Wow -- California Teacher Tenure Laws Ruled Unconstitutional
Jennifer Medina writes in The New York Times:
LOS ANGELES -- A California judge ruled Tuesday that teacher tenure laws deprive students of their right to an education under the state Constitution. The decision hands teachers' unions a major defeat in a landmark case, one that could radically alter how California teachers are hired and fired and prompt challenges to tenure laws in other states."Substantial evidence presented makes it clear to this court that the challenged statutes disproportionately affect poor and/or minority students," Judge Rolf M. Treu of Los Angeles Superior Court wrote in the ruling. "The evidence is compelling. Indeed, it shocks the conscience."
The ruling, which was enthusiastically endorsed by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, brings to a close the first chapter of the case, Vergara v. California, in which a group of student plaintiffs argued that state tenure laws had deprived them of a decent education by leaving bad teachers in place.
The teachers' unions said Tuesday that they planned to appeal.
via @clairecmartin
Whoa! Going to be interesting to see how this plays out. Of course, bad teachers is only part of the problem, and maybe not the biggest part.
Cousin Dave at June 10, 2014 3:02 PM
Teacher tenure at the grade school level has never made sense to me.
Tenure at the college level, sure. I understand the reasons for that, and tenure is granted as a reward for distinguished research in many/most cases.
But, can somebody explain why a kindergarten teacher deserves tenure simply because she or he has taught kindergarten for 10 years?
flbeachmom at June 10, 2014 3:38 PM
But, can somebody explain why a kindergarten teacher deserves tenure simply because she or he has taught kindergarten for 10 years?
Posted by: flbeachmom at June 10, 2014 3:38 PM
Because teaching is governed by a union contract?
I don't think this court decision is going to stand. It is a tenuous connection between tenure, and educational outcome at best. Not enough, probably for an appellate court.
Ruling a union contract term unconstitutional is going to take more balls than the entire California court system possesses.
Isab at June 10, 2014 3:43 PM
Devil's advocate here.
Say you are an excellent KG teacher. You've put in 10 years, you've learned how to handle every sort of parent (uncaring, overbearing, etc), and you handle all sorts of children with grace. You've done well all 10 years and have improved with each experience.
Now there's a new superintendent or a change in the school board and they want to make BIG CHANGES. Maybe somebody decides to add a new favorite program or reduce student-teacher ratio. Budget cuts are coming... and as a KG teacher you are easily replaced by a straight-from-school who will cost less. BUT, that teacher (who could be just as awesome as you were at that point) will be of unknown quality and will lack the experience you have.
Schools are, at some level, political tools for some. Protecting good teachers from being discarded in penny-wise-pound-foolish maneuvers can be a good thing.
However, it should be based on some measure of merit, not years served or some such.
My son's teacher, would be an example. She's got grown kids and has been teaching since they were little (or earlier). She'd be a more expensive elementary ed teacher. I'm pretty hard to please when it comes to my kids' education, but I have to say, she's really good. SHE would deserve tenure.
Shannon Howell at June 10, 2014 4:45 PM
There are 2 sides to the tenure coin. One, as Shannon says, is to protect good teachers. I have to ask, though, if a teacher is that good, why do they need such protection? Shouldn't their excellent job performance guarantee their job security? Other unions, like the IBEW don't have tenure.
The other side is that tenure does make it nearly impossible to fire a bad teacher. Look at NYC, where they have teachers stacked like cordwood in the infamous Rubber Rooms, spending their days in "detention" so to speak because they are so bad the schools don't dare let them near a classroom. They get paid to do crossword puzzles and drink coffee all day because of tenure.
I have had experience with both good and bad teachers, both in my school days and my kids. I had to work extra hard to keep my girls motivated and learning because of bad teachers that literally crushed the love of learning from them. One, my eldest girl's first grade teacher had been sued 6 times and still had her job. ( we lived in a small town, there was only 1 first grade, I couldn't even switch her to another class). I was in the Principal's office every week about her, and the only reason Tam made it thru was because I had her back. (An example of what this teacher , and I use the term loosely, did. She taped Tam to her chair for fidgeting, and wouldn't let her go to the bathroom, with the obvious results.)
So I don't believe that tenure, at least at the K-12 level is necessary, and it can even be counterproductive.
Kat at June 10, 2014 5:11 PM
> However, it should be based on some measure
> of merit, not years served or some such.
1. I hate your first comma.
2. Why, why, why are we so concerned about "merit" for teachers? Do we worry about merit for insurance salesman, or janitors?
NOBODY, on the surface of this planet, deserves "tenure." CERTAINLY not a teacher. Certainly not a public employee of any description.
If you work for the public and [A.] you screw up or [B.] you become less valuable to us in any other context, you deserve to have your salary appropriately trimmed.
And when that happens, if you decide to go do something else with your very special talents, that will be fine with everybody.
I'll just never understand the fascination our culture has with making teacher's lives go perfectly... Their talents are just not that special.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 10, 2014 5:27 PM
I suspect the opinion is blatant humbug. Nice to see a Democratic Party client impaled by judicial misfeasance. Enough of this and maybe the Democratic Party will agree to castrate the judiciary (as they richly deserve).
Art Deco at June 10, 2014 5:53 PM
Arty, have you ever done anything for another human being? With your own money, I mean? With your own time?
Jus' curious.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 10, 2014 6:28 PM
>>I'll just never understand the fascination our culture has with making teacher's lives go perfectly... Their talents are just not that special.
Then maybe you should read up on the subject instead of talking out your ass. That's my speciality so I know it when I see it.
Assholio at June 10, 2014 6:29 PM
There is no excuse, none, for the cancerous growth of expenditures society has thrown at education, higher and otherwise.
It surprises me not at all, "Assholio," to learn that you're part of the problem. It's precisely coherent with the apple-polishing, socially-timid, politically-isolated thinking we've seen from you on so many, many topics.
Nozick:
You should read the whole thing, but you won't find the time, as you don't have the courage.
Your "specialty," you call it.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 10, 2014 6:47 PM
And now I'm imagining the fields in which you'd boast of "dabbling."
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 10, 2014 7:06 PM
I apologize for the first comma in the fourth line at 5:27pm, "nobody."
But it was a rough neighborhood. I was doing what I had to do to survive.
Crid at June 10, 2014 7:13 PM
>>It surprises me not at all, "Assholio," to learn that you're part of the problem.
It surprises me not at all, "Crid" to learn that you are completely unable to comprehend my post. I explicitly did not state a position. I simply pointed out that if you did not understand the reasons why we have tenure - which I presumed from your post about making teachers lives special - then you should do more research before you comment.
I read the drivel you posted, one intellectual criticizing other intellectuals without making a real point or addressing a single issue involved in the original process whereby tenure was created.
Now, while I understand the reasons why tenure came about, look it up if you don't know, I can't defend it. The federal government has already done the end around the effort to keep politics out of teaching. It is a done deal and tenure for k-12 school teachers should go away.
Also I would like to point out that I always enjoy your personal attacks. While unimaginative and uninspired I always enjoy the knowledge that it is the best you can do in terms of a response.
Assholio at June 10, 2014 7:15 PM
Now all we have to do is boot the administrators out and increase teacher salaries to get some competition going ...
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at June 10, 2014 7:43 PM
>>Now all we have to do is boot the administrators out and increase teacher salaries to get some competition going ...
And get some people who are capable of making a value judgement without zero tolerance policies.
Assholio at June 10, 2014 7:46 PM
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060921144723AAxD91k
=== ===
Tenure was created to ensure only that employment could not be severed for a single impermissible reason-to punish a faculty member for his or her exercise of independent research or relevant classroom speech, no matter how controversial. It protected the exercise of academic freedom. Tenure ensured that some form of institutional due process, using a peer-review system, was available for adjudicating threatened job terminations, to guarantee such punishments were not applied to faculty members exercising their legitimate academic freedom.
=== ===
Tenure for teachers without research responsibilities is a scam. It is a practice misapplied to public employment in response to the pure power of teacher's unions who have bought the legislatures wherever possible.
Tenure for faculty could be reasonable, but is mostly a joke. Liberal minded schools make sure that conservative thinkers never get close to tenure. Conservatives get the message early that it would be better to work for some other institution. Faculty find it pleasant to use any reason to be granted a job for life.
Note that tenure as originally conceived was to apply only to academic disputes, and not be a bar to dismissing a professor for cause.
Leftists believe that government is a magnet for the best thinkers with altruistic motives. So, government should be given power to plan and run everything. Then, they demnd tenure so that the effing politicians won't fire them in order to hire a stupid cousin. A big contradiction.
