data. I find that judgement sorely lacking, or else we would not be having this conversation.

One of the major problems with public education is that it is public and as such everyone thinks they should have equal say in all the decisions. This creates an institutional memory that is generational. That means the view of the classroom is based in memories of their own education rather than current practice. As such there is rarely money/support for anything outside that narrow framework.

We all have a stake in public education. I suspect a larger problem is that parents are not invested enough in their children's education.

The second problem with the public in public education is that any problem in the community is also a problem in the schools and we operate under such a set of expectations that we will solve all these problems for the community sometimes it us amazing we teach any content at all. Drugs, poverty, bullying, suicide, hunger, it is all up to us to solve.

I don't want to turn this into a book, but there have been reports of absolutely horrible behavior by students in classrooms showing disrespect toward teachers and the institution. Tolerating this leads to even more chaos and anarchy. Of course it is easier for me to whine about this than create discipline and good behavior in a classroom. Where are the parents to discipline unruly kids? Missing in action.

Like you, I acknowledge that my viewpoint is colored by my life experiences which include 23 years in high school classrooms, 16 years as a college instructor, and walking away from a doctoral study that was 80% complete when the economy tanked and it was clear no one around me professionally cared what I was learning.

Piled higher and deeper... My brother has a PHD, I never had the discipline to stay between the lines that long.

So I will leave you with one piece of data that i found interesting: the countries that consistently score the best on the international exams do the least amount of standardized testing of their own, leave more curricular decisions to the professional judgement of the classroom teacher, and in general treat the profession with a greater degree of respect.

My informal study of economics teaches me to be cautious of conclusions that don't control for all variables. Many foreign school systems that are held up as shining examples of success enjoy far stronger cultures that value education, and often enjoy a more homogeneous student population, both strong impacting factors. Education as a profession or activity is thousands of years old, and not a hugely complex concept. I suspect the social/cultural issues are more problematic than coming up with a worthwhile curriculum, or teaching receptive students.

The old complaint of being able to lead a horse to water, but not being able to make them drink is as true today as ever. I repeat we need to collectively come up with a solution or suffer together. I meet some young kids who are bright and thirsty for information, I suspect you meet more who aren't.

Good luck.

JR

PS; I have done my share of teaching classrooms full of adults for seminars, and even they need to be inspired or entertained to pay attention. I have probably done far more one on one instruction in the course of my career, and I get angry when a subordinate doesn't even try to retain what I tell them. I made one junior technician write down what I told him in a notebook, and refused to answer the same question twice. He apparently though bosses liked to be asked what to do all the time... He didn't last very long with me.

 

[Max Warasila]

Re: Property Tax

For those of you that are just joining us, The Dread Pirates fumbled the ball on 4th down for the 3rd time in a row- no one seems to know why they keep going for it instead of merely punting it- and the Fisheads, once again, returned it to the the 10 yard line before stalling and kicking a field goal. Now that the Pirates have regained possession, they seem to be mis-reading the defense player by player and appear to be disorganized beyond our wildest dreams, while the Fisheads appear to be putting their third string players on the field, confident with their 91-3 lead.

Now, to continue on with the discussion.

As a current student, I am not very motivated to learn in the classroom environments I have been put in, even though I really do like to learn, as it makes everything you do in life easier. But when the course is taught by an irritating teacher, one without authority, or someone who doesn't really interest you in the material makes it very difficult to pay attention. This year, I had a teacher who I bona-fide could not listen to, even when I tried. His voice just kinda... faded into the background. God probably put to much reverb in his signal chain... *Sigh*

The standardized tests we take are a joke- many students don't ever show up for them, others abuse the unlimited time limit (... that's weird sounding), and the group I am in rushes through them because it's just the basic knowledge of the course- if you don't know it, it's something you either A- forgot or B- weren't taught in your particular classroom, by random chance. Not to mention that they are done as pseudo-final exams, as well as that the scores that the teachers can access are just scores- no details about the questions for... security reasons... apparently they don't want people cheating on tests that have already been put in the past. OH WAIT- I remember why: they re-use the questions because it's too costly and difficult to come up with new ones every singe year. Needless to say: they are practically useless except in saying how high a particular school rates overall out of all the ones who took the test on the test's scale. Nothing useful to educators, of course.

