Matt Damon owns litertarian TV over teacher tenure

[roger]

Here's a nice, short, 1 minute clip of Matt Damon responding to a question on the libertarian Reason TV about tenure. The questioner asserted that Matt works hard because of job insecurity. He gets irate, points out that no teacher would work long hours and low pay unless they loved the job. The cameraman responds with some nonsense about 10% of teachers of bad. Matt's mother asks him where he got that data, and Matt responds along the lines of "how do I know you aren't a bad cameraman". It's pretty funny.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/actor-matt-damon-defends-teacher-tenure-testy-exchange-211042801.html

[PGH]

I caught that. My favorite part was the "10% of all teachers are bad!" statistic the cameraman made up on the spot.

Shoot I wouldn't be surprised if the actual number is more than 10%. But first we need to define "bad teacher" and then conduct a proper study.

The guy got the 10% number because you can hear him say "10% of all employees in any profession are bad" (or something like that, as best I can remember). Ok. So why is it such a problem in education? They're not calling for 10% of auto workers to be fired.

[Tippit]

Here's a nice, short, 1 minute clip of Matt Damon responding to a question on the libertarian Reason TV about tenure. The questioner asserted that Matt works hard because of job insecurity. He gets irate, points out that no teacher would work long hours and low pay unless they loved the job. The cameraman responds with some nonsense about 10% of teachers of bad. Matt's mother asks him where he got that data, and Matt responds along the lines of "how do I know you aren't a bad cameraman". It's pretty funny.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/actor-matt-damon-defends-teacher-tenure-testy-exchange-211042801.html

The point of course, is that if the cameraman were bad, you might have been watching the Damon interview from the neck down, and the cameraman would have gotten fired for not being able to keep the subject in the shot. The consequences for bad teachers with tenure, as opposed to bad cameramen, for instance, is that a large portion of an entire generation might graduate without being able to read. Tenure is the antithesis of accountability, and without accountability, it's the students (and by extension the rest of society) who suffer. I like Damon, but I think he's misguided on this issue. Tenure is a bad idea, especially for paid public employees or officials.

[fuelair]

I caught that. My favorite part was the "10% of all teachers are bad!" statistic the cameraman made up on the spot.

Shoot I wouldn't be surprised if the actual number is more than 10%. But first we need to define "bad teacher" and then conduct a proper study.

The guy got the 10% number because you can hear him say "10% of all employees in any profession are bad" (or something like that, as best I can remember). Ok. So why is it such a problem in education? They're not calling for 10% of auto workers to be fired.And none of the news shows I saw included that 10% bit (my wife saw it on one early one - which is the only reason I know about it and know the quote is correct).

[Chris L]

The point of course, is that if the cameraman were bad, you might have been watching the Damon interview from the neck down, and the cameraman would have gotten fired for not being able to keep the subject in the shot. The consequences for bad teachers with tenure, as opposed to bad cameramen, for instance, is that a large portion of an entire generation might graduate without being able to read. Tenure is the antithesis of accountability, and without accountability, it's the students (and by extension the rest of society) who suffer. I like Damon, but I think he's misguided on this issue. Tenure is a bad idea, especially for paid public employees or officials.

Actually, if the cameraman were that bad, he'd very likely have been fired by now. Just about every job has a minimal level of performance that the person doing the job has to meet. For most people, that level has to be constantly met.

For example, the movies that Damon stars in have to draw enough people into theaters (and DVD rental counters) for the studio to consider it worth the effort and money to hire him again. If the movies don't, Damon will have to find some other way to earn a living. Even Damon has a performance metric he has to meet to stay working.

[fuelair]

The point of course, is that if the cameraman were bad, you might have been watching the Damon interview from the neck down, and the cameraman would have gotten fired for not being able to keep the subject in the shot. The consequences for bad teachers with tenure, as opposed to bad cameramen, for instance, is that a large portion of an entire generation might graduate without being able to read. Tenure is the antithesis of accountability, and without accountability, it's the students (and by extension the rest of society) who suffer. I like Damon, but I think he's misguided on this issue. Tenure is a bad idea, especially for paid public employees or officials.

Not gonna waste a lot of time on the full details - you can look up Orlando Sentinel and (I assume, I loathe them for their ignorance/stupidityrepublicker supporting) you can read them if they have a useable archive. Anyway, back in the period around 2002-3, they ran a series of articles busting local schools and teachers. The important point: They spent at least a week on making sure all of us heard that if kids cannot read properly /for learning by the age of 9 THEY WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO. Their words - correctly based on real research- in their paper. Within two weeks, they were running stories about local high schools in which they were writing that the high schoolers who came in with the aforementioned poor reading skills were not reading for learning/on grade level AND THE HIGH SCHOOLS WERE NOT BRINGING THEM UP TO GRADE LEVEL.

I'm gonna assume you can spot the problem in their second argument.



By the by, I do not teach reading so I take the quotes of studies/others in the Sentinel as correct in a field not mine - but I have read summaries of some of the studies and that is their gist -because I learned within a short time the Sentinel was low on trustworthiness.

PS: you can try to use that against elementary school student's teachers but I have further data that hurts that too. Nothing in this means I do not know any bad teachers but that number is low (one's I know) and well under 10%. And most of those I knew have left or been requested to leave teaching (by the way, in full fairness, some of those were bad teachers only in the sense that they could not handle students who should not have been in school anyway and that made them ineffective (class could not function)- most of those were out in their first year because of blame and the minimal help dealing with same that they got.

