teacher pay for performance

I'm an engineer and computer programmer. One of the things that bothers me is that my employers, and i'm talking about managers here, almost never have a clue about how good or otherwise my performance is. I'd have thought that one would get an idea based on productivity or problem solving, or problem anticipation, or something. It simply doesn't happen. Most managers have little or no technical competence of their own. They don't seem to have any way to judge the performance of any of their direct reports with respect to others. They mostly either like you personally, or they don't.

As a contractor, i've changed positions frequently, so i've gotten to participate in numerous interviews. These too, have been nearly without exception, awful. More than a few have subjected me to a "quiz". For no apparent reason, i generally have performed quite poorly on these quizzes. One exception revolved around a research question that would be worthy of a Master's Thesis. I'd never seen the problem before. Though i was not able to come to a solution in 20 minutes, my direction was at least tenable. So, my performance has historically been good on impossible questions, but poor otherwise.

In a few cases, i've gotten a new manager at an old job where the new manager subjected me to a quiz. These have also been awful gages of performance. Why have tests been so bad?

I've talked about the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) program that G. W. Bush pushed into law. The idea here seems to have been that 1) teacher's own test scores do not correspond with student competence, so 2) we'll test students, and reward teachers with improvements in student's scores. A logical problem with this approach is that student's scores on testing also does not correspond well with student competence.

I've just read the editorial in the AASA Journal of Scholarship & Practice, Summer 2011 edition. It lists a number of further points. These include the fact that NCLB was rolled out to the nation, but never tested. There are numerous statistical issues with what students are tested for what teachers, and how the response to the program is to "play the program", without concern for the education of students. For example, let's say that you are a Special Education teacher. All of your students have been given to you because they are behind. But there's no policy that protects you as a teacher. Even if you improve your student's test scores dramatically (though they're still below average), you'll be penalized. This editorial talks about how some students have been encouraged to drop out of school and pursue a GED, instead of staying in school, and lowering the average test scores for the school. This doesn't help the students. And so on. The details are important. I highly encourage everyone to read the above referenced article.

As an engineer, i don't have pay for performance unless i go into business for myself. And, even then, i only have pay for performance if i get all the business stuff right, and perhaps, am lucky. But now it appears that even if i'm an above average engineer (whatever that means), this is a good thing - judging by the teaching profession.

If we want our kids to do better in school, we have to be smarter than this. We need to use systems that work, proven in pilot programs. Our current system, forged in the general incompetence of politics, doesn't work.

Sudoko

I've now solved over 70 of the Project Euler site i mentioned a couple months ago. One of the problems i just solved was to generate solutions to 50 Sudoku puzzles. People solve these sorts of puzzles by hand all the time. I could have done it that way. I started by solving the first one by hand. It was pretty easy. I really only used one rule to make it happen. I thought about the rule for a bit, and decided it would be easy enough to code into a program, and that might be quicker than doing 50 by hand. And this first version solved some 29 of the 50. My program showed how far it had gotten. I used that to tackle the next unsolved puzzle by hand. And, indeed, i found an easy rule to code, and that version managed 39. From there, it might have been quicker to solve the last 11 by hand. Eventually, there were five ideas, and 46 problems were solved. One of the problems could be easily solved by hand from there if a guess was made of one of the two remaining possibilities for the cell. I decided to code in guesses. After making a guess, it would use it's previous system to see if it could get a solution. It continued to make a single guess until it either solved the puzzle, or it ran out of single guesses. All fifty puzzles were solved.

Total run time was difficult to get. What you'd like is the amount of time it takes to solve each puzzle. So, if you had a thousand puzzles to solve, you could multiply your time by a thousand and get a good estimate for how long that would take. But the total time was much less than a second. It's unlikely that the time would scale. It's quite possible that a thousand puzzles would also take less than a second.

Of notable interest is that nearly five thousand people have solved this problem. There are tons of programs that have been published that also solve this problem. So at least one person in a million, world wide, has written a Sudoku solver. That's a good deal more than i'd have expected.

Stress

It's been suggested that college students should be graded on attendance.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/06/do-you-get-better-grades-with-better-attendance/
First, a couple anecdotes, and then a better idea.

I had an engineering class called Stress, with a low pass rate. The prof did everything he could think of to get students to pass. Tons of office hour time, etc. 1st day, he passed out a syllabus noting the 3 open book exam dates and all homework. All homework counted the same as an exam. Of the 4 grades, the lowest was dropped. I started the 1st week's homework, but it was clear there was only time for half of it. I was careful to hit all types of problems. I passed it in, but, of course, 50% is not a passing grade. It became clear that the prof taught the material in the book. But i could read faster than he could talk, so i stopped going to class. I did OK on the first exam. One Friday, i came in for what i thought was the 2nd exam, but he passed out a quiz. At a glance, it covered next week's homework. I hadn't done that yet. I rechecked the syllabus, and it said that the 2nd exam was the following Monday - i hadn't missed it. I handed the quiz back. The prof told me that i'd likely fail the course. I looked him in the eye, but didn't tell him i'd do OK if i didn't miss any exams. The last exam was held at the start of the last week. It didn't cover the last week's homework. I did half of that anyway. And, i passed the course.

