Author Topic: So it's Biden  (Read 14861 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

sirs

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 27078
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: So it's Biden....education tangent
« Reply #15 on: August 23, 2008, 04:56:02 PM »
 ::)   and again with the supposed "undefunded" theme.  Gazillions of $$$$$ we put into education, and it's still "underfunded"

Question(s): 
At what point is NCLB "fully funded"? 
At what point is Public Education "fully funded"?
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

BT

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 16143
    • View Profile
    • DebateGate
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 3
Re: So it's Biden
« Reply #16 on: August 23, 2008, 05:59:41 PM »
Perhaps we should forget about testing the students.

Perhaps we should just cut to the chase and test the teachers.

Let them pay for the testing too, like a licensing fee. Like lawyers have to pay bar fees to practice law. And beauticians have to be certified and licensed. .

The fees could be tax deductible, it is a business expense after all.




Plane

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 26993
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: So it's Biden
« Reply #17 on: August 23, 2008, 11:18:32 PM »
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/biden_world_reaction;
Quote
"Biden owes his selection to (Russian Prime Minister Vladimir) Putin,"

said French political analyst Dominique Moisi. "Russia's invasion of Georgia reinforced the American worry about international tensions." The choice of the foreign affairs veteran was intended to reassure the electorate concerned about Obama's lack of credentials, Moisi said.

In Britain, the North America editor for the British Broadcasting Corp., Justin Webb, said Biden was "Vladimir Putin's contribution to American politics — he is a necessary antidote to the Obama lack of worldly wisdom, which before Georgia was a bit academic to most Americans."

Webb said Republican presidential candidate John McCain had acquitted himself well during the Russian invasion of Georgia this month. McCain "took the 3 a.m. call. Obama needs a pal who can do the same," Webb wrote in his blog.

Biden's selection drew mixed reviews Saturday in Iraq because of his call two years ago to divide the country into autonomous regions along sectarian and ethnic lines. The proposal, made in a 2006 op-ed article in The New York Times, drew sharp criticism, especially from Sunni Arabs who opposed autonomy provisions that were written into the Iraqi constitution in 2005.






 All right ,does the selection of a Veep with lotsa "Gravitas" represent an acceptance of the oppositions criticism that BHO lacks depth and experience , that is to say ,he is a lightweight after all and Biden is welcome ballast?

Quote
Barack Obama's selection of Sen. Joe Biden as his vice presidential candidate Saturday was seen abroad as adding weight and depth to the foreign policy of a potential Obama administration.

Quote
Joe Biden is chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and has represented the small Eastern state of Delaware in the U.S. Senate for 36 years. The inclusion of the 65-year-old Biden on the ticket could help fight Republican arguments that Obama lacks experience in foreign policy.

.................

Obama, at age 47, is a relative newcomer to national politics, with less than four years in the Senate. His Republican opponent, veteran Arizona Senator John McCain, has argued that Obama lacks experience in foreign policy and national security matters.


http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-08-23-voa3.cfm?rss=topstories

Quote
Who does Biden appeal to that Obama doesn't? That is the basic problem.
http://www.propeller.com/story/2008/08/23/obama-picks-joe-biden-as-vp-candidate/



Yes , maybe so....


« Last Edit: August 23, 2008, 11:26:02 PM by Plane »

Cynthia

  • Guest
Re: So it's Biden
« Reply #18 on: August 24, 2008, 01:35:57 AM »
 it's still "underfunded?"


Yes, it is.

Question(s): 
At what point is NCLB "fully funded"? 
At what point is Public Education "fully funded"?



Ask Biden, he knows more than you ever will, Sirs.

« Last Edit: August 24, 2008, 01:39:50 AM by Cindy »

Cynthia

  • Guest
Re: So it's Biden
« Reply #19 on: August 24, 2008, 01:44:13 AM »
Perhaps we should forget about testing the students.

Perhaps we should just cut to the chase and test the teachers.

Let them pay for the testing too, like a licensing fee. Like lawyers have to pay bar fees to practice law. And beauticians have to be certified and licensed. .