Andrew_M_Garland at June 10, 2014 9:18 PM
Andrew_M_Garland: I take my hat off to you sir; well said.
Assholio at June 10, 2014 9:33 PM
I only know of tenure saving bad teachers. I think the decisions linkage to discrimination is weak - at least on the surface. But that tenure in general degrades students' "right" to a "good" education seams reasonable.
I liked the way it worked at my undergraduate college...as described by a prof there when I attended....tenure means priority for an office with a window and if you screw up like get to wrapped up in your research for a semester and don't do a good job of teaching you get a second chance.
The Former Banker at June 10, 2014 10:26 PM
> completely unable to comprehend my post.
Not just "unable," you aver; "completely." It's the pillar fantasy of an edjumication bot's interior. In some early year, often the seventh, they'll decide the reason they're not admired is that they're just too darned smart for others to appreciate. It becomes a bad habit: Forsaking humility in that fashion works in all contexts, so many academic weasels (or mere "specialists") never develop any richer understanding of conflict, dispute resolution, or even the perspectives of other people. Their isolation has costs:
We're thinking about politics tonight, because of the delight in Virginia. Kinsley famously said a gaffe is not when politicians lie, but when they tell truth. In politics and P.R., the popular expression is "walkback." But reading your words --
> I explicitly did not state a position.
-- calls to mind something more panicked than a walk... More like a pale guy furiously cinching a bathrobe by the public pool at high noon, loudly insisting that no woman has ever seen his naked weenus. Far too easy to believe, Buttercup: You've spent a lifetime practicing colorless, meaningless speech.
> I simply pointed out that if you
> did not understand the reasons
> why we have tenure
First— The "simply" is wordy. Nothing on this blog is very complex.
Secondly, I grew up on a campus, know all about that shit, and well recognize the careerist filth that's come to be sustained on most every campus by tenure and the needless pulse of entitlement it sends washing through academic hearts.
No, Pilgrim, we all recognize Amy's topic. The rest of us, I mean. Whatever your actual "specialty," it's confused you.
Garland's comment is a weird little offering, but handsomely begs the question at hand: What innovative or "controversial" thinking is today defended in the mentality of tenure-track academe, whether or not the blessing itself is often yet conferred? This fraudulence in American education has been blindingly obvious my whole life, and I'm not young.
The remarkable thing about this blog post was how easy it was for me (no obsessive about these topics, at least for grade schools) and, say, commenter Shannon (presumed to be a typical citizen) to readily accept that "tenure" would in California be applicable to kindergarten teachers.
For what? For the love of God, why? For daring, counter-intuitive innovations in alphabet recitation? Or something darker?
Three years ago, a teacher in Southern California was (convincingly) accused of feeding students his semen on cookies. It took a year, and a $40,000 payout, to get him off the payroll.
Tenure? For schoolteachers? With tens of millions of productive Americans out of work?
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 11, 2014 12:10 AM
Here is Philip Greenspun with a very Philip Greenspun take on it.
"A judge has ruled that Californa’s laws giving school teachers tenure after 18 months is unconstitutional (nytimes) on the grounds that it means some students will be taught by incompetents. But why does that follow? ..."
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2014/06/10/why-is-californias-teacher-tenure-unconstitutional/
jerry at June 11, 2014 12:26 AM
When someone's wrong on this blog, I enjoy telling them why.
But one problem with doing so is that no matter how much time's spent on a comment, a few minutes later I'll remember other ways they were wrong that I forgot to mention.
That just happened... In the comments about academe.
When I make fun of Amy —who adores sociology— it's often for this kind of failed self-awareness:
In the liberal arts alone, there are ninety-thousand academic conferences every year, recession or no.
In how many would you expect more intellectual diversity than was demonstrated in the social science example described above?
Tenure isn't cute. It's not a forgivable leftover from our intellectual heritage, any more than an infected appendix is a tolerable burden to an otherwise sturdy digestive system. It doesn't deserve respect; the legal contracts presently fattening its older, retired enthusiasts might well deserve taxpayer disavowal.
As of Tuesday, the national public debt is $17,548,899,562,327.27.
I bet we can do better things with the money.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 11, 2014 2:24 AM
"I explicitly did not state a position."
"Explicitly" and "not" appear to conflict. Patrick has done this, to the blog's detriment.
And for those of us who spectate, Crid's command of prose indicates the superior grade-point average.
I wish he would write a book. I'd buy it. On Errors of Cognition or some such. It wouldn't even have to be correct, it would be so pretty.
Radwaste at June 11, 2014 2:38 AM
Shitty GPA (about 2.5 when it was all over); not pretty to people who really know how to write.
> Conservatives get the message early that
> it would be better to work for some other
> institution.
The essay of the month about that is here.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 11, 2014 3:58 AM
So now I'm curious: who do you think really knows how to write?
Tiny voice, Deputy Dawg (Truman Capote?): "That's not writing, that's typewriting."
Radwaste at June 11, 2014 4:10 AM
I really like this, because my uncle is a civil engineer, who quit that for 5 years to teach math to ESL kids, but couldn't stand the incompetent boobs that made up most of the tenured faculty in Santa Barbara's schools. Between them and the administrations of the schools he worked at, I was always surprised he lasted 5 years in teaching.
spqr2008 at June 11, 2014 5:21 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/06/10/wow_--_californ.html#comment-4746850">comment from Crid [CridComment at Gmail]When I make fun of Amy —who adores sociology
I don't "adore sociology." In fact, I find that sociologists' studies are some of the most methodologically flawed, save for those of the drug industry where fraud like "publication bias" (not publishing stats that don't support a drug's supposed efficacy) is truly rampant.
What I do is look for a body of research on a subject, which (through repeated findings of the same thing, suggests the findings are not chance or a quirk or just bad math that is beyond me and probably most mortals. (I'm coached by a math genius epidemiologist who can spot math errors almost immediately that it would take a team of brightsters at MIT a long time to dig up.) Luckily, methodological errors like a too small sample size or the wrong question asked or badly set up studies (like Hatfield and Clark's campus sex study) are easier to spot if you've been trained to look for them, which I have, by this guy who coaches me.
Amy Alkon at June 11, 2014 6:02 AM
"And for those of us who spectate, Crid's command of prose indicates the superior grade-point average."
Crid's command of prose, indicates a superior intellect.
Grade average is a very poor proxy for intellect.
Isab at June 11, 2014 6:04 AM
Peoples understanding of tenure here seems rather incomplete.
Tenure does not make teachers impervious from being fired for gross negligence. It simply ensures that they receive a due process proceeding prior to being fired.
It makes sure that there is a system in place to determine if the reasons their administrator wants to fire them are valid.
So why would that matter one might ask... it's not like other jobs get due process proceedings prior to being firing someone.
The problem has to do with what a teachers job entails.
The job of a teacher isn't merely to educate children... it is also to grade and evaluate their performance.
Imagine you are the teacher of the son or daughter of the school board president. Imagine you have no tenure. Are you really going to risk losing your job by giving them a failing grade when that particular kid deserves it?
That is the kind of problem that tenure resolves.
It helps to separate teachers from the politics than can exist when a well connected parents child happens to be within their classroom.
In that manner it helps to ensure the integrity of the student evaluation system.
Get rid of tenure and watch the grades go up while the actual education level of the students remains exactly the same.
Artemis at June 11, 2014 6:08 AM
Protecting good teachers from being discarded in penny-wise-pound-foolish maneuvers can be a good thing.
True.
But that's not what tenure and unions are about. It's about protecting underperforming, bad, or just straight up incompetents[*] from getting the axe.
And siphoning off large enough sums of money to the unions so they can donate it back to political campaigns who promise to raise teachers salaries so that the unions can collect more dues.
One hand washes the other.
[*] when Florida instituted the FCAT test many years ago, someone decided that the teachers should be able to pass the same test. More than a few of them could not.
I R A Darth Aggie at June 11, 2014 6:13 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/06/10/wow_--_californ.html#comment-4746915">comment from IsabGrade average is a very poor proxy for intellect.
Isab is correct. I barely paid attention in school (too busy reading books I found interesting) and got good grades because I was able to write papers, right on the typewriter, that got As. Had I not been able to do that, I either (probably, in my case) would have done the work required or gotten poor grades.
Amy Alkon at June 11, 2014 6:26 AM
"What I do is look for a body of research on a subject, which (through repeated findings of the same thing, suggests the findings are not chance or a quirk or just bad math that is beyond me and probably most mortals. "
If they all are using the same faulty data, it doesn't matter that they agree on the results.
A better tool for analyzing any kind of study, is to look at the assumptions, and data selection, and see what, if anything, underpins the study.