[Chris L]

Not gonna waste a lot of time on the full details - you can look up Orlando Sentinel and (I assume, I loathe them for their ignorance/stupidityrepublicker supporting) you can read them if they have a useable archive. Anyway, back in the period around 2002-3, they ran a series of articles busting local schools and teachers. The important point: They spent at least a week on making sure all of us heard that if kids cannot read properly /for learning by the age of 9 THEY WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO. Their words - correctly based on real research- in their paper. Within two weeks, they were running stories about local high schools in which they were writing that the high schoolers who came in with the aforementioned poor reading skills were not reading for learning/on grade level AND THE HIGH SCHOOLS WERE NOT BRINGING THEM UP TO GRADE LEVEL.

I'm gonna assume you can spot the problem in their second argument.



By the by, I do not teach reading so I take the quotes of studies/others in the Sentinel as correct in a field not mine - but I have read summaries of some of the studies and that is their gist -because I learned within a short time the Sentinel was low on trustworthiness.

PS: you can try to use that against elementary school student's teachers but I have further data that hurts that too. Nothing in this means I do not know any bad teachers but that number is low (one's I know) and well under 10%. And most of those I knew have left or been requested to leave teaching (by the way, in full fairness, some of those were bad teachers only in the sense that they could not handle students who should not have been in school anyway and that made them ineffective (class could not function)- most of those were out in their first year because of blame and the minimal help dealing with same that they got.

That's all well and good, but I don't see any logical defense of tenure there. Why should teachers not be held accountable for how well (or not) they do their job? Damon (even if he doesn't realize it) is. Barack Obama is. So why not teachers?

[roger]

The point of course,Well no, the point was not whether or not tenure is a good idea or not, the point was her assertion about Matt working only because he feels unemployment is very, very wrong. He called it "MBA" reasoning, and it typical of libertarian arguments.

For the record, I have no strong opinions about tenure. I think it (like about anything that is complicated) has benefits and drawbacks. No one minute video or sound bite could hope to address it.

[Chris L]

Well no, the point was not whether or not tenure is a good idea or not, the point was her assertion about Matt working only because he feels unemployment is very, very wrong. He called it "MBA" reasoning, and it typical of libertarian arguments.

For the record, I have no strong opinions about tenure. I think it (like about anything that is complicated) has benefits and drawbacks. No one minute video or sound bite could hope to address it.

If that was Damon's point, then he again fails. He may love acting and may be willing to do it for free (someone please call his agent), but the fact is, if his movies don't make money, the studios will not actually pay him to act.

[roger]

If that was Damon's point, then he again fails. He may love acting and may be willing to do it for free (someone please call his agent), but the fact is, if his movies don't make money, the studios will not actually pay him to act.
Then I guess that it is fortunate that he did not argue that he lived in some magical world where he would get paid for being really bad.

[fuelair]

Actually, if the cameraman were that bad, he'd very likely have been fired by now. Just about every job has a minimal level of performance that the person doing the job has to meet. For most people, that level has to be constantly met.

fuelair here:bit removed 'cause I'm not on it.....That is quite correct. The 10%er cameraman will be a little slow to get a new scene up/move the camera slower on a pan to a new shot/not follow the 3rd's thing most of the time in composing his shot. His video/film won't look as "good" to an audience. (

I'm not a pro, but I am good enough to do most of that correctly enough to be allowed to use a BEAUTIFUL and very expensiveTV camera from Disney of a size that precluded hand held and for an hour and a half shoot I got exactly one call that I was on the wrong position.) (OK, it was a high school graduation, my wife had good Disney contacts, Disney had no one who could be there to shoot with it and the other two amateurs shooting had less experience than I did. Lucked out!!:):)

MY POINT: even a 10% person may do well enough to handle the job at a basic level. The unfortunate problem is there are not enough good teachers to fill the slots if the 10%ers are not available - not good, and, for reasons I won't go into this is going to get worse in Florida in the next few years.

[Chris L]

That is quite correct. The 10%er cameraman will be a little slow to get a new scene up/move the camera slower on a pan to a new shot/not follow the 3rd's thing most of the time in composing his shot. His video/film won't look as "good" to an audience. (

I'm not a pro, but I am good enough to do most of that correctly enough to be allowed to use a BEAUTIFUL and very expensiveTV camera from Disney of a size that precluded hand held and for an hour and a half shoot I got exactly one call that I was on the wrong position.) (OK, it was a high school graduation, my wife had good Disney contacts, Disney had no one who could be there to shoot with it and the other two amateurs shooting had less experience than I did. Lucked out!!:):)

MY POINT: even a 10% person may do well enough to handle the job at a basic level. The unfortunate problem is there are not enough good teachers to fill the slots if the 10%ers are not available - not good, and, for reasons I won't go into this is going to get worse in Florida in the next few years.

The key word is MAY. A 10%er may also NOT be doing the job at a minimal level. The only way to be sure is to hold that person accountable for how well they do the job. Tenure doesn't do that.

[Cavemonster]

Actually, if the cameraman were that bad, he'd very likely have been fired by now. Just about every job has a minimal level of performance that the person doing the job has to meet. For most people, that level has to be constantly met.

For example, the movies that Damon stars in have to draw enough people into theaters (and DVD rental counters) for the studio to consider it worth the effort and money to hire him again. If the movies don't, Damon will have to find some other way to earn a living. Even Damon has a performance metric he has to meet to stay working.