I would never have skipped half the homework if it weren't impossible to finish. I would never have skipped the classes if the pressure to optimize my time weren't so severe. Exams have high time pressure, and i already knew that my performance would be awful on them. It was just the only choice available. I liked the course material and the prof, but it still pisses me off that the course was set up that way. If i'd known in advance, i'd have dropped another course from my schedule, so i could devote twice the time to it. So the degree means what? These are the students who managed to get through by cheating, optimization, or by being unbelievably quick? Are these skills one needs in industry? Not as far as i can tell.

There was a brief break. Then Stress 2 was taught by the same prof. I figured he'd pass out a syllabus on the first day, so i didn't bring my books or calculator. He passed out an exam! I ran home, grabbed my stuff and ran back in 20 minutes. Panting, i asked for an exam. He found me a seat and an exam that didn't match my neighbors. At the 50 minute mark, i was done (!). I looked around and there was panic on 109 faces. I figured i must have done something wrong. All these kids are brilliant. I checked my answers. No errors. So at the 55 minute mark, i got up and handed it in.

Next day, the prof writes something like this on the board:

97:	1
60-70:	4
50-60:	7
40-50:	19
30-40:	37
20-30:	23
10-20:	13
0-10:	6

At first i wondered how i'd lost 3 points. But then i realized that i'd done the course right. One of the four questions was on that last week's homework, and i was the only one who'd done even half of it. In this course, there'd be 4 exams, homework with the lowest dropped. I did half the homework. Then it was announced that the lowest two grades would be dropped. But i took the 4th exam even though i'd already passed the course.

Years later i auditioned for a chorus. It involved sight singing and a bunch of music things i'd never done before. That morning, i ran 4 miles, showered, and took the train. The director gave me my starting tenor note and played the accompaniment. I dived in, but stumbled. But then i started getting where the piece was going, relaxed a bit and read ahead. At the start of the last line, i turned the page over (while singing), but it was blank. I looked up and finished the page, adding dynamics. The director was stunned. So was i. I'm simply not that good. But a 4 mile warm up does wonders. Phys Ed should be held for 20 minutes every morning for all students. They don't have to be awake for it.

STEM

One of the big pushes in education is to get students to do well in the STEM areas. That's Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. From my perspective, SE would be enough. That is, if you've got Engineering, that's how you build or support technology. To do either Science or Engineering, you need math. Math turns out to be one of those tools which allows you to solve all sorts of problems. You really can't do without it. Not all students are good at it. In fact, nearly everyone has to struggle with it. Being good at math is, at least to some extent, a measure of how hard one has struggled with it compared to everyone else.

One of the reasons for students to go into science or engineering is that a technological society needs people to do these things to stay competitive with other countries. And if there is a need for a skill, then there are jobs. So, that's good for the student's future.

But just to mention a contrary concept, it turns out that when you go to bigger companies that want engineers, they're also looking for engineers with communications skills. So, it is not a good idea to ignore your natural language skills. That includes reading and writing, but also public speaking. These are good skills to have.

Book It

As a parent of a ten year old, i have to say that the Book It program is good. There's a real problem getting kids up to the level of reading for enjoyment. That's the point at which the effort required to read is less than the return. Once they're there, getting them to read is no problem, generally. Just put books they'll like in front of them.

Book It did not get my child through this hurdle. The primary incentive was that (mostly) i read to him every day. I read stories that i knew he'd enjoy. Then, on October 11th, 2005 (it was a Tuesday), he crossed it. He went from kicking and screaming to get through five minutes of reading he had to do for school, to reading for six hours at a stretch on his own. This crossing really happened all of a sudden. And he went from hopelessly behind his class to reading over level in a few months. More on that in a bit.

Though the Book It program didn't do it, it did help. And it probably helps get lots of kids through reading for enjoyment. Pizza Hut runs this program. Many schools and parents cooperate by keeping track of what the kids read. At the end of each month, if the child has fulfilled the minimum requirement, they get a coupon for a personal pan pizza.

OK. I recognize that Book It amounts to a "buy one, get one free" sort of deal. He gets his free pizza, but i buy my own. And Pizza Hut doesn't lose money. On the contrary, i probably go there more often than i would without this program. It's still a good idea.

One result is startling. The house was quiet the other day. On a sneak inspection, i quickly opened his door, only to find him reading Shoestrings.

So, Book It has critics. But obesity is not one of my son's problems. And one personal pan pizza a month is not going to make any difference. You may consider pizza to be junk food, but it isn't banned by the South Beach Diet. If pizza has a problem, it's that it tastes good. My spaghetti has this problem too.

So, how do you get a child to read over level? Easy. Once (s)he's reading for enjoyment, put a book in front of them that's slightly over their level that is compelling. For example, Harry Potter. Rowlings deserves all the accolades she's gotten, and more. Six months after really starting to read, he'd read the first five books. Why didn't he read book six? Well, it wasn't out yet.

Having gotten him through reading, i'm now working on arithmetic. He was at the grocery store with me the other day. He wanted yogurt. Sure, it's filled with sugar, and probably isn't the best for him, but i still meter them out at just one per day. The pack of 6 was $2.69. While at the store, i asked him how much each one was. We did the division problem out loud. 6 goes into 26 how many times? 4. What's 6 times 4? 24. What's 26 minus 24? 2. Drop down the nine for what? 29. How many times does 6 go into 29? Five. Five? Oh, sure. He's doing estimates in class. So each yogurt costs how much? 45 cents. How much is Michigan tax? There's no tax on food. Then we bought it. I've edited out the spots where he didn't get to the next step instantly, of course.

Next up is science.