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from the those-who-can,-do,-those-who-can't,-teach dept.
In the US: this article presents an analysis how a person's chosen college major corresponds to their IQ. The interesting thing is that the relationship has remained essentially stable over the past 70 years. At the top of the list are math, science and engineering. At the absolute bottom of the list: education.
These data show that US students who choose to major in education, essentially the bulk of people who become teachers, have for at least the last seven decades been selected from students at the lower end of the academic aptitude pool. A 2010 McKinsey report (pdf) by Byron Auguste, Paul Kihn, and Matt Miller noted that top performing school systems, such as those in Singapore, Finland, and South Korea, "recruit 100% of their teacher corps from the top third of the academic cohort."
The article points out that it isn't quite this simple: Top schools place high requirements on all of their students; poor schools generally attract lower quality students in all of their programs. Still, the national averages are clear: overall, the least intelligent students go on to teach. This is an odd priority.
Educational organizations, of course, have a different view. This article claims that teacher quality declined from the 1960s through the 1990s, but has since recovered, with teachers being barely below average (48th percentile) among college graduates.
On a related note, there is a strong international correlation between teacher pay and student outcomes. The (rather obvious) theory is that higher pay attracts better candidates to the teaching profession.
No conclusions - just thought this might spark an interesting discussion...
(Score: 3, Informative) by Nerdfest on Friday July 01 2016, @02:09PM
What bothers me is that it is a very attractive vocation with lots of job protection and fantastic pay and working conditions, but they keep striking (here in Ontario). They want higher pay, etc, but there is a huge supply of unemployed teachers. I'd like to see some market factors come into play here. Lower the pay and hire more teachers, giving more attention to each student, smaller classes, etc. Added bonus is higher employment as well.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @02:53PM
Lower the pay
Your idea sounds awesome! Drive them all into poverty, that will teach them! (pun intended)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @03:55PM
Nope, he wants to give money to the unemployed teachers. Without expanding education funding this naturally means decreasing wages for the employed teachers so that new positions can be opened.
You're a horrible person for not caring about these people and wanting to just let the currently hired ones monopolize it all. Horrible!! Poverty lover!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday July 01 2016, @03:45PM
All this teacher-hate is a relatively recent thing, coinciding with parents no longer accepting accountability for their shit kids' rotten behavior as well as spineless administrators who started insisting that teachers allow students to do whatever the fuck they want and not be punished for it. Teaching as we know it is what we called "babysitting" 20 years ago.
On the other hand, all the time I was in school, I never saw these so-called "horror-teachers" the anti-unionists are discussing. I went to school in many different schools in 2 different states and in poor counties -- and not only were the teachers passionate about what they did, but the ones who did fuck up had fires lit under their asses by administration.
Even as recently as 20-30 years ago teaching was a noble and rewarding profession, but now you have crap like no child left behind and teaching to standardized tests. Back in the days when I was in school, the dumb kids and the fuckups were marginalized. Now, thanks to political correctness (and conveniently the Republican love of cheap labor and the Democrat love of votes from useful idiot leeches), the fuckup kids get to drag down the education of the whole class. Now many of them have to teach Common-core, which is obviously designed to break students' wills and indoctrinate them into obedience of the state.
And for all the bitching about teachers' unions, where is all the bitching about government employees' unions, or prison guards' unions? Why the fuck do they need unions anyway, not that they have a goddamn thing to worry about. I've seen waaaaaay more incompetent government unionists than teachers' unionists. Where is all the crying about them?!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Friday July 01 2016, @06:26PM
I don't "hate" teachers, although where I am, I think they're overpaid based on the number of people that are wiling to teach. I also think standardized testing is a great idea at a bare *minimum* to make sure that education is actually working, and how well. I agree with about the lack of responsibility for children, although I blame that on parents, not on teachers, and yes, it's dragging down everyone else. Teachers here generally have several "assistants" to help manage the kid that should not be in that class. That's a separate problem of course. The curriculum in general has been screwed up in many ways as well. What they've done to mathematics and arithmetic in elementary school is absolutely ridiculous and is quite detrimental.
Personally, I think teachers should also work year-round, with the summer being used for improving course curriculum and materials. I keep hearing "Oh, I spend 2 hours a night preparing course material". We've been teaching these same courses for a very long time. The material and planning should be laid out down to the day (with some slack of course, and options), but for every teacher to be doing it manually each year is silly. If teachers want to do something different, that's fine, but there is a certain level that must be attained.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 02 2016, @11:25AM
Teaching isn't like writing a song, and then singing that same song for the next 50 years until you retire.
"They" have done something to mathematics. Oops, there goes all your hard work planning your course just right. Now you have to make a new one that fits 'common core' or whatever this years flavour is called. You have to "manage kids", of course they are all the same, and what works with one is interchangeable with another. You want teachers to get better and better, but spend no time on improving their plans and course material. It's not like "facts" ever change is it. Until "they" all decide slavery isn't important anymore and everyone should learn programming now instead. Lucky no one ever discovers anything new, or invents anything. Nothing ever changes to a new version and things don't go in and out of fashion.
Ahh the republican dream time, it's the 1950's and nothing will ever change.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Friday July 01 2016, @06:38PM
Also, I agree about the public employee unions, and I'm even currently in one (not by choice). Pay for public jobs should be fixed, with the pay tied to the cost of living. I' have heard lots of complaining about government unions though, and much of it is deserved.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 02 2016, @08:36AM
My first grade teacher was married to the local union boss. She got away with everything. Mostly, she went to Hawaii and left us with substitutes.
My high school physics teacher was head of the department. He taught about 30 days of honors physics. The rest of the time was spent running a blood drive, going outside to smoke, and maybe doing some yearbook stuff.