From: hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
Subject: Re: What can we have for an educational system?
Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 17:59:38 GMT

In article <1992Nov18.143511.13979@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca> mroussel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Marc Roussel) writes:
>In article <BxwqDy.6C3@quake.sylmar.ca.us> brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us
>(Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>>What I know is that most of the teachers I have known are outright 
>>anti-intellectual when it comes right down to their real values.  Such people
>>are hardly likely to inspire (or even condone) real education.  Some kids DO
>>find a good teacher or have good parents who do get them on the right track,
>>but it's despite the educational system, not because of it. 

>     Who hires teacher?  Is it not the school boards?  Who elects the
>school boards?  Why, we do!
>     In a democracy, we all share both in the glory of our national
>achievements and in the ignominy of our failures.  Sure, there are
>plenty of rotten teachers.  Sure, a good teacher can make a difference.
>Putting all of our frustrations with the educational system on the
>shoulders of the teachers is however misplacing the blame.  If the parents
>cared enough to run for school board positions and vigorously supervise
>the school system, if they cared enough to force their politicians at
>all levels to make the regulations sensible, then we would get a good
>educational system.  Bad teachers are only allowed to stay because we
>don't care enough to force them out. 

Theoretically, the school boards hire the teachers.  In actuality, the
authority of the school boards in this direction goes little beyond
hiring the superintendent.  But the problem is worse than that, it is
more in firing the bad ones than in hiring good ones.

There is no information about who will or who will not be even a competent
teacher which is available to anybody at the time of hiring.  Even the
best universities cannot afford to use reasonable standards for prospective
schoolteachers, or they will turn out almost none.  The schools of edcuation
do an evaluation, but what are they evaluating; do not ask the fox to watch
the henhouse.  

How does one find out that a teacher is bad in the few years before essentially
irrevocable tenure decisions must be made?  Most school administrators dismiss
the observations of parents, and in the weaker school districts, few parents
are competent to give good input.  Part of this is justified, as merely the
fact that the child has not learned much in a particular course is not always
the fault of the teacher.  At our university, there have been unjustified
claims that the foreign TA was not understandable; he was understood by a
good 90+% of the class.

In addition, school board members are paid little, often only meeting 
expenses, and are expected to carry on their normal business activities.
There may be an exception in large cities, but there the hiring process
would be far too large for them to micro-manage it.  Even in universities,
the hiring decisions are largely made by the individual departments.

I HAVE suggested that there be the possibility of evaluations by scholars.
The objections to this are massive.
-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@snap.stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)  
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