The fees could be tax deductible, it is a business expense after all.






LOL

You miss the point of the value of testing children. But, of course....you have always  lacked awareness in this arena. Your comments are almost laughable...no...full on monty laughable.

This is not your arena, Bill.

Your response shows how little you know about the subject.

But, I give your credit for your need to make an armchair throw in the arena. Bless your heart. You think you know...but alas, lass, you do not.

BT

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 16143
    • View Profile
    • DebateGate
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 3
Re: So it's Biden
« Reply #20 on: August 24, 2008, 01:48:34 AM »
Quote
Ask Biden, he knows more than you ever will, Sirs.

Why ask Biden he'll just plagiarizer someone else's answers.

BT

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 16143
    • View Profile
    • DebateGate
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 3
Re: So it's Biden
« Reply #21 on: August 24, 2008, 01:49:53 AM »
Quote
LOL

You miss the point of the value of testing children. But, of course....you have always  lacked awareness in this arena. Your comments are almost laughable...no...full on monty laughable.

This is not your arena, Bill.

Your response shows how little you know about the subject.

But, I give your credit for your need to make an armchair throw in the arena. Bless your heart. You think you know...but alas, lass, you do not.

Perhaps you are too close to the subject matter to look at it objectively.

I can see how testing teachers might appear threatening.


Cynthia

  • Guest
Re: So it's Biden
« Reply #22 on: August 24, 2008, 02:00:40 AM »
Quote
LOL

You miss the point of the value of testing children. But, of course....you have always  lacked awareness in this arena. Your comments are almost laughable...no...full on monty laughable.

This is not your arena, Bill.

Your response shows how little you know about the subject.

But, I give your credit for your need to make an armchair throw in the arena. Bless your heart. You think you know...but alas, lass, you do not.

Perhaps you are too close to the subject matter to look at it objectively.

I can see how testing teachers might appear threatening.



to put it in the way as one we all know and love.....


Bzzzzzzzzzz wrong!

LOL  too silly to respond to, BT...

Not worth a reply, hon.


BT

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 16143
    • View Profile
    • DebateGate
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 3
Re: So it's Biden
« Reply #23 on: August 24, 2008, 02:02:40 AM »
Quote
LOL  too silly to responde to, BT...

Not worth a reply, hon.

Must have hit a nerve.

I am surprised you don't want the children to have the very best.


Cynthia

  • Guest
Re: So it's Biden
« Reply #24 on: August 24, 2008, 02:07:11 AM »
Quote
LOL  too silly to responde to, BT...

Not worth a reply, hon.

Must have hit a nerve.

I am surprised you don't want the children to have the very best.



LOL...come on, BT, you'll know it when you have hit my nerve.  ;)

I want the children to have the best, and that's what I am saying. On the other hand you are ignorant, and frankly, I feel for you on this issue.

But, I don't have time to feel for you. I have a job to do.


BT

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 16143
    • View Profile
    • DebateGate
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 3
Re: So it's Biden
« Reply #25 on: August 24, 2008, 02:10:50 AM »
Quote
I want the children to have the best, and that's what I am saying. On the other hand you are ignorant, and frankly, I feel for you on this issue.

So why the fear of being tested?


Cynthia

  • Guest
Re: So it's Biden
« Reply #26 on: August 24, 2008, 02:13:00 AM »
Quote
I want the children to have the best, and that's what I am saying. On the other hand you are ignorant, and frankly, I feel for you on this issue.

So why the fear of being tested?



Ok, let me explain it to you reaaaly sloowwwly....

that's my POINT. I, we, have been tested, Bill.

I assumed you assumed that to be my point.

There is no fear. There is no point to make.

There is, however more to the story than you understand. Thus, I won't be able to discuss the issue with you.

But, I apprecitate the effort.

BT

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 16143
    • View Profile
    • DebateGate
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 3
Re: So it's Biden
« Reply #27 on: August 24, 2008, 02:19:52 AM »
Quote
hat's my POINT. I, we, have been tested, Bill.

Really. How often are you tested?