The assumption is that by the time tenure is awarded, that teacher has exceeded that performance metric for years.

If they are actually incompetent, then there's ~4 years of close observation to weed that out. It is fairly easy to fire or lay off an untenured teacher.

If they haven't, then the district did a piss-poor job of evaluating them over that period or there's such a dearth of talented teachers in the district that they had to take who was available.

Matt Damon gets to choose the scripts he works on, as a big name star. Teachers do not get to choose their students.

There's a great little parable about comparing business to schools.

http://teachers.net/gazette/JUN02/vollmer.html

[Chris L]

The assumption is that by the time tenure is awarded, that teacher has exceeded that performance metric for years.

If they are actually incompetent, then there's ~4 years of close observation to weed that out. It is fairly easy to fire or lay off an untenured teacher.

If they haven't, then the district did a piss-poor job of evaluating them over that period or there's such a dearth of talented teachers in the district that they had to take who was available.

Matt Damon gets to choose the scripts he works on, as a big name star. Teachers do not get to choose their students.

There's a great little parable about comparing business to schools.

http://teachers.net/gazette/JUN02/vollmer.html

My question is why should the teacher ever be exempt from that performance metric? Damon isn't. If he's in a string of movies no one ever goes to see, again, he'll be doing his acting in his basement. The same goes for just about everyone else.

[Cavemonster]

My question is why should the teacher ever be exempt from that performance metric? Damon isn't. If he's in a string of movies no one ever goes to see, again, he'll be doing his acting in his basement. The same goes for just about everyone else.

What happens if someone approaches Damon with a really crappy script, one that no amount of acting can make more than a mediocre film from?

[Chris L]

What happens if someone approaches Damon with a really crappy script, one that no amount of acting can make more than a mediocre film from?

What happens if the script is great, Damon takes the job, and the movie turns into a dog no one wants to see anyway? See, we all have to deal with circumstances that are beyond our control. That's called reality.

[Cavemonster]

What happens if the script is great, Damon takes the job, and the movie turns into a dog no one wants to see anyway? See, we all have to deal with circumstances that are beyond our control. That's called reality.

Please, answer the question I asked.

[Chris L]

I suppose he doesn't take the job then. Just like no one is forcing someone to be a teacher.

[Cavemonster]

I suppose he doesn't take the job then.

Yes, Matt Damon chooses the projects he works on,

Teachers don't get that option. They take the kids that come into the system. Rich kids, poor kids, dumb kids, rude kids, kids with learning disabilities, kids with every kind of home life.

Now, i suppose you could say "Tough titties, life's not fair" But I don't really care about being fair to the teachers, so you would be missing the point. If a great teacher gets a really crappy classroom and they try as hard as they can but still end up with a really crappy outcome, and that teacher is fired for that performance, the way Matt Damon would if he made a bad movie, then the students lose out, that next batch of students that could have really thrived under that great teacher.

[Chris L]

Yes, Matt Damon chooses the projects he works on,

Teachers don't get that option. They take the kids that come into the system. Rich kids, poor kids, dumb kids, rude kids, kids with learning disabilities, kids with every kind of home life.

Now, i suppose you could say "Tough titties, life's not fair" But I don't really care about being fair to the teachers, so you would be missing the point. If a great teacher gets a really crappy classroom and they try as hard as they can but still end up with a really crappy outcome, and that teacher is fired for that performance, the way Matt Damon would if he made a bad movie, then the students lose out, that next batch of students that could have really thrived under that great teacher.

The thing is, that's true with a lot of jobs. Sometimes we are forced to deal with stuff that other people screwed up and sometimes the boss expects us to make it work anyway. If you are really good at your job and you can (in just about any other job) still get fired for someone else's mistake. Why are we to exempt teachers from being accountable?

[Cavemonster]

The thing is, that's true with a lot of jobs. Sometimes we are forced to deal with stuff that other people screwed up and sometimes the boss expects us to make it work anyway. If you are really good at your job and you can (in just about any other job) still get fired for someone else's mistake. Why are we to exempt teachers from being accountable?

So you're saying that sometimes private businesses fire really good workers for reasons beyond those workers control, and lose out on that worker's productivity and you're asking why schools shouldn't do this too?

You're asking why schools shouldn't lose great teachers because companies sometimes fire great workers?

[marplots]

Tenure is the antithesis of accountability, and without accountability, it's the students (and by extension the rest of society) who suffer. I like Damon, but I think he's misguided on this issue. Tenure is a bad idea, especially for paid public employees or officials.

So it's good to use the threat of losing their job as an incentive, but it is bad to incentivize people to enter a profession with the hope they will get tenure? How do they manage to fake it until they make it anyhow?

[Chris L]

So it's good to use the threat of losing their job as an incentive, but it is bad to incentivize people to enter a profession with the hope they will get tenure? How do they manage to fake it until they make it anyhow?

So why don't we have tenure for every other profession?

[Chris L]

So you're saying that sometimes private businesses fire really good workers for reasons beyond those workers control, and lose out on that worker's productivity and you're asking why schools shouldn't do this too?

You're asking why schools shouldn't lose great teachers because companies sometimes fire great workers?

No, I'm asking what is it about teaching that makes nit being accountable a good thing? If you have a problem with the criteria being used to judge competence, that is one thing. What you haven't explained is why some other criteria shouldn't be constantly applied to teaching.