99 percent of social science is crap, because there are too many variables that are impossible to control for.
Climate scientists fell into this same sort of trap. Their original assumption for global warming was that CO2 was the driver for increasing global temperatures. (CO2 increases were causing the planet to get warmer)
If CO2 is a lagging indicator, (something else is causing the planet to get warmer which is increasing vegetation, which gives off more CO2)
it doesn't matter how good your math is.
One wrong assumption invalidates the entire study.
Most studies don't rest on just one assumption. Researches make many such assumptions, for no particularly good reason, other than it leads to the results that they want to see (the results they are usually getting paid to find)
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/oct/01/tenfold-increase-science-paper-retracted-fraud
Isab at June 11, 2014 6:33 AM
"Tenure does not make teachers impervious from being fired for gross negligence. It simply ensures that they receive a due process proceeding prior to being fired."
If you ever examine the way it works in practice, I think you would find, that the hoops an administrator has to jump through in order to build a case to fire an incompetent teacher, puts the process out of reach for an administrator that has anything else to do.
Due Process can be made so complicated as to be an impossibility. Complicating matters, most administrators serve at the pleasure of the school board, who's ability to get elected, and re-elected, is largely controlled by those same teacher's unions.
Isab at June 11, 2014 6:40 AM
Artemis said:
"Tenure does not make teachers impervious from being fired for gross negligence. It simply ensures that they receive a due process proceeding prior to being fired.
It makes sure that there is a system in place to determine if the reasons their administrator wants to fire them are valid."
My question is, why is tenure a requirement for this process? Shouldn't all teachers, tenured or not, have this protection? If that is all tenure does, then it seems to me to be the wrong tool to fix this problem.
flbeachmom at June 11, 2014 6:59 AM
Isab Says:
"If CO2 is a lagging indicator, (something else is causing the planet to get warmer which is increasing vegetation, which gives off more CO2)"
I'm going to very briefly go off topic to suggest that you may not be the best judge of climate science if your above statement is an indicator of your knowledge level on this subject.
Increasing vegetation does not "give off more CO2".
Increasing vegetation results in a net reduction in CO2 because plants convert CO2 to O2 at a rate ~10x faster than they metabolize O2 to form CO2.
This is why plants are a source of oxygen... they produce oxygen more rapidly from photosynthesis than they do carbon dioxide from aerobic metabolism.
So while I agree with your statement that "One wrong assumption invalidates the entire study."... I will add that one wrong assumption also invalidates someones opinion on a particular subject.
If you want to understand the claims in climate science studies getting the whole idea about plants producing a net increase in CO2 is going to set you down a very wrong path.
Artemis at June 11, 2014 7:52 AM
flbeachmom asks:
"My question is, why is tenure a requirement for this process? Shouldn't all teachers, tenured or not, have this protection?"
It isn't that tenure is a requirement for this process... tenure is just the name given to that protection.
What you are asking is why all teachers don't just start off being tenured.
This is why I find these conversations so interesting.
Most people don't actually know what tenure is.
They think it is a contractual guarantee of employment no matter what.
That isn't what tenure is.
Tenure just means that you can't be fired without a due process proceeding.
That is all there is to it.
A teacher without tenure can in principal be fired because they failed the son or daughter of the superintendent... it would be almost impossible to do that to a teacher with tenure because the due process proceeding would turn up no evidence that would warrant their dismissal.
Teaching isn't like other professions in that you are put in a position to grade and evaluate individuals who may have the power to fire you.
Generally speaking the people who do the evaluating are the ones with the ability to fire you.
Tenure is necessary in some form precisely because it protects the integrity of the grading system.
Arguing that is may need to be adjusted or modifies is a very different argument than suggesting it shouldn't exist at all... which is what many people here are arguing.
Artemis at June 11, 2014 8:00 AM
magine you are the teacher of the son or daughter of the school board president. Imagine you have no tenure. Are you really going to risk losing your job by giving them a failing grade when that particular kid deserves it?
That is the kind of problem that tenure resolves.
I think there are 19,000 youngsters enrolled in the schools of my home district. There are seven school commissioners. The typical American produces about two children in the course of his life and has children in primary or secondary school about a third of the time during the period in his life between the ages of 24 and 64. In other words, our best guess is that those seven school commissioners have about 5 children between them enrolled in the district's schools at any one time. Not all school commissioners are inclined to mollycoddle their children or are so emotionally partisan that they get their back up when their children's work is astringently evaluated.
So, you give teachers lifetime employment so that a single-digit population of youngsters will get more C's and D's. Does not seem like the best of trade-offs.
Art Deco at June 11, 2014 8:08 AM
Isab Says:
"Complicating matters, most administrators serve at the pleasure of the school board..."
This is precisely my point.
The school board is made up of parents.
The principals are under the boot of the school board.
The principals can be induced to fire a teacher on the basis of pressure from a disgruntled school board member.
Without the tenure system (or similar due process protections), what teacher is going to fairly evaluate the child of a school board member when they know that it could get them fired?
The integrity of the grading process is extremely important to maintain.
What do you propose to replace the tenure system to make teachers immune to reprisals of this kind from well connected parents of children in their classroom?
Or should we just give the children of school board members and superintendents straight A's regardless of their knowledge and performance?
Artemis at June 11, 2014 8:12 AM
"So, you give teachers lifetime employment so that a single-digit population of youngsters will get more C's and D's. Does not seem like the best of trade-offs."
And this is why discussions about tenure are always fruitless.
The people who argue against tenure generally don't even know what tenure is.
Tenure does not give teachers a guarantee of "lifetime employment".
The only thing tenure does is guarantee that the teacher being fired gets a hearing before they can be dismissed.
To fire a tenured teacher requires evidence.
To fire a teacher without tenure requires no evidence.
That is the only difference.
If it is difficult to fire a tenured teacher it is precisely because sufficient evidence doesn't exist or hasn't been collected to justify firing them.
Artemis at June 11, 2014 8:16 AM
I'm going to very briefly go off topic to suggest that you may not be the best judge of climate science if your above statement is an indicator of your knowledge level on this subject.
Increasing vegetation does not "give off more CO2".
Alright. Not the correct causation. I cop to my mistakes, because I am not emotionally wedded to them.
However, the evidence the CO2 is not a driver, but a lagging indicator is out there. It is not caused by plant growth but by the oceans out gassing more CO2 as the oceans warm.
"Climate science" models have failed to predict at all the climate trends for the last twenty years.
And yet, you still have so called climate scientists arguing that their models are correct.
It isn't because the science is sound.
It is because there is no money in finding that global warming is largely the result of things not controllable by man,
http://news.ku.dk/all_news/2012/2012.7/rise_in_temperatures_and_co2/
Isab at June 11, 2014 8:23 AM
Isab,
I encourage you to learn much more about climate science because your opinions on the subject seem to be uninformed.
Unfortunately this isn't the topic thread for me to elaborate in detail on this subject.
Needless to say, the overall conclusions of the climate scientist community are robust, sound, and well formulated.
Artemis at June 11, 2014 8:30 AM
" or hasn't been collected to justify firing them."
Posted by: Artemis at June 11, 2014 8:16 AM
Bingo. You try firing or gathering evidence on an incompetent teacher who is either the union rep, or good friends with the union rep.
When you, as an administrator, are beholden to a school board, that serves at the pleasure of union bought votes.
Tenure is not some monolithic entity that exists all across the US, like some federal criminal code.
Some states treat school teachers no differently than other state employees, and not all public school teachers have tenure or are represented by unions.
The problem is that you can follow the union rules to the letter, like showing up for work every day, on time, and not stoned out of your mind.
Not having sex with students, and not selling crack out in the parking lot.
In short, you can do everything the union contract requires, and still be a damn poor, incompetent educator.
And under the union rules, there is no way to fire these people.
Isab at June 11, 2014 8:33 AM
Isab,
There is a fundamental difference between advocating for tenure reform... or other adjustments to the system... and advocating for the removal of tenure altogether.
One thing you note which I agree with is that the tenure system in general is not uniform across the country.
As a result it is difficult to speak about it in aggregate.
I can say this though:
"In short, you can do everything the union contract requires, and still be a damn poor, incompetent educator.
And under the union rules, there is no way to fire these people."
This statement is not true for any tenure system that I am familiar with (again, I admit that I am not familiar with ALL tenure systems).
An incompetent or ineffective educator can be fired within the context of the union contracts that I am familiar with provided a few things happen first.
1 - The teacher must be observed and evaluated by the administration on several occasions.
