I stumbled across a working paper talking about incentives in Education through the freakonomics blog. The article basically states that incentives for teachers don't improve student performance. It was an outlier among other studies in other countries.
The article, while a difficult read, referenced some data from the digest of education statistics which stated that student to teacher ratios were DECREASING from 17.3 in 1989 to 15.5 in 2007. It also stated that average class size was around 23 in secondary schools and 20 in elementary schools.
I find this hard to swallow, but data is data. There are obviously some things taken into account which I have no idea about. All I know is anecdotal evidence suggests that in SOME schools class sizes are increasing.
I feel out of my league here with all these stats. I am stubborn so I haven't changed my mind on what I think is wrong. But perhaps other components of education have been harmed such as student motivation and enthusiasm, poor student-teacher interactions, or overworked teachers (incentives can't solve time problems). Lets just remind ourselves that learning is up to students. Teaching is up to teachers. I wonder what teachers would say is going awry in student achievement?
Two words: Parental involvement(or lack thereof).
ReplyDeleteOk, that was more than two words. That is the biggest issue I hear from the perspective of K-12 teachers. They can't teach the kids who don't want to and/or aren't prepared to learn. You can throw as many or as few resources at the problem as you want, but if the home environment is not one that values education, good luck reaching that kid.
I agree. The challenges we face can only be solved when the whole system is working in unison. And it all starts at home by making education a priority. It is also necessary to teach our children that life is all about learning, and that the number 1 incentive in education is learning. It is not educating yourself so you can have a job; rather the more learning you are able to do the more prepared and better skilled you will be at finding a career.
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