[Giordano]

1. I'm unaware of a tenure contract that prohibits teachers from being fired for being incompetent. If you want stronger standards put into place, we can discuss it. But the idea that the concept of tenure itself prevents bad teachers from being fired is not true.

2. Why do so many conservatives appear to believe that you can only get people to work hard if you can threaten and bully them? Most K to 12 teachers are among the most dedicated people I've met. They are driven internally by that dedication. They don't need threats to work hard; they need appreciation.

3. Tenure also serves the important role of preventing older teachers from being fired and replaced by cheaper (and less experienced) younger teachers. This is a very tempting strategy for many school districts.

4. I think more jobs should have tenure. I think it is dreadful that in the USA, one can work for a company for 30 years, and then be laid off with 30 days notice.

5. The cameraman was, in fact, awful- the camera was always shaking!

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Here's a nice, short, 1 minute clip of Matt Damon responding to a question on the libertarian Reason TV about tenure. The questioner asserted that Matt works hard because of job insecurity. He gets irate, points out that no teacher would work long hours and low pay unless they loved the job. The cameraman responds with some nonsense about 10% of teachers of bad. Matt's mother asks him where he got that data, and Matt responds along the lines of "how do I know you aren't a bad cameraman". It's pretty funny.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/actor-matt-damon-defends-teacher-tenure-testy-exchange-211042801.html

LOL!

Libertards are such....well....tards.

[Tippit]

So it's good to use the threat of losing their job as an incentive, but it is bad to incentivize people to enter a profession with the hope they will get tenure? How do they manage to fake it until they make it anyhow?

Yes. Tenure is a bad idea, period. Accountability is good. If the teaching profession needs incentivization due to a dearth of good teachers, pay them more, don't create some arbitrary threshold of time at which they're more or less unaccountable.

[Roboramma]

No, I'm asking what is it about teaching that makes nit being accountable a good thing?

It's not necessarily something special about teaching. It's possible that something like tenure would work in other industries as well, but simply hasn't been tried.

The argument for tenure seems to be that once we know someone is a good teacher the likelihood that an action taken against them (like firing) would be a net good for the system is less than the likelihood that it would be a net bad, therefore, don't allow that sort of action. So, we prevent net good actions (firing bad teachers) but also prevent the more prevalent net bad actions (firing good teachers).

Fairness need not enter into it.

[marplots]

So why don't we have tenure for every other profession?

But we do, kind of. Seniority, last-hired first-fired, pension and 401K matched contributions... Not the same, but still time-in-grade incentives.

[EGarrett]

A note to the moderators who have seen fit to unnecessarily get in the way of the economics discussions...

This is an interesting thread with a thought-provoking video. I would NEVER have seen it were it originally posted in the "education" section to which you have moved it.

Over-division of a forum is a great way to kill that forum.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Mods, thanks for moving to the appropriate forum.

Like Roger, tenure is not something I've thought much about, and as such, have no strong position either way.

But clearly that interviewer was in over her head. Pretty much the reason I tried Reason Magazine for a year and never renewed. It's not very good.

[Travis]

Teachers are held accountable. They don't get tenure the day they show up.

Teaching, like being a doctor, is one of those professions where the individual does better if they don't think they are constantly in danger of being fired on a whim. You are in the business of educating young minds and this is something that takes time and a certain amount of finesse. And is this really that big an issue? My family worked in a school for 40 years and in that time we never saw an incompetent teacher get tenure. They (meaning less capable teachers) usually crashed and burned in the first two years.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Teachers are held accountable. They don't get tenure the day they show up.

Teaching, like being a doctor, is one of those professions where the individual does better if they don't think they are constantly in danger of being fired on a whim. You are in the business of educating young minds and this is something that takes time and a certain amount of finesse. And is this really that big an issue? My family worked in a school for 40 years and in that time we never saw an incompetent teacher get tenure. They (meaning less capable teachers) usually crashed and burned in the first two years.

There are exceptions - what was the name of that nut from Colorado (I think)....Ward <something>, maybe? The guy was clearly mentally ill, but was able to hide behind tenure. Although, I suspect the reason that was news is because of its rarity.

[Travis]

Yeah, sometimes someone will go nuts after getting tenure. It happens with doctors too. But it is rare enough that I wouldn't worry about it.

What does happen though is that every now and then a school district will try and get rid of tenure with the idea that they will fire the older teachers who earn more and just get cheaper teachers straight from college. That is a bad idea on multiple levels.

[Jeff Corey]

Some universities apparently have the same idea and offer financial setllements for retirement.

[Chris L]

Yeah, sometimes someone will go nuts after getting tenure. It happens with doctors too. But it is rare enough that I wouldn't worry about it.

What does happen though is that every now and then a school district will try and get rid of tenure with the idea that they will fire the older teachers who earn more and just get cheaper teachers straight from college. That is a bad idea on multiple levels.

Do doctors get tenure?

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Do doctors get tenure?

No. Doctors get nurses.

[Travis]

Do doctors get tenure?

Depends on the hospital I think.

[SkepticalDrew]

A note to the moderators who have seen fit to unnecessarily get in the way of the economics discussions...

This is an interesting thread with a thought-provoking video. I would NEVER have seen it were it originally posted in the "education" section to which you have moved it.

Over-division of a forum is a great way to kill that forum.

Mad they moved your "liberal economics thread" to the Non-USA Politics forum?

What does happen though is that every now and then a school district will try and get rid of tenure with the idea that they will fire the older teachers who earn more and just get cheaper teachers straight from college. That is a bad idea on multiple levels.