2 - The performance evaluations of these observations must be documented with details given on why the teacher in question received an unsatisfactory rating.
3 - Recommendations must be made on how the teacher can improve their performance to meet the standards of the administration.
4 - Upon the repeated routine observations that occur throughout the school year the teacher must show that they have not made sufficient progress in their isolated problem areas thus resulting in continued unsatisfactory performance reviews that are also documented.
In other words... to fire a tenured teacher requires the administrator to gather the evidence necessary to prove they are actually incompetent.
How do you propose we isolate incompetent educators without proper observation and documentation?
Artemis at June 11, 2014 8:55 AM
Tenure does not give teachers a guarantee of "lifetime employment".
Let go of my leg.
Art Deco at June 11, 2014 9:06 AM
Needless to say, the overall conclusions of the climate scientist community are robust, sound, and well formulated.
Posted by: Artemis at June 11, 2014 8:30 AM
Yes, yes, I am sure they have all told you that.
Climate science encompasses many disciplines, and no one can be an expert in every one of them.
For most things we all rely on authority when we are not a subject matter expert.
I have personally seen biblical creationists with better arguments than the so called climate science. Although they also don't recognize that they start from a falsifiable assumption either.
And yes, I have friends with impeccable science and math academic credentials.
No amount of massaging of the climate data, is going to erase an initial assumption that can be falsified.
When climate scientists can prove both that CO2 is a driver, and not an effect, and that the release of carbon in energy production and use, are not minuscule compared to natural events, AND their models start panning out, then I will be open to what they have to say.
So far, they are 0 for about 30, and every time someone asks to see their original data, to validate it, the answer seems to be "the dog ate it"
In short, what climate science has been reduced to is an argument from authority.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
Real science does not operate this way. It doesn't need the politicians to shut everyone up who disagrees, and it sure as hell doesn't need to sue it's critics for defamation.
If you want to believe what they have to say. Fine by me. I hope it makes you feel all righteous, and morally superior. I suspect that it does.
They could be right, but for the wrong reasons. All I am saying is their methodology is flawed, and their assumptions are not facts.
.
Isab at June 11, 2014 9:15 AM
How do you propose we isolate incompetent educators without proper observation and documentation?
Posted by: Artemis at June 11, 2014 8:55 AM
We will never get rid of all of them. Schools of education are turning out too many credentialed idiots.
I recommend at will employment subject to the needs of the district. Just like the way Microsoft or Google runs. And I think teachers ought to be prepared to move, if necessary to continue their career, just like the rest of us have to.
We probably are not going to need to do much. The union controlled big money public education system is collapsing under its own weight in most states.
The short answer, is privatize most education.
I think any individual state should be free to have any employment rules for their public school teachers that they want. But, when, as a result of that, the customer base flees, to better alternatives, the teachers unions should not have control over the public purse to lock in taxpayers to continue funding them.
There are a number of states right now, where teachers pensions are so underfunded, they will probably be repudiated in my lifetime.
It is going to be messy and brutal.
Isab at June 11, 2014 9:33 AM
>>Crid's command of prose indicates ...
Feel free to admit this with respect to yourself. I find his command of prose to be verbose and pretentious.
Assholio at June 11, 2014 9:41 AM
This statement is not true for any tenure system that I am familiar with (again, I admit that I am not familiar with ALL tenure systems).
An incompetent or ineffective educator can be fired within the context of the union contracts that I am familiar with provided a few things happen first.
1 - The teacher must be observed and evaluated by the administration on several occasions.
2 - The performance evaluations of these observations must be documented with details given on why the teacher in question received an unsatisfactory rating.
3 - Recommendations must be made on how the teacher can improve their performance to meet the standards of the administration.
4 - Upon the repeated routine observations that occur throughout the school year the teacher must show that they have not made sufficient progress in their isolated problem areas thus resulting in continued unsatisfactory performance reviews that are also documented.
In other words... to fire a tenured teacher requires the administrator to gather the evidence necessary to prove they are actually incompetent.
How do you propose we isolate incompetent educators without proper observation and documentation?
Posted by: Artemis at June 11, 2014 8:55 AM
Here is a challenge for you Artemis.
Either with the aid, of a school district evaluation sheet, or without, your choice:
Identify ten objective observable criteria, that can be used to evaluate poor teaching, and quantify those results,into a useable formula for administrators to fire ineffective teachers.
Not subjective, objective, because that is the only kind of evidence that will stand up in court, when you get sued for wrongful termination by a fired teacher represented by that free union appointed lawyer.
Isab at June 11, 2014 9:53 AM
"I liked the way it worked at my undergraduate college...as described by a prof there when I attended....tenure means priority for an office with a window and if you screw up like get to wrapped up in your research for a semester and don't do a good job of teaching you get a second chance."
-Posted by: The Former Banker at June 10, 2014 10:26 PM
Too bad the students don't get a second chance. I was screwed over by an instructer with tenure. He taught way over our heads.
Goo at June 11, 2014 9:58 AM
Here's the flowchart of due process for New York City schools.
Yeah, right. Tenure isn't lifetime employment.
Jim P. at June 11, 2014 12:33 PM
The school board is made up of parents. The principals are under the boot of the school board.
The principals can be induced to fire a teacher on the basis of pressure from a disgruntled school board member.
No. The school board is made up of politicians, who have their own agenda and their own fish to fry. Some of them may have children in the system; the children may or may not have conflicts with teachers; the school commissioner may or may not go to bat for the children; it may or may not have consequences for anyone in the chain of command if they do. The probability that there will be a general corruption of pedagogy from this sort of institutional politics is small.
Every place has a different deal. In an urban district of some size, the school board deals with the superintendant, not principals.
As for 'firing' a teacher, the process for a teacher granted tenure takes two or three years in New York State and that's when there is credible evidence the teacher has violated the state Penal code. They do not park teachers in 'rubber rooms' in New York City because they are easy to can.
Art Deco at June 11, 2014 1:30 PM
Why do only teachers deserve this protection? What's makes them more special than other employees in other fields?
I know several people who were recently laid off. They were good at what they did. Why didn't they deserve tenure?
And why aren't tenure advocates steamed that private school teachers don't get tenure? Don't the deserve the same protections as public school teachers?
==============================
Actually, you find his prose to be verbose and pretentious.
Conan the Grammarian at June 11, 2014 1:37 PM
I love this shit.
> I find his command of prose to be verbose
> and pretentious.
That's how you "find" the "command of prose"?
Well!
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 11, 2014 1:40 PM
Artemis,
Since I'm a woman, and the ratio of female to male is so skewed in my college do you think I should ask my male tenured professor out on a date?
Ppen at June 11, 2014 4:21 PM
Isab Says:
"Climate science encompasses many disciplines, and no one can be an expert in every one of them.
For most things we all rely on authority when we are not a subject matter expert."
This is true for all fields... we as a society have amassed so much knowledge that we must unfortunately choose where we wish to specialize and then often times defer to the expertise of others when we do not have the time or inclination to become experts ourselves.
"No amount of massaging of the climate data, is going to erase an initial assumption that can be falsified."
Science is about making falsifiable predictions.
Climate science is no different... that is why the conclusions are robust and can be trusted, because the analysis is subject to verification.
The only initial assumption you claimed to have a specific gripe with was that they didn't account for the increased C02 caused by increased growth of plants.
The problem is that your claim was the one that was completely and utterly wrong... increased plant growth is linked with a decrease in CO2 because the photosynthesis consumes CO2 to produce oxygen.
The fact that you got something so fundamental wrong should at the very least have given you pause to reconsider your position and reevaluate your level of knowledge on this subject... I suppose not.
Look... if you went to a mechanic who explained to you how cars run off of salt water, would you trust that they knew anything about automobile repair?
"When climate scientists can prove both that CO2 is a driver, and not an effect, and that the release of carbon in energy production and use, are not minuscule compared to natural events, AND their models start panning out, then I will be open to what they have to say."
They have done all of this and more.
Your lack of knowledge on this subject is not evidence that the information and data doesn't exist... it is evidence that you are ignorant on this particular topic.
Please read and learn, I'd educate you myself, but this isn't the thread to do so in full detail.
Let me start you off though with the subject of positive feedback mechanisms.
If you understood the nature of positive feedback within the climate system you would be much closer to understanding where your conceptual problems exist.
CO2 is BOTH a driver of climate change AND a response to changes in climate.
That you think it has to be one or the other is another fatal flaw in your understanding of this subject.
That you demand that it must be proven to be a driver and not an effect displays how fundamentally flawed your understanding of this topic is.
Please read and learn for yourself.
I don't believe any scientific claim because someone tells me... I examine the data from the actual scientific literature for myself.
