People providing services to children that entail potentially irreversible harm ought to do those jobs well. Lousy teachers rob students of time that cannot be restored. This time is not only an individual resource, but a communal one -- education of one benefits all others. I believe that in a socialist society this would be a concern, and we are after all speaking of the public sector. I've said the deficiencies of public K-12 education should not be located in schools alone, not by a long shot. The team nature of schools, as indeed of much production, does not render irrelevant the performance of any individual.
Paying new teachers more is one way to get more able people to commit to the profession. Getting rid of or remediating the least able already in the profession is a difficult problem, but I would place the interests of the victims of such persons above those of their teachers. Workers' rights are not absolute; after all, students are future workers. One avenue to consider is teacher control of schools.
There could be others, but figuring them out is not my regular job.
In my own personal experience, the quality and character of a teacher makes all the difference in the performance of students. To say that consideration of bad teachers is to be "an enemy of good schools" is pretzel logic, or, as you would say, "fucking stupid."
But thanks for reading and writing!
On Tue, May 25, 2010 at 4:23 PM, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
>
> Max Sawicky wrote:
>>
>> How to weed out low-performers is a
>> good question, one to which I haven't the answer.
>
> It is a fucking stupid question, which should not even be raised unless
> you have first reached a 100% certain solution to the question of how to
> select the best weeders. And you will NEVER solve that problem.
>
> How many different teachers does one student have through the K-12
> years? What counts is how the combination of all th9ose teachers works,
> not on the (not measurable) competence of any one teacher.
>
> Asking such a fucking false question merely gives aid and comfort to
> union busters and other enemies of good schools.
>
> Carrool
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