Indeed. Especially considering many new teacher do indeed burnout after the first few years. I'm an education major and there's strong emphasis on this in classes, we do a lot of student teaching (one year unpaid, full time teaching gig) and observation, so we can see what the profession is like before we jump in. It's a lot to handle if you're not prepared for it. There's this aweful rumor going around that it's easy money. ;)

[PGH]

I caught that. My favorite part was the "10% of all teachers are bad!" statistic the cameraman made up on the spot.

Shoot I wouldn't be surprised if the actual number is more than 10%. But first we need to define "bad teacher" and then conduct a proper study.

The guy got the 10% number because you can hear him say "10% of all employees in any profession are bad" (or something like that, as best I can remember). Ok. So why is it such a problem in education? They're not calling for 10% of auto workers to be fired.

And none of the news shows I saw included that 10% bit (my wife saw it on one early one - which is the only reason I know about it and know the quote is correct).

Thanks for letting me know I hadn't imagined it. It was such nonsense I'd almost think that I had.

So are we to take away from this video that libertarians feel 10% of all employees need to be let go? Since 10% of all employees in every profession are "bad". Somehow I don't think that 20% unemployment is going to do great things for our economy.

Of course the cameraman, employed by a libertarian news organization, probably isn't a Real Libertarian, right? It's funny because there are a few on this forum but everyone of them thinks all the others aren't Real Libertarians...

[ponderingturtle]

We can improve teacher effectiveness the same way we increase hospital effectiveness, by getting rid of those students likely to perform poorly. The important thing is the numbers of their the best they can be, and refusing people is the best way to improve your numbers.

[EGarrett]

Mad they moved your "liberal economics thread" to the Non-USA Politics forum?I'm annoyed for the reasons I stated. Read it again until you understand.

[roger]

I have to agree with EGarrett. Damon said essentially nothing about education - it was a discussion about what motivates people to do their jobs. And that was the intent of my OP - to discuss that, not tenure. Oh well.

[daenku32]

This is an interesting thread with a thought-provoking video. I would NEVER have seen it were it originally posted in the "education" section to which you have moved it.
I can see that. (Rule 12? Sorry.)

I have to agree with EGarrett. Damon said essentially nothing about education - it was a discussion about what motivates people to do their jobs. And that was the intent of my OP - to discuss that, not tenure. Oh well.

It was about motivation of teachers. Sure the woman in the video made a reference to Damon's own pay, but they were talking about teachers.

[Dr. Keith]

1. I'm unaware of a tenure contract that prohibits teachers from being fired for being incompetent. If you want stronger standards put into place, we can discuss it. But the idea that the concept of tenure itself prevents bad teachers from being fired is not true.

2. Why do so many conservatives appear to believe that you can only get people to work hard if you can threaten and bully them? Most K to 12 teachers are among the most dedicated people I've met. They are driven internally by that dedication. They don't need threats to work hard; they need appreciation.

3. Tenure also serves the important role of preventing older teachers from being fired and replaced by cheaper (and less experienced) younger teachers. This is a very tempting strategy for many school districts.

4. I think more jobs should have tenure. I think it is dreadful that in the USA, one can work for a company for 30 years, and then be laid off with 30 days notice.

5. The cameraman was, in fact, awful- the camera was always shaking!

I agree with it all, but number three is the big one for me.

New teachers don't make great money, but they see the pay scale and realize that they can make pretty good money 10 to 15 years down the road. And the benefits are good if you can keep the job 15 to 20 years to qualify for full retirement. But, if the district can just start firing teachers as they get too expensive then the whole thing is a sham and you will not be able to hire new teachers at the same low salaries. They will want more money in the early years to make up for the fact that you will be pulling the rug out in a few years.

[Roboramma]

It was about motivation of teachers. Sure the woman in the video made a reference to Damon's own pay, but they were talking about teachers.

And if they'd been talking about the motivations of mathematicians should the thread have been moved to the "Science, Mathematics, Medicine and Technology" forum? It's clearly a question that is best dealt with by an understanding of economics.

But anyway.

[JudeBrando]

What Makes Matt Damon think Matt Damon should speak out because Matt Damon should be heard because Matt Damon is worth listening to?

Apologies to Matt Damon
qMhbetfO7E0

[Dayan81]

What Makes Matt Damon think Matt Damon should speak out because Matt Damon should be heard because Matt Damon is worth listening to?...

Jude, what makes you feel that celebrities have no right to voice their opinions?

[The Central Scrutinizer]

What Makes Matt Damon think Matt Damon should speak out because Matt Damon should be heard because Matt Damon is worth listening to?

Because someone pointed a camera at him and asked him a question.

[JudeBrando]

Because someone pointed a camera at him and asked him a question.True enough.

[marplots]

The real surprise for me was that there exists such a thing as Libertarian TV. I trust it's pay-per-view?

[roger]

It was about motivation of teachers. Sure the woman in the video made a reference to Damon's own pay, but they were talking about teachers.
Only at JREF will somebody argue with you about your motivation to start an OP.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

The real surprise for me was that there exists such a thing as Libertarian TV. I trust it's pay-per-view?

I suspect it's YouTube only.

[Travis]

Mad they moved your "liberal economics thread" to the Non-USA Politics forum?



