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A comment on Obama's view on schools.

Re:Obama's view on schools by btilly on Wednesday November 04, 2009 @06:03PM (#922813)
In general I think these changes are better than nothing, except for the exceptions where they work out horribly.

http://use.perl.org/~Ovid/journal/39809 mentions the interesting example of a teacher who teaches Russian immigrants. No matter how well she teaches, she's got the huge disadvantage that her students start with no proficiency in English and so are guaranteed to do well. Pay for performance rules are a strong disincentive for taking on tough challenges like that.

Still the current system is so horribly broken that I am personally willing to put up with breakage like that.

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Re:Obama's view on schools by bokonist on Wednesday November 04, 2009 @07:17PM (#922954)
In any sort of sane pay for performance system the teacher would be judged based on improvement from when the student entered their class. ( not that I expect any sort of sane pay-for-performance scheme to be implemented)
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Re:Obama's view on schools by mynameishere on Wednesday November 04, 2009 @06:42PM (#922890)
Yeah, teachers know who the dumb kids are and this kind of thing will add repulsion to the mix.
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