BTW do you think teacher pay should be tied to performance?

BT

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 16143
    • View Profile
    • DebateGate
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 3
Re: So it's Biden
« Reply #28 on: August 24, 2008, 02:28:06 AM »
Apparently New York City thinks evaluating teacher performance is OK. No surprise seeing who is against the idea.

************************************************************************

New York Measuring Teachers by Test Scores

   
By JENNIFER MEDINA
Published: January 21, 2008

New York City has embarked on an ambitious experiment, yet to be announced, in which some 2,500 teachers are being measured on how much their students improve on annual standardized tests.

The move is so contentious that principals in some of the 140 schools participating have not told their teachers that they are being scrutinized based on student performance and improvement.

While officials say it is too early to determine how they will use the data, which is already being collected, they say it could eventually be used to help make decisions on teacher tenure or as a significant element in performance evaluations and bonuses. And they hold out the possibility that the ratings for individual teachers could be made public.

?If the only thing we do is make this data available to every person in the city ? every teacher, every parent, every principal, and say do with it what you will ? that will have been a powerful step forward,? said Chris Cerf, the deputy schools chancellor who is overseeing the project. ?If you know as a parent what?s the deal, I think that whole aspect will change behavior.?

The effort comes as educators nationwide are struggling to figure out how to find, train and measure good teachers. Many education experts say that until teacher quality improves in urban schools, student performance is likely to stagnate and the achievement gap between white and minority students will never be closed. Other school systems, including those in Dallas and Houston as well as in the whole state of Tennessee, are also using student performance and improvement as factors in evaluating teachers.

The United Federation of Teachers, the city?s teachers? union, has known about the experiment for months, but has not been told which schools are involved, because the Education Department has promised those principals confidentiality.

Randi Weingarten, the union president, said she had grave reservations about the project, and would fight if the city tried to use the information for tenure or formal evaluations or even publicized it. She and the city disagree over whether such moves would be allowed under the contract.

?There is no way that any of this current data could actually, fairly, honestly or with any integrity be used to isolate the contributions of an individual teacher,? Ms. Weingarten said. ?If one permitted this, it would be one of the worst decisions of my professional life.?

New York invited principals from hundreds of elementary and middle schools with sufficient annual testing data to participate in the program, which will produce an elaborate stream of data on 2,500 teachers.

In 140 schools ? a tenth of the roughly 1,400 in the system ? teachers are being measured on how many students in their classes meet basic progress goals, how much student performance grows each year, and how that improvement compares with the performance of similar students with other teachers.

In another 140 schools, principals are being asked to make subjective evaluations of roughly the same number of teachers so officials can see if the two systems produce widely disparate results. New York City schools employ roughly 77,000 teachers. In all 280 schools, the principals agreed to participate in the program.

Deputy Chancellor Cerf said that how students performed on tests would not be the only factor considered in any system to rate teachers. All decisions will include personal circumstances and experiences, he said, but the point will be to put a focus on whether or not students are improving.

?This isn?t about how hard we try,? Mr. Cerf said. ?This is about however you got here, are your students learning??

Ms. Weingarten said the system was not needed. ?Any real educator can know within five minutes of walking into a classroom if a teacher is effective,? she said. ?These tests were never intended and have never been validated for the use of evaluating teachers.?

The experiment is in line with the city?s increasing use of standardized test scores to measure whether students are improving, and to judge school quality. A new bonus program for teachers and principals, as well as the letter grading system for schools unveiled last fall, are all linked to improvement in scores. Nationally, too, school systems are increasingly relying on these measures to judge schools.

Virtually all education experts agree that finding high-quality teachers is critical to improving student learning, particularly in high-poverty urban areas, where good teachers are usually more difficult to find. Recent research has found that the best teachers can help struggling students catch up to more advanced students within three years.

But experts are grappling with how to determine what makes a good teacher. Neither graduate programs in education schools nor previous academic records are reliable predictors, they say. The federal No Child Left Behind law requires that districts place a ?highly qualified? teacher in every classroom, which typically means one who has completed a certification program, but this, too, is not necessarily a good indicator of quality.