Indeed. Especially considering many new teacher do indeed burnout after the first few years. I'm an education major and there's strong emphasis on this in classes, we do a lot of student teaching (one year unpaid, full time teaching gig) and observation, so we can see what the profession is like before we jump in. It's a lot to handle if you're not prepared for it. There's this aweful rumor going around that it's easy money. ;)

You haven't been here long enough to have met him but we used to have a member named JonathanQuick who hated teachers. He thought they were grossly overpaid and that most of them needed to be fired. Most of it stemmed from the fact that he was a radical right winger and didn't like that teachers would educate kids about a thing called "reality." Reality, you see, is antithetical to radical right wing ideology.

I agree with it all, but number three is the big one for me.

New teachers don't make great money, but they see the pay scale and realize that they can make pretty good money 10 to 15 years down the road. And the benefits are good if you can keep the job 15 to 20 years to qualify for full retirement. But, if the district can just start firing teachers as they get too expensive then the whole thing is a sham and you will not be able to hire new teachers at the same low salaries. They will want more money in the early years to make up for the fact that you will be pulling the rug out in a few years.

Of course that is the long term consequence. But schools are usually just trying to make it to the next year while dealing with constant budget cuts so that politicians can deliver on promised tax breaks.

[DallasDad]

Hmmn, I'm not so taken by Jamie Robert Vollmer's blueberries story. Yes, he was both ignorant and arrogant in the speech he gave, but he missed the point of the English teacher's rebuttal.

If we want our public schools to compare favorably with those in other countries, or even just to compare favorably with our private schools, we should do the same thing they do -- send the bad blueberries back. I have no idea how to implement this while still providing a free and appropriate public education for all children. Perhaps we need to look at what "appropriate" means in light of the fact that not all individuals are cut out, either by temperament or capability, to become scientists, engineers, doctors, lawyers, or other specialities.

Which is more unfair -- dumbing things down for those with IQs of 120, or removing the individuals with IQs of 80? (Yes, exaggeration, but as an illustration of the question.)

The only solution that we've tried, as a nation, is the "special school" idea, and it sucks. Separate is never equal. But how can a 12th-grade English teacher have a 12th-grade discussion of literature when half the class only reads at a 6th-grade level?

I'm the parent of a "special" student. Alas, I'm in Texas, so the IEP isn't so much geared to making him successful as to making his hurdles less high. His intelligence is near-normal, but he has disabilities that keep him both from learning a normal pace, and from understanding/generalizing what little he does learn.

I would not want him to be relegated to a special school with MR kids, autists, and others with "challenges." He benefits a lot, socially, from being in a regular classroom at a regular school. But it would be foolish to pretend that his list of A's and B's were in any way indicative of his performance, or in any way comparable in meaning to the grades of his age-peers. Even his standardized tests are modified so he can score higher.

With funding tied to test performance, NCLB promotes this kind of grade inflation. And having to take and keep students of all ability levels ties the hands of teachers even more. Tenure is neither here nor there: Good and bad teachers alike must work the system. As illustrated by the test score scandal recently, only the numbers matter. A bad teacher (but good cheater) who teaches nothing to her students can achieve tenure, and a good teacher (who gives failing grades to those who, er, fail) can be denied it.

The solutions to our education problems won't be found in managing our teachers, but in managing our students, and our expectations for them. If anyone has a clue how to do that without disenfranchising those who could be good students, but aren't due to lack of opportunity, support at home, or other similar factors -- well, I'd like to hear it. All I know for sure is that our current system is equally unfair to all students. The autodidacts will fly through without much trouble, but will never be challenged to explore fields or concepts of which they weren't already aware. The incapable will also fly through, gaining nothing but an illusory sense of accomplishment and a meaningless diploma. The vast middle, who are bright enough to benefit but not self-motivated enough to achieve on their own, get robbed because their diplomas are cheapened and they were never pushed above bare competency.

[SkepticalDrew]

The blueberry story:

http://teachers.net/gazette/JUN02/vollmer.html

I had to look it up, because I had no idea what you were talking about. Blueberries? Then it all made sense. :)

[DallasDad]

Sorry about that. Someone linked to it up-thread before my post, but I should have repeated the link.

[MysterOnyx]

One problem with removing tenure is that the teacher profession will become negatively competitive. As a result, teachers within a school will be less likely to work together and share their effective teaching methods with others. What incentive would an effective teacher have to share his or her strategies with other, possibly younger teachers who might replace them some day? As it stands now, teachers aren't in a fight against each other and have little reason to horde trade secrets. Without tenure, collaboration would become nonexistent and would require some new incentive.

This concern was expressed by a former principal of 25 years.

[Cayvmann]

So you're saying that sometimes private businesses fire really good workers for reasons beyond those workers control, and lose out on that worker's productivity and you're asking why schools shouldn't do this too?

You're asking why schools shouldn't lose great teachers because companies sometimes fire great workers?

What, businesses aren't perfect and can be run by dunces??!!?? I thought running everything like a business would make the world perfect.

[SkepticalDrew]

What, businesses aren't perfect and can be run by dunces??!!?? I thought running everything like a business would make the world perfect.

I was reading an favorite teacher of mine's blog and this came up.

"Teachers should not be forced to adhere to the incentive based pay-scale because our children are not products. Even to call them students creates an inaccurate dynamic. If we could predict with certainty what they are going to do, then the term student might be apt, but we cannot. They are human and there is no way to predict what the end result will be."

I have to agree. And this is why No Child Left Behind and Race to The Top are so damaging to education culture in America. You have this idea that the only measure of success is a couple standardized tests, and that somehow this magic ruler is capable of doing that in a classroom with twenty five individuals with different needs. And somehow this is supposed to determine my pay and whether or not I get fired?