As for the overall issue of students vs. teachers and who must make interest in learning: it's both of them- but the school systems I have been exposed to have made it excessively difficult for either one of them. The best classroom experience I have had have been with teachers who do try and make it interesting, inspiring or show you the big picture. Magically, those classrooms have also been where I have learned and retained the most information.

Another thing to note is what I refer to as "teaching to the test," rather than "teaching towards the information on the test." These two styles differ in how information is delivered and what the apparent goals of the classroom environment are. In the first option, the daily goal given to students is "learn this information, it's important." The class then goes forward and the information is taught, applied and reviewed, then tested, and finally tested again at the end of the year after another week of review. Then, it is all promptly forgotten. In the second option, the daily goal given to students is "consider this/how do you do that/what if?" The class then moves on to exploring how to get to the idea, and the techniques to do so along the way, thereby applying and solidifying the information while keeping an interesting goal in the forefront of the students mind. Then, the information is tested and then reviewed and tested at the end of the year.

While there are many opinions on which option to choose, here is something interesting to consider that might make the better choice more obvious. In computer gaming, one of the highest rated and most praised franchises of all of the hundreds of games known to exist is the Half-Life series. The games have been praised for their unique storytelling, their immersive environments, the ability of the game to be played on many types of hardware, naturally how fun the game is- even when replayed numerous times, and how the game rewards skill at the game in many ways. The skill, however, has nothing to do with reflexes or good eyesight (though they do help), but rather with how adept the player is at solving the problems they are presented with. These puzzles are the heart of how the game plays, and they are the primary way in which a player learns. They subscribe to the "heres something to consider/how on earth do you do this/hey, what if this were to happen" mentality. For example, early in one game, the player has to find a way to remove a laser blocking the player's path. The laser is generated by a series of reflective surfaces (think science experiments with lasers, I'm drawing a blank on this one), and the player has a crowbar. Now, the game could have told you at some point that you can break all sorts of things with the crowbar, especially glass, but no. The game does not even inform you that "you can break something with this- ha-HAH!" but rather lets you figure it out on your own.

In other games, opportunities to be succesful are presented in ways that are obvious, but don't have to be used to finish the game. One of these examples is the ability to launch saw blades at approaching zombies with the gravity gun. In zombie levels, there are many of these laying around. But the game never tells you to use them. In fact, the game has given you many munition based weapons to beat the level with before hand, and it is possible to do so, even though you will constantly be low on ammo. Plus, the level in which this situation is first allowed to exist occurs right after you acquire the gravity gun, and has numerous saw blades, oil barrels, propane tanks and other fun things to throw around scattered everywhere. It's as if the game designers said "hey, what if..." and let you figure it out, while coaxing you in the right direction and giving you hinting little cues.

At the end of the game in which the gravity gun is introduced in, the gravity gun becomes your only weapon to defend with. The skills you learn throughout the game prepared you for this moment- unless you didn't use the gravity gun and just wasted all of your ammo. The game was there to teach you, and reprimand you when you "failed" these tests. It took on the second teaching mentality of teaching described, unlike other more popular, but less praised games such as the infamous Call of Duty, in which almost everything is given directly to the player. Also, the consulting corporation, Accenture, uses problem based training for all of the training done in their company, where a problem must be dealt with, and better ways of doing so are presented to trainees. Obviously, "teaching to the information on the test" works better. But what do we do as a country? We push the tests, and as a result, teaching is "done to the test." Disappointing, eh? Of course, the best teachers I've ever had have used the second technique. Go figure.

There's more here, but I think I might be channeling the TLDR.

 

[John Roberts]

Re: Property Tax

Well that would be more interesting if I played computer games (besides solitaire). But I did read it all.