?It seems hard to know who is going to be effective in the classroom until they are actually in the classroom,? said Thomas J. Kane, a professor of education and economics at Harvard, who is conducting several research projects on teacher quality in New York City, and who is involved in the new effort.

Mr. Kane said there was little evidence that teachers with the ?right paper qualifications? were any more effective than those without them. ?But most school districts spend very little time trying to assess how good teachers are in their first couple of years, when it is most important,? he said.

Nationwide, more than 95 percent of teachers receive tenure within their first three years of teaching, according to some studies. And once teachers receive tenure, it is extremely difficult to have them removed from classrooms.

In some sense, New York?s effort to judge teachers partly on their students? improvement is a logical extension of the grading system for schools that was unveiled last fall, although officials adamantly say they have no plans to assign letter grades to individual teachers.

?I don?t think anyone here would embrace the formulaic use of even the most sophisticated instrument ? you get tenure if this, you don?t get tenure if that,? Mr. Cerf said.

He added that the new effort was just one of several ways in which the city was exploring how to evaluate and improve teacher quality. In recent months, city officials have begun training new lawyers to help principals navigate the considerable red tape required to remove inadequate teachers.

They have increased recruiting efforts to attract talented teachers to hard-to-staff schools. And they are allowing schools to earn merit bonus pools to distribute to teachers based on test scores.

?This should simply be one more way to think about things,? said Frank A. Cimino, the principal of P.S. 193 in Brooklyn, who said he was participating in the experiment. ?It is going to tell you some things you don?t know, but it will miss the other things that go on in a classroom.?

William Sanders, a researcher in North Carolina who was one of the first to begin evaluating teachers and schools based on student test score improvements, said that while such a system could be used to make broad judgments, it was difficult to use it with precision enough to find differences among teachers who are simply average.

?Can you distinguish the top teachers? Yes,? Mr. Sanders said. ?Can you distinguish the bottom teachers? The answer is yes, too. But it would be risky to make decisions using information at the classroom level for teachers who are just in the middle. You might miss a lot that way.?

The city?s pilot program uses a statistical analysis to measure students? previous-year test scores, their numbers of absences and whether they receive special education services or free lunch, as well as class size, among other factors.

Based on all those factors, that analysis then sets a ?predicted gain? for a teacher?s class, which is measured against students? actual gains to determine how much a teacher has contributed to students? growth.

The two-page report for each teacher examines information both from one year and over three years. The information also compares the teacher with all other teachers in the city, and with teachers who have similar classrooms and experience levels. The second part of the report measures how well a teacher does with students with different skill levels, showing, for example, whether the teacher seems to work well with struggling students.

Mr. Cerf said officials expected to decide by the ?early summer? whether they would use the analysis to evaluate individual teachers for tenure or other decisions, and if so, how they would do so. Such a decision would undoubtedly open up a legal battle with the teacher?s union.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/21/nyregion/21teachers.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

Cynthia

  • Guest
Re: So it's Biden
« Reply #29 on: August 24, 2008, 02:37:50 AM »
Quote
hat's my POINT. I, we, have been tested, Bill.

Really. How often are you tested?

BTW do you think teacher pay should be tied to performance?


Teachers in our district are tested before they are even hired.  Veteran teachers, like myself are subject to re-evaluations which require proof of a specific expertise.

I have always been able to prove my expertise in that way.

 My concern is that no matter how much we test an individual, there is more to being a good educator teacher/facilitator than a score from a test/exam. For example: A master musician does not always make the best music teacher. In fact, the performing artist is not typically capable of being a teacher/educator. In spite of the assumtion that a quality performing artist can do no wrong.  It takes a particular skill to "teach" coupled with a certain tested knowledge.
 This is why I feel that you do not understand the 'art of teaching', BT. You want a one dimensional "point", score to prove excellence.

That's where you are lacking in awareness of this arena of education.

There's more to the issue than you will ever understand. I see that each and every time you post on this issue.
« Last Edit: August 24, 2008, 02:44:45 AM by Cindy »