What about the two ESL transfer students that I got mid-year and have little chance of getting caught up, and yet somehow they are the determining factor of whether or not my school makes AYP. Tough luck?

Education reform in the U.S.A. is a wicked problem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem). And no one-shot solution like implementing incentive pay, or the hammer down approach of NCLB, is going to fix it. And blaming teachers certainly won't

[blutoski]

The point of course, is that if the cameraman were bad, you might have been watching the Damon interview from the neck down, and the cameraman would have gotten fired for not being able to keep the subject in the shot. The consequences for bad teachers with tenure, as opposed to bad cameramen, for instance, is that a large portion of an entire generation might graduate without being able to read. Tenure is the antithesis of accountability, and without accountability, it's the students (and by extension the rest of society) who suffer. I like Damon, but I think he's misguided on this issue. Tenure is a bad idea, especially for paid public employees or officials.

The root of the misunderstanding is probably because of the word 'tenure', which means different things in postsecondary. Public grade school teacher tenure is not the same as professorship tenure.

I think tenure is misunderstood. Tenure for public teachers in most US states simply means they can't be fired 'without cause'. In most regions in the US, teachers who are not tenured are on probation and can be fired for any reason. Teachers who have obtained tenure have access to a process that ensures their terminations are justified. Tenured teachers routinely get fired for serious underperformance.

Public grade school tenure increases accountability in the system. No tenure means the employer has no accountability. They would not be required to explain terminations. Tenure means both the employer and the employee have accountability.

[blutoski]

One problem with removing tenure is that the teacher profession will become negatively competitive. As a result, teachers within a school will be less likely to work together and share their effective teaching methods with others. What incentive would an effective teacher have to share his or her strategies with other, possibly younger teachers who might replace them some day? As it stands now, teachers aren't in a fight against each other and have little reason to horde trade secrets. Without tenure, collaboration would become nonexistent and would require some new incentive.

This concern was expressed by a former principal of 25 years.

I'm not sure I can agree with this statement, exactly. The principal you're citing probably was only describing his local environment.

Again: the phrase 'tenure' is very vague when describing k-12. In some school districts there is no such thing. In some school districts, it's automatic and tied to seniority. In some school districts it's approved by peers. In some school districts it's handed out by the employer.

In the last situation where the employer dispatches tenure, and in the postsecondary situation, obtaining tenure has value and teachers compete with each other for tenure. To the point where we occasionally get violence. (eg: Fabrikant in Canada)

However, when tenure is approved by peers, cooperation is an important factor so it seems to actually increase the sharing of resources and best practices. With this in mind, I'm still an advocate of peer evaluation.

[blutoski]

Indeed. Especially considering many new teacher do indeed burnout after the first few years. I'm an education major and there's strong emphasis on this in classes, we do a lot of student teaching (one year unpaid, full time teaching gig) and observation, so we can see what the profession is like before we jump in. It's a lot to handle if you're not prepared for it. There's this aweful rumor going around that it's easy money. ;)

My teacher friends are aware of the expression: "Ten up; ten down."

Referring to ten years getting competent and more satisfied with the job, followed by ten years of the same thing day after day: marking, disciplining, arguing with parents, the occasional death threat.

[blutoski]

5. The cameraman was, in fact, awful- the camera was always shaking!

Yep. He's probably not being managed to metrics. This is the part that gets frustrating. 10% of every profession is 'bad' if you define 'bad' as the bottom 10%.

My wife's medical school class averages were posted one year, and the lowest scorer was 99.4%. That was the 'bad' doctor in her year.

I'd still be OK going to that guy for a checkup.

The tenure discussion is really turned on its head. Tenure means equal accountability for the employer (to terminate only with cause) and for the employee (to maintain the standard of the profession).

Sure it's natural to avoid accountability. That also goes for employers. So, they're pushing to get tenure eliminated.

[Alt+F4]

Why should teachers not be held accountable for how well (or not) they do their job?

Define it. Test scores answer coming in....3,2....

[Alt+F4]

My teacher friends are aware of the expression: "Ten up; ten down."

Referring to ten years getting competent and more satisfied with the job, followed by ten years of the same thing day after day: marking, disciplining, arguing with parents, the occasional death threat.

I agree, teachers generally peak with their skills and job satisfaction at about 10 years in. I'll be starting year 18 this September and though I've never had a death threat (I teach in NYC), I did have one kid that I was sure was going to knock the glasses off my face...he didn't.

[Chris L]

Define it. Test scores answer coming in....3,2....

I would assume that whatever performance metric was used to rate the teacher before tenure would apply just as well after tenure was given. Unless of course you are saying that teaching is such an arcane dark art that the idea of an objective performance metric does not apply. That would render the idea of a "good" or "bad" teacher useless, which in turn tends to discredit the supposed motive for tenure in the first place.

[blutoski]

I agree, teachers generally peak with their skills and job satisfaction at about 10 years in. I'll be starting year 18 this September and though I've never had a death threat (I teach in NYC), I did have one kid that I was sure was going to knock the glasses off my face...he didn't.

As you can imagine, death threats are more concentrated in particular schools.

Here in Vancouver, there's some difficult inner city schools like Van Tech, and surprisingly dangerous schools in wealthy suburbs like West Van.