I think there is a great deal of promise for using computers as surrogate teachers. They have infinite patience, and access to all the correct answers. Several years ago I would have argues that there needs to be a human touch involved in teaching but these days kids are born suckling a computer interface. Another benefit of CAT computer assisted teaching is that smart students could advance at their own speed, and not be bored to death waiting for the rest of the class to catch up. This would free up human teachers to deal with special cases.

I'll bet this (CAT) is already going on in homeschooling. Another no-brainer application is for absentees to make up missed classwork, perhaps even while at home sick, if they are actually at home and sick, or after school to catch up after they return. Of course we are a far way from that.

Getting back to reality, a more useful comparison would be between different schools in the same areas for better and worse performance, but even this comparison is corrupted by external factors. Look at voucher schools or private schools in the same city as public schools. The elephant in the room there is that parents who send their kids to private school are clearly more involved in their education. Voucher schools are similar just using OPM.

Michelle Rhee, an education reformer in Wash DC looked like she was making progress with objective based management before she got chewed up by the local politics, but some of that short term test improvement under her has been discredited with evidence of cheating, I'm shocked. :-( Even I don't expect instant success. It took a long time for education to get this way, it will take time to get it back on course.

Another test case to watch is the New Orleans school system that got decimated by Hurricane Katrina. That gave them an opportunity to start over from a clean slate without a lot of legacy baggage. It shouldn't be difficult to show improvement over the old N.O. school system before Katrina.

There are no simple answers, but we won't fix this if we don't admit it is flawed, and all pull together. [group hug] I wish this was the only problem we have to deal with.

Happy 4th...

JR

 

[Brad Weber]

Re: Property Tax

amen... Education is not a zero sum game... if you share what you know with another you have two heads full of knowledge.

I think this may touch on the fact that formal education is usually assumed to represent some known and vetted content and verification of how well the information was retained while informal education often represents an unknown in terms of what is shared or learned. And that is what always causes me to hesitate when people recommend practical experience without adding the caveat of that needing to be experience where one learns good practices rather than poor practices that later have to be unlearned. I was recently reminded of this by someone posting in another forum about their vast experience and 20+ years in the industry only to have them go on to espouse designing systems based on a certain number of watts per person criteria. At least the forum format allowed others to respond to that, a great improvement over the days when your sources of information were often quite limited. Good education is a positive sum game but poor education can be a negative sum game.

 

[John Roberts]

Re: Property Tax

I think this may touch on the fact that formal education is usually assumed to represent some known and vetted content and verification of how well the information was retained while informal education often represents an unknown in terms of what is shared or learned.

A formal education at best exposes students to the basics, and how to learn. Verification that they mastered some curriculum is more to confirm that teaching and learning happened, not that they are now fully prepared for everything that life will throw at them. In high technology disciplines the course work may be obsolete by the time the students graduate, while the underlying laws of physics remain unchanged.

And that is what always causes me to hesitate when people recommend practical experience without adding the caveat of that needing to be experience where one learns good practices rather than poor practices that later have to be unlearned.

Practical learning usually benefits from the negative feedback of reality. Blatantly inefficient or ineffective practices will not be very successful. That said learning in a vacuum or from a mentor disseminating bad information, will not benefit from the collective wisdom passed down from previous generations. This human capacity to record knowledge often learned the hard way, into written records so they can pass it along to future generations is why we don't have to all start from zero every generation.

I was recently reminded of this by someone posting in another forum about their vast experience and 20+ years in the industry only to have them go on to espouse designing systems based on a certain number of watts per person criteria. At least the forum format allowed others to respond to that, a great improvement over the days when your sources of information were often quite limited. Good education is a positive sum game but poor education can be a negative sum game.

Bad teachers exist inside and outside formal education. We all find ourselves being mentored from time to time, and some mentors are better than others.

The high pressure fire hose of information that is the WWW can be a double-edged sword. The internet is full of tons of good information presented side by side with huge amounts of misinformation. Website forums do not have technical editors, but even technical editors do not prevent misinformation from creeping into popular articles.

Caveat Lector (caution reader) facts on the internet may be less true than they appear.

JR