Honestly, how many climate science manuscripts have you read... because all you keep linking to pages that are decidedly non-scientific.
"They could be right, but for the wrong reasons. All I am saying is their methodology is flawed, and their assumptions are not facts."
Alright, go for it then.
Please explain in detail what specific methodologies are flawed, which papers use those methodologies, and what assumptions are made that are factually in error.
The only specific claim you made so far was so far from the mark that I would have hoped you would realize you should hold your opinion in abeyance until you learn more.
On many subjects your opinion is well informed. This isn't one of them.
Artemis at June 11, 2014 8:52 PM
Isab Says:
"I recommend at will employment subject to the needs of the district. Just like the way Microsoft or Google runs. And I think teachers ought to be prepared to move, if necessary to continue their career, just like the rest of us have to.
We probably are not going to need to do much. The union controlled big money public education system is collapsing under its own weight in most states.
The short answer, is privatize most education."
If you have zero concern for the integrity of the grading and evaluation system then this system would be perfect.
I on the other hand believe that the meritocracy of the student evaluation system is the most important part of our education system and must be preserved.
At places like Google and Microsoft it is generally more important who you know and how well connected you are to get ahead in the company... that is a pretty shitty model for public education.
Artemis at June 11, 2014 9:02 PM
Isab Asks:
"Identify ten objective observable criteria, that can be used to evaluate poor teaching, and quantify those results,into a useable formula for administrators to fire ineffective teachers."
Why do I need 10?... is that some magic number of required observable criteria to evaluate poor teaching?
Why must I take all subjectivity out of this when teacher evaluations are not entirely objective.
Also, why do I need a formula?
You are over complicating things that really aren't that difficult.
A teacher is qualified to teach the subject material in my opinion if they meet the following objective criteria:
1 - They have a sufficient knowledge of the subject to cover the mandated curriculum.
2 - Their lessons are well organized and on topic.
3 - They create assignments that are associated with the subject material and appropriately timed with the years lessons.
4 - They collect and evaluate those assignments in a timely manner and provide students with feedback.
5 - They create tests that challenge the students understanding of the course material.
6 - They collect and evaluate those tests and return them to the students in a timely manner.
7 - They isolate students who are having trouble with the course work and notify their parents to set up an action plan.
If a teacher does all of these things and a student is still failing or doing poorly the issue resides with the student, the parents, or both.
For education to work there are 3 parties responsible.
Generally speaking, students who do poorly in school have themselves or their parents primarily to blame.
Tenure discussions are a great way to shift focus away from the real problem with the American education system.
That isn't the real problem... but it is easier to talk about than holding students and parents accountable.
I could have had crappy teachers all through high school and I still would have done well... because I was motivated to learn and my parents valued education.
This focus on tenure is a complete cop out and tends to be the go to argument for people who did poorly in school or whose children did poorly in school.
Artemis at June 11, 2014 9:22 PM
Art Deco:
"They do not park teachers in 'rubber rooms' in New York City because they are easy to can."
I've said it before and I will say it again.
There is a fundamental difference in advocating for changes and adjustments to the tenure system and advocating for its complete destruction.
There is merit to the first sort of argument.
There isn't merit to the second.
Artemis at June 11, 2014 9:25 PM
> For education to work there are 3
> parties responsible.
Your paragraphs are too short. It's like that shitty sportswriter at the L.A. Times.
> I've said it before and I will
> say it again.
You shouldn't do that. (Especially if you're gonna spell out "I will" instead of 'I'll'.)
Hitchens talked about this, paraphrasing: Nobody ever makes the same argument twice, because they'll always have considered their earlier reception, or will (usually) have found a nuance to their argument.
Ours isn't a spoken-word culture: We're fully digital nowadays. Amy's blog is briskly scanned by both the Wayback Machine and the Google cache. The words you typed here —the first time— percolate with a bubbling, resilient availability that would have left the Baby Christian Jesus weeping with envy for Alkon's publishing prowess.
…No, really. Hell, He'd have bitterly resisted crucifixion if he'd known that mortal rhetoric would one day be conveyed with the enduring thunder of your earlier comments... Which were, please note, roundly disregarded by all sensible readers.
We heard you the first time, and you were wrong. If you took no notice of that hearing, and still promise nothing new, why would you say it again? Are you paying more attention this time? We might presume not.
> This focus on tenure
We can focus on whatever we want. You don't get to choose.
Tenure, the central & ancient economic distortion in education of the western model, has special descriptive powers for the corruption of the whole nightmare. It's the base & enduring fantasy of a whole lot of people who never much did anything for anyone. We're talking about it for very, very good reasons.
For example: Tenure for grade-school teachers is cock-suckingly ludicrous. It's flatly inexcusable. You'd have to be insane to let that happen... Or you'd have to be as distracted by exploding wealth and tremendous good fortune as was post-war America.
But those days are over, aren't they?
> is a complete cop out and tends
> to be the go to argument for people
> who did poorly in school or whose
> children did poorly in school.
People who did poorly in school or whose children do poorly in school have opinions no less well-informed than your own... They're certainly paying no less of the social costs for these self-centered, often-venal technocracies. Indeed, this may be precisely the time to heed those who weren't rewarded by the status quo. Their number grow larger every day.
Besides, saying what you said makes you sound like an asshole.
There are much, much more important things in life that being smart.
Merely being smarter than others, in a scholarly way, counts for essentially nothing.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 12, 2014 2:41 AM
> who do you think really knows
> how to write?
Late in life, a guy on a blog asked that, and no names came to mind.
It's just fun when people say really great stuff.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 12, 2014 3:15 AM
Crid Says:
"Besides, saying what you said makes you sound like an asshole."
That is an amusing statement coming from you, considering you are generally considered to be a master of saying things that make you sound like an asshole.
Taking that into consideration I suppose your statement is one of admiration.
The point I was making, which remains valid by the way, is that people generally look to point their fingers every which way except toward themselves when considering a failure.
People who look primarily to teachers to blame students for lack lackluster academic performance while excluding consideration of parents and students participation in the educational process are engaging in scape goating behavior.
There is a great deal of accountability being foisted onto teachers that rightfully belongs on the shoulders of students and parents.
An individual who refused to study or do their homework and then performs poorly in class doesn't deserve much sympathy when they claim it was the teachers fault.
That is like blaming the pediatrician because you were an obese child.
Generally speaking it isn't the physicians fault that you couldn't stop yourself from pigging out on junk food and gluing yourself to the couch.
The same sort of logic applies here.
Artemis at June 12, 2014 6:48 AM
I just remembered that I've been meaning to ask people to explain this apparent discrepancy in logic.
If teachers are to be considered primarily responsible for lack luster student performance in the classroom.
Shouldn't we also consider pediatricians to be primarily responsible for the childhood obesity problem in the united states?
The logic in both cases is parallel.
I suspect the only difference in why people jump to the first conclusion, but understand why the second argument is invalid has to do with their own biases for which professions they respect and which professions they do not respect.
People who respect pediatricians know it isn't generally their fault that children are obese... the blame lands squarely on the parents and children.
Similarly, people who respect teachers know it isn't generally their fault when students perform poorly in class... the blame again falls squarely on the parents and children.
So maybe a good place to begin is to ask who here actually respects the profession of teaching?
One more thing:
"Tenure for grade-school teachers is cock-suckingly ludicrous. It's flatly inexcusable. You'd have to be insane to let that happen... Or you'd have to be as distracted by exploding wealth and tremendous good fortune as was post-war America."
This isn't an argument for anything.
Crid, I find that you tend to waste a great deal of space writing drivel that doesn't actually comprise an argument of any sort.
As a result I find it hilarious that you would even quote Hitchens... a guy who actually cared about constructing valid arguments.
Why shouldn't tenure exist?... well because it is ludicrous and inexcusable and you'd have to be insane to let it happen.
That isn't an argument at all.
Someone who can't compose a valid argument to save their life is in no position to criticize the educational system... instead someone who can't compose a valid argument has a great deal to learn.
My suspicion is teachers at one point tried to educate you on this subject... but I doubt you were paying attention.
Artemis at June 12, 2014 7:07 AM
You've never worked at Google or Microsoft, or any other private entity, have you?
While who you know is often very important in any organization, managers are rarely able to hold back employees who are skilled and ambitious.
In fact, I would guess from the tone of your posts, you've either never worked in the private sector, or are one of those employees who's convinced that you didn't get ahead because you didn't know the right person or smooch the right posterior - rather than honestly evaluate your own competence and work to improve it.
And public schools are not the shining examples of pure meritocracy you seem to think they are. Politics and qualitative factors play a role in advancement there as well, both in teacher evaluations and student evaluations. There's always that percentage of the grade or evaluation based on intangibles.
Or did you think it a coincidence that the valedictorian was well-liked by the teachers? Or that the person appointed principal was someone who was able to play politics at the district level?
Conan the Grammarian at June 12, 2014 7:54 AM
Conan Says:
"You've never worked at Google or Microsoft, or any other private entity, have you?
While who you know is often very important in any organization, managers are rarely able to hold back employees who are skilled and ambitious."
Clearly you don't understand how these organizations work.
They are literally filled with top talent across the board.
They don't hire you in the first place if you are mediocre.
They also tend to be incredibly flat organizations where the number of management positions are extremely limited compared to the total number of employees and the individuals who hold those positions tend not to go anywhere.
As a result what happens is those advancement positions open up very infrequently and while the people who get shifted in are all very qualified, they are also the ones who are well connected (this isn't simply my opinion by the way, I've been told this by individuals who have played the game for the better part of 2 decades and made it up that ladder... by virtue of making the right connections)
Pretty much everyone is well qualified, what really gets you advanced is who you know.
That you think it works differently suggests you know nothing about how these companies work internally.
Artemis at June 12, 2014 8:40 AM
Now for the on topic part:
"And public schools are not the shining examples of pure meritocracy you seem to think they are. Politics and qualitative factors play a role in advancement there as well, both in teacher evaluations and student evaluations. There's always that percentage of the grade or evaluation based on intangibles."
And you hope to improve this situation by making teachers more beholden to financial incentives?
You do not decrease corruption by enhancing the influence of corrupting factors.
I am reminded of the 2008 scandal involved in privatizing the prison system where a judge was paid off to send kids to jail for longer than they should have been:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
That the public prison system isn't perfect, or that there is room for improvement isn't necessarily a good argument for privatizing something.
As bad as the public prison system might be, there was never an incentive to pay off judges to send people to jail who didn't belong there.
That is the kind of silliness going on with this discussion about tenure and education.
You isolate a problem and instead of thinking through the best solution... you just slap on the vernier of the "free market" as if that is the solution to every social ill.
Except it isn't always the best solution.
It creates strange and unappealing incentives for things like the prison system and creates the same type of perversion of the educational system.
If the current system isn't a perfect meritocracy then it needs to be fixed... but the solutions being put forth here only make things worse in that regard, not better.
Tenure exists to ensure the integrity of the grading system, to the extent that the evaluation system needs to be improved, getting rid of tenure won't help.
If you don't care about the integrity of the grading system then it makes sense why you'd want to eliminate tenure.
Just like if you don't care about the integrity of the judicial system then it makes sense why you'd want to privatize the prisons.
I happen to care about the integrity of these systems... I hoped you would as well.
Artemis at June 12, 2014 8:51 AM
> The point I was making, which remains valid
> by the way, is that
If you say something interesting, Cousin Dave will send you a dollar! No lie!
>
> Except it isn't always the best solution.
>
Dude... Paragraphs.
You wrote 375 words before you wrote this:
>
> One more thing:
>
And then you wrote a thousand more. Gasbaggery per se is not a problem, OK? Amy gets her disk space at a reduced rate nowadays. And nobody cares if you're flat wrong... That's happened on here a lot over the years. But when you say things, they should be interesting to read.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 12, 2014 9:48 AM
Your point (once you get to it) is that tenure protects the integrity of the grading system.
Your argument is based on the assumption that the grading system has integrity. My argument is that the integrity of the grading system has always been (and always will be) warped by personal biases of the graders, tenure or no.
Standardized tests are the best attempt we've come up with the eliminate the biases. However, even standardized tests are dependent upon the competence of the teacher to teach, the student to learn, and the supporting networks (administration, parents, etc.) to support.
==============================
Your argument is also based on the assumption that everyone who gets tenure will protect the integrity of the grading system.
I'm sure none of the 35 "educators" indicted in the Atlanta cheating scandal had tenure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_Public_Schools_cheating_scandal
==============================
And making incompetents difficult to fire will improve the situation?
Tenure enables laziness. The top performers at the organizations you lauded (Google and Microsoft) are not in guaranteed jobs. They can be fired for poor performance or for any reason really. They know they must stay on their toes and remain useful to the organization ("Every Morning in Africa, A Gazelle Wakes Up").
Example: My American History teacher in high school used 20-year-old, mistake-ridden overheads, making students copy them word-for-word while she read Glamour or Cosmo at her desk. When the overheads ended, so did the history lesson. I graduated high school without ever being informed by a teacher that the US won World War II. Welcome to tenure.
==============================
Top organizations don't hire you if you're mediocre? Really? I know. I've worked for a few.
Once you're inside, however, you're judged against to your peers, none of whom are mediocre - by definition.
So you didn't get the promotion? You didn't lose it to a guy who's mediocre and unqualified for it.
The other guy knew someone? He probably networked better or made himself stand out. That's true in almost any organization, not just Google and Microsoft.
Want the next promotion? Stop sitting all day in your cubicle and go to a meeting, a lunch, or just drop by someone's office to discuss something. Take a class in a subject of importance to your organization. Make yourself stand out.
And, let's face it, sometimes, the other guy is just better for the job.
Again, networking and making oneself stand out pays huge dividends.
The guy who assumes that he'll be recognized for his good work and doesn't bother to chat with the boss or ask for more responsibility will not go far.
Gail Evans covers the "I should be recognized solely for my work" mindset in Play Like A Man, Win Like A Woman. And advises the reader to get over it ... quickly.
Don't forget the Peter Principle. Sometimes the best coder is not the best manager. And if you don't make yourself stand out as a strategic thinker ("big picture guy"), you're probably not going to make the list of guys to be promoted to management.
And none of this is limited to the private sector. It's endemic to the human condition. You'll find it in non-profits, government, corporations, clubs, etc. Tenure doesn't cure it.
And, yes, sometimes the guy who knew someone gets the nod over the guy who would be best for the job. Again, that happens in all organizations, public or private, elite or common.
==============================
Which answers my original question. You've never worked for Google or Microsoft - or any non-public entity, most likely.
So, feel free to continue to tell us how guaranteed public employment protects process integrity so much better than private employment.
Conan the Grammarian at June 12, 2014 11:40 AM
"Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're a lion or a gazelle - when the sun comes up, you'd better be running.” ~ Abe Gubegna
Conan the Grammarian at June 12, 2014 11:43 AM
And please stop overusing (and misusing) "literally." Thanks ever so much.
Conan the Grammarian at June 12, 2014 11:55 AM
Conan Says:
"And please stop overusing (and misusing) "literally." Thanks ever so much."
I think you are confused.
I used the word correctly.
Here is what I said:
"They are literally filled with top talent across the board."
As in these corporations are filled without exaggeration or inaccuracy (i.e. literally) with extremely talented people.
Here is the definition of the word since you apparently don't know what it means:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/literally?s=t
Definition 3: actually; without exaggeration or inaccuracy: The city was literally destroyed.
When you talk about the word being misused you are talking about examples like the following:
"My head literally exploded"
That isn't how I used the word.
My usage falls entirely within the original meaning.
"Grammarian" my ass.
Artemis at June 12, 2014 8:33 PM
You used the word as hyperbole and a throwaway intensifier. You misused it.
The companies you mentioned are full of top talent, but not literally so - unless you can explain how an organization is literally full of people.
Conan the Grammarian at June 12, 2014 9:30 PM
Yonder:
Where would you start a career today?
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 12, 2014 10:00 PM
Conan Says:
"Your argument is based on the assumption that the grading system has integrity. My argument is that the integrity of the grading system has always been (and always will be) warped by personal biases of the graders, tenure or no."
You misunderstand my argument. My argument is not that the grading system is perfect. My argument is that whatever flaws that exist within the grading system will be exacerbated and exaggerated by the removal of tenure.
My argument is that to the extent that personal bias comes into the grading process, when tenure protections are removed, the influence of that personal bias becomes stronger.
Most people seem to understand that the idea of removing lifetime tenure from supreme court justices would result in a reduction of how impartial they are and increase their likelihood to become corrupt.
That people understand this doesn’t suggest that they think that the members of the supreme court are perfectly unbiased individuals.
It is simply a recognition of the fact that when peoples livelihoods are put on the line on the basis of how they evaluate certain things (be it a court case or the grades of a class) they are less likely to be impartial.
“Standardized tests are the best attempt we've come up with the eliminate the biases. However, even standardized tests are dependent upon the competence of the teacher to teach, the student to learn, and the supporting networks (administration, parents, etc.) to support.”
What exactly are you saying here?
That the fact that standardized tests somehow measure a students ability to learn is a form of “bias”?
That is precisely what tests are intended to quantify. That is a feature, not a bug in the system.
That a students ability to learn even makes it onto your list of biases suggests that you think that an unbiased test is one where every student receives the same grade… since it should in some sense be independent of their intellectual ability.
“Your argument is also based on the assumption that everyone who gets tenure will protect the integrity of the grading system.”
That is a straw man argument.
I make no guarantees that tenure leads to a perfect system. My argument is merely that lack of a tenure system leads to a more imperfect system.
That is a subtlety that somehow got lost when you decided to make up an easier argument to defeat than the one I’m actually putting forth. I won’t bother arguing against the straw man further since there is no need for me to defend an argument I didn’t make.
“And making incompetents difficult to fire will improve the situation?”
The integrity of the grading system is more important than the easy removal of incompetents. This is a discussion about priorities.
Clearly you prioritize the easy removal of individuals who will ultimately be rated on student performance.
What kind of incentives do you believe that creates?
It creates incentives for teachers to cheat on behalf of the students… and those incentives will be strongest amongst the most incompetent teachers.
I don’t suspect for one second that making it easy to fire teachers will make it easy to get rid of the incompetent teachers. It will only make it easy to get rid of the incompetent teachers who happen to be honest… the dishonest ones will strive to game the system and cheat to get their scores up, which is far worse than the situation we currently have.
“The other guy knew someone? He probably networked better or made himself stand out. That's true in almost any organization, not just Google and Microsoft.”
That is exactly my point… networking for promotions is par for the course in companies. That being said, networking and political maneuvering has no place in determining your gpa, or at the very least it shouldn’t be made into a worse problem than it may currently be.
Please don’t act like this is suddenly common knowledge now that who you know is often more important than what you know in corporate America when just a few comments earlier you acted shocked that I would say such a thing. I always thought it was common knowledge until you argued against my claim earlier.
Ultimately that kind of thing shouldn’t influence how a children are graded by their teachers.
“The guy who assumes that he'll be recognized for his good work and doesn't bother to chat with the boss or ask for more responsibility will not go far.”
That is all well and good… but it has no place in the educational system.
Imagine telling a student that they shouldn’t be primarily evaluated on their tests on the basis of their “good work” but rather how much they have “networked” with the principle.
The examples you are providing are not bolstering your case.
You are formulating an argument as if I am against networking in corporate culture… I’m not, in that environment it is appropriate and par for the course.
What I am against is the idea that schmoozing and networking should be how our children are evaluated in terms of grades. A child who receives an A in biology simply because their parent is best friends with the principle is a child who doesn’t understand the subject material.
All the networking in the world won’t teach a child how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide.
“Which answers my original question. You've never worked for Google or Microsoft - or any non-public entity, most likely.”
You really do not seem to understand the English language.
How on earth do you conclude that this “I've been told this by individuals who have played the game for the better part of 2 decades and made it up that ladder... by virtue of making the right connections)” provides an answer to the question “have you worked for a non-public entity?”
No such informational content exists within that statement. How does telling you about conversations I’ve had tell you anything at all about my personal employment experience?
If you’ve ever read anything I’ve written here you would know I make it a habit not to discuss things related to my personal experience precisely because it is unrelated to any argument.
All too often the people here assert what I must be on the basis of some argument I am putting forth… I’ve been told I argue a certain point because I am a man, I’ve been told I argue a certain point because I am a woman, I’ve been told I argue a certain point because I have only worked in the private sphere, and now I am being told I argue a point because I’ve only worked in the public sphere.
Let me help you a bit… I don’t answer personal questions precisely because anyone who knows anything about arguments knows that the validity of a point does not depend upon the person making it.
People who get hung up on that sort of thing things like evidence and logic are behaving irrationally.
Artemis at June 12, 2014 10:25 PM
Conan Says:
"You used the word as hyperbole and a throwaway intensifier. You misused it."
I did no such thing.
It is not an exaggeration to say that companies like Microsoft and Google are filled with talented people.
That is a statement of reality... it is "literally" true.
Artemis at June 12, 2014 10:28 PM
Crid,
Out of curiosity, what do you think a statement like this one even means:
"as many as 14 percent of some Google teams’ members never went to college."
Why don't we break it down together.
1 - Only "some" google teams have members that never went to college. This means most google teams are composed completely of individuals with college degrees.
2 - Of the fraction that do have members who never went to college, at most you can expect 14% of them to have zero college experience. This means that most of that fraction will have a smaller percentage.
You are literally talking about a small fraction of a small fraction and somehow trying to use this to bolster your position.
If 10% out of 10% of google team members never went to college the ratio of those with college degrees to those without is 99:1.
That implies that obtaining a college degree increases your odds of being hired by a company like google by about a factor of 100.
But sure... let's just ignore a 2 order of magnitude difference because it doesn't seem to fit with your position that "Merely being smarter than others, in a scholarly way, counts for essentially nothing."
Sure... it counts for "nothing" if a factor of 100 advantage in being hired by a fortune 500 company is "nothing".
Artemis at June 13, 2014 12:20 AM
> Why don't we break it down together.
Why don't you climb a tree?
There are patterns at work in blog comments, y'know?... The discussions strike many as stoo-pit, but I love 'em to death! These frequently recurring phenomena have tremendous expository value for the pettiness, incoherence and underlying shame at work in human nature, specifically as regards our unremarkable relationships with unseen (and inconsequential) strangers.
Cropping up again and again, these mundane wordings and humdrum habits are offered as shiny new points of contention, insights theretofore untested in front of a meaningful audience. The tropes include:
Don't panic, Artemis! Amy loves this one, too!… You're among fellows, if not friends.They say nobody will ever know what it's like to be dumb. Similarly, no one else will ever know what it means to be "rational" in the blog-comment sense. But the kind of commenter I'm thinking of (TKOCITO for short) has yet to internalize these base truths… Or has lived in timid isolation and (sensibly) never tested them aloud among his betters, who'd have clocked him in the teeth in the first instance.
There are dozens of typical fallacies in common rhetoric, but TKOCITO has a favorite: Ad hominem. I don't know why it's so popular... Maybe because it's Latin, which sounds cool, and because it's so easy to to substitute for taunts of "Meanie!," which often have a lifetime of successful deployment (if ineffectual impact).Anyway, straw man is Robin the Boy Wonder to ad hominem's Batman. Other superheroes —like argumentum e silentio and onus probandi— never get a shout out, even if they fight bigger crimes and dress just as colorfully.
More than anything, TKOCITO fucking hates contractions. He'll never type "he'll" when "he will" take the larger slice of Amy's disk space. (Read that sentence again! It holds together in a meta-demonstrative, deeply contextual-loid, totes novel way! Fun!)TKOCITO's dickswing move here is bogus quotation marks: They're deployed to "convey" a sexual, mutually-rewarding intimacy with irony. But then you notice none of his comments are actually, flatly, unashamedly ironic. And then you notice that the words within the marks are either transparent misrepresations of other people's remarks or clumsy citations of cliche as shared truth. Wuddever, they're never more enriching than a Bazooka Joe punchline.
Cousin atrocities in the family include arrhythmic paragraph durations, predicate weirdness, and sentences clipped like Devo songs. Irritating fragments.
When TKOCITO's asked for even anecdotal explanation for insights, readers will suddenly be told that his identity and background are, by some rickety reasoning, not relevant. Intriguing!, right? Mysterious! It's the Long Ranger's We-never-even-got-a-chance-to-thank-'im, except it comes long before we could ever want to.But it's getting late.
Somewhere in the last 48 hours, Cosh had a tweet about comedians, which got me to thinking: No matter how much wealth and affection comes to them from making people laugh, their next move is an attempt to be loved for saying something sanctimonious.
(I've always admire Seinfeld for not doing this.)
(See also fashion models/actresses in their thirties, enriched for their silent allure or for words given to them by others; eventually they want to talk, and it's annoying as Hell. See also good-time rock bands who divorce their first wives and then do albums of sullen acoustic work.)
Guys come to blogs and pretend to be tweedy professors with elbow patches on their sportcoats, saying "my dear" a lot and using big words. The expect be by admired for this, no matter how shallow or naive their arguments.
There are two main lessons from this petty fraud:
[A.] it reflects really badly on the very academics under discussion here, the ones who ought to be demonstrating to TKOCITO how brains and learnedness really work… Obviously, academe has failed these commenters, whether intimately or from afar.
[2nd.] TKOCITO is transparently ashamed of skipping some kind of classes; or of being skipped over by them.
And that's nuts. I grew up on a campus, and I know how many of those people are full of shit. Most, MOST people in the world, including the best, figure out early that they have better things to do in life than fart around in classrooms. People who're getting their needs met, and meeting the needs of those they love, shouldn't need the internet's new opportunities for pretense.
They were right the first time! There are more important things in life than being smart. You ain't what you're not.
So… Artemis… Did you graduate college? With a degree, 'n everything?
Jus' curious.....
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 13, 2014 3:17 AM
Sorry, I meant the Lone Ranger. The Long Ranger was a completely different narrative.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 13, 2014 3:19 AM
Crid,
I've had many a fight with Artemis and while he refuses to disclose his gender in the same comment he told me I was like a schoolyard bully who got taught a lesson (presumably he thought his comments embarrassed me).
Can you imagine anyone complaining about bullying on a blog comment? Or what was the other one? That I was like a "little sister hitting her big brother". I can't imagine how that would have any merit with a woman like me.
What are the other things he believes? Oh yeah that talking to people of regular intelligence is BENEATH him because they can offer no wisdom.
Ppen at June 13, 2014 5:13 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/06/10/wow_--_californ.html#comment-4755549">comment from Artemis"They are literally filled with top talent across the board." As in these corporations are filled without exaggeration or inaccuracy (i.e. literally) with extremely talented people.
David Yontz, my grammar ninja (who copyedits my column and copyedited my book) says on his excellent grammar podcast that "literally" is (in cases like this, I believe) superfluous, and I tend to agree. It's not needed for that sentence.
You could say: ""They are filled with top talent across the board."
Amy Alkon at June 13, 2014 5:24 AM
Amy Says:
"his excellent grammar podcast that "literally" is (in cases like this, I believe) superfluous, and I tend to agree. It's not needed for that sentence."
That is all well and good, but the superfluous addition of a word does not indicate that it was used incorrectly.
To that end, the whole veering off subject to discuss whether or not I could have eliminated a single word and maintained the same meaning is also superfluous.
Clearly people here aren't all that picky about the economical use of language if entire posts are being devoted to the discussion of whether or not I could have tightened my language by a single word.
This is a silly and unimportant distraction.
But sure... the sentence could have been reduced in size by a word.
Artemis at June 13, 2014 7:25 AM
Ppen Says:
"Can you imagine anyone complaining about bullying on a blog comment?"
I'm not sure... can you imagine anyone complaining about being referred to as a bully in a blog comment months and months after the fact?
The reason I called you a bully is precisely because you follow me around trying to engage me in an argument that never has anything to do with the topic under discussion.
It is petty and childish stuff.
That you seem to be holding on so tight to a single blog comment I made to you suggests that maybe blog comments are more important to you than you suggest they should be to others.
"I can't imagine how that would have any merit with a woman like me."
And yet you feel the need to make that the topic of discussion probably a year later.
Yup... the comment didn't resonate with you at all.
Artemis at June 13, 2014 7:32 AM
Crid Asks:
"So… Artemis… Did you graduate college? With a degree, 'n everything?"
Of course I do not have a degree in "everything".
I limit myself here and elsewhere to discussions where I have sufficient background knowledge to know truth from BS.
This is why you will find no examples of me discussing things like russian literature, pop culture, or the finer points of tort law.
I have a good understanding of the limits of my knowledge and hence only choose to engage in discussions where I know enough to contribute in an educated manner.
That being said, that it may seem like I assert confident knowledge on any subject I engage in is a result of selection bias within the sample.
When I am not confident about something I keep my mouth shut.
Incidentally, this is why you will only find me commenting in select threads. I don't contribute to threads where my knowledge level is low.
Those threads I keep quiet and read what others are saying to see if I can learn something from someone who may know more than I do on that subject.
That is the funny thing about the internet... there are far more posts I have read and remained silent about than posts I have read and felt like I could add something to the discussion. Unfortunately, you can only observe the times I choose to speak and not the times I choose to remain silent and simply observe.
Artemis at June 13, 2014 7:54 AM
The easy removal of the incompetent or corrupt is what will protect the integrity of the grading system. Creating tenured incompetents won't protect anything but the incompetents' jobs - and the union's revenue source since the school districts will have to hire more dues-paying teachers to replace the dues-paying ones biding their time in the rubber rooms.
Let me help you a bit. The background of the person making the point can have a great deal of impact on the validity of the point.
When a person makes an assertion that one way of doing things is vastly better than another, other folks want to know how he came to that conclusion; what insights led him there.
I can argue all the points I want on string theory being superior to loop quantum gravity, but no one will take me seriously unless I can show that I've made a decent study of physics and might have relevant insights into the subject. I don't have to be a physicist, but I should at least be able to show I've gained some knowledge on the subject through study or experience.
There are many ways to show subject matter expertise. One is to cite sources in your argument. Another is to cite personal experience that would have given you insight.
You've cited neither in your argument that having tenure is vastly superior to protecting the integrity of the grading system than the corporate model for advancement and reward.
You bash the corporate model as if you have experience in it. However, your only reference seems to an unspecified number of conversations with people who have, one hopes, worked their way at least partially up the ladder at Google and Microsoft. This has led you to assert confidently that even in companies "literally" full of top talent, advancement is based on who you know and what posterior you kiss - as opposed to tenure model in which posteriors presumably remain unkissed.
So, tell us about the experience (or studies) that led you to conclude that the tenure system for elementary and high school teachers is the only thing standing between us and the chaos of incompetent teachers unleashing uneducated "A" students into the world.
And I'll tell you about the tenure system that graduated an extended family member from high school despite being 20 credits short and reading at a 7th grade level. His two brothers dropped out with neither reading at grade level. Of his seven cousins, three dropped out and four graduated with only two reading at grade level. They went to different high schools in different cities. One thing they had in common is their teachers all had tenure. Despite that, I'd say the integrity of those grading systems was seriously compromised.
The injustice done to the ones who graduated cannot be overemphasized. They were told they were ready for the world, that they had passed the test. Only they hadn't. They weren't ready. They were passed along by a system that didn't have to produce an actual result, an educated adult. It didn't need to educate him, it just needed to babysit him for four years.
I'm watching them struggle in ways I never had to because they don't have the education and skills needed to compete in today's job market - even at the unskilled labor level.
While the teachers didn't create the problem, they contributed to it. Why not? They weren't in danger of losing their jobs because the kid they passed through their class didn't know the subject material. The teacher who passed the uneducated kid up to them wasn't in danger either.
Fixing a system does not include strengthening the institutions that helped to create the problem in the first place. Tenure for elementary and high school teachers needs to be eliminated. By itself that won't fix the system, but it's a start.
I've gone to public schools and private schools. In fact, I coasted through public high school English grammar based on my 6th grade Catholic school English classes. I went from diagramming sentences in the 6th grade to being told what a verb was in 11th.
I went from watching my sixth grade science teacher get immediately fired for unprofessional conduct to having an 11th grade biology teacher whose class lectures were read directly from the text book because she didn't know anything about biology. She was a 300+lb PE major. Guess which one had tenure.
So, yeah, I'm a little biased against the tenure system - because I've never seen it work. Let me know your background and what leads you to believe it works better than something that hasn't even been tried in public education but works reasonably well in the private sector.
==============================
Artemis was the Greek goddess of the moon, wild animals, hunting, childbirth, etc. She was a hunting companion of Orion, whom she accidentally killed.
I'm going to guess that Artemis is female, works as a public school elementary teacher, and has more than one cat.
Conan the Grammarian at June 13, 2014 9:02 AM
I think he's a guy who picked up the name from some RPG, has multiple degrees, is autistic ( he has alot of trouble understanding when im joking) works in academia and has no knowledge how shit works outside of his circle because as he has stated before he can hold no conversation with those of regular intellect.
I do think he has something out of the ordinary in regards to his sexuality but I can't pin point it.
Ppen at June 13, 2014 9:23 AM
Again with the "literally."
You think it makes you appear smart and earnest, but it doesn't.
There's a reason that Parks and Recreation was so effective in mocking the hyperbolic use of "literally" - and not just in the way Rob Lowe pronounced it.
http://www.vulture.com/2013/09/every-chris-traeger-literally-parks-rec.html
Conan the Grammarian at June 13, 2014 10:36 AM
Also Artemis learn to use "quotes" or italicize so people can differentiate between your comments and the line you are arguing against
lujlp at June 13, 2014 10:51 AM
> I limit myself here and elsewhere to
> discussions where I have sufficient
> background knowledge…
No degree