A friend of mine who taught at West Van Sec was pretty explicitly threatened several times by a pair of students, and it was being escalated to criminal charges when it became moot when their multimillionaire dad was extradited back to Bosnia to stand trial for genocide crimes. The whole family left Canada, including the threatening kids. Acorns and Oak trees, as they say.

[psionl0]

Yes. Tenure is a bad idea, period. Accountability is good. If the teaching profession needs incentivization due to a dearth of good teachers, pay them more, don't create some arbitrary threshold of time at which they're more or less unaccountable.
The problem with accountability measures for teachers is that they invariably end up measuring how hard a teacher sucks up to bureaucrats. It is almost impossible to measure the extent to which a teacher is responsible for an individual student's performance.

If education was the real objective of schools then more pay for teachers who can demonstrate superior results might be the answer. However, schools are primarily baby-sitting centres nowadays. Their main objective is to keep the kids off the streets.

In this environment, classroom management skills are more important than teaching skills.

[LostAngeles]

Hmmn, I'm not so taken by Jamie Robert Vollmer's blueberries story. Yes, he was both ignorant and arrogant in the speech he gave, but he missed the point of the English teacher's rebuttal.

If we want our public schools to compare favorably with those in other countries, or even just to compare favorably with our private schools, we should do the same thing they do -- send the bad blueberries back. I have no idea how to implement this while still providing a free and appropriate public education for all children. Perhaps we need to look at what "appropriate" means in light of the fact that not all individuals are cut out, either by temperament or capability, to become scientists, engineers, doctors, lawyers, or other specialities.

Which is more unfair -- dumbing things down for those with IQs of 120, or removing the individuals with IQs of 80? (Yes, exaggeration, but as an illustration of the question.)

The only solution that we've tried, as a nation, is the "special school" idea, and it sucks. Separate is never equal. But how can a 12th-grade English teacher have a 12th-grade discussion of literature when half the class only reads at a 6th-grade level?
...

And then they come to me and LAUSD and the state of CA do all they can not to pay for them and I get just shy of $11/hr to teach these kids. The kids get upset and feel ****** because they often think that, on top of everything else, they're also "retards" so you get mixed results when you try to run the class like a regular ed school.

At least at first. Imagine how my kids in high school Physical Science felt when I dropped the text written for their grade level (except for some assignments) and busted out the text used in the regular high schools (which had contributions by the great and awesome phyz) and tried to do some labs.

Can they read the text? Not very well, but some will give it a shot to read out loud and appreciate getting help and start getting some confidence.

And no one wants to pay for this. This is the joy of teaching.

[ThunderChunky]

The point of course, is that if the cameraman were bad, you might have been watching the Damon interview from the neck down, and the cameraman would have gotten fired for not being able to keep the subject in the shot. The consequences for bad teachers with tenure, as opposed to bad cameramen, for instance, is that a large portion of an entire generation might graduate without being able to read. Tenure is the antithesis of accountability, and without accountability, it's the students (and by extension the rest of society) who suffer. I like Damon, but I think he's misguided on this issue. Tenure is a bad idea, especially for paid public employees or officials.

Tenure is used by colleges and universities and it helps protect academic freedom. Tenured Professors are still accountable...certain infractions are grounds for dismissal even they have tenure. You can aslo stop giving the bad professor raises, you can give them crummy assignments, and if things are really bad you can dissolve an entire department and then reform it without them.

It's not like high school teachers get tenure...they just have a powerful union that makes it hard to fire them.

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

... teachers would educate kids about a thing called "reality." Reality, you see, is antithetical to radical right wing ideology.
...schools are usually just trying to make it to the next year while dealing with constant budget cuts so that politicians can deliver on promised tax breaks.In reality, according to NCES (http://http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d10/tables/dt10_190.asp?referrer=list),"usually" politicians have handed the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel's schools (the "public" schools) more money every year.

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

...Public grade school tenure increases accountability in the system. No tenure means the employer has no accountability. They would not be required to explain terminations. Tenure means both the employer and the employee have accountability."Accountability" to whom? "Accountability" refers to feedback, where decision makers lose control over assets when they repeatedly make bad decisions, and gain control when they make good decisions. If you compare test scores and per pupil budgets internationally, the US "public" school system makes really bad decisions and does not suffer any loss of control. It is unaccountable.

Institutions evolve. Accountability mechanisms evolve. Enhanced competition spurs evolution. Tenure makes dismissal more difficult, and so makes teachers less accountable. In a State-monopoly system, neither a regime which featured tenure nor one without tenure would be accountable to customers (students), teachers, or taxpayers. Milton Friedman once said that the best protection a good worker has is a competitive market for his services.

In abstract, the education industry is an unlikely candidate for State (government, generally) operation. Federalism and markets institutionalize humility on the part of State actors. If a policy dispute (e.g., tenure) turns on a matter of taste, numerous local policy regimes and competitive markets in goods and services allow for the expression of varied tastes while the contest for control over a State-monopoly provider must ceate unhappy losers (who may constitute the majoriy; imagine the outcome of a nationwide voe on the one size of shoes we al must wear, or the one breakfast enu we all must eat). If a policy dispute turns on a matter of fact, where "What works?" is an empirical question, numerous local policy regimes and competitive makets in goods and services will generate ore information than will a State-monopoly provider. A State-monopoly provider is like an experiment with one treatment and no controls, a retarded experimental design.

I'm a fan, somewhat, but Matt Damon displays a superficial understanding of the education industry when he called teacher pay "******". For bottom-tier degree holders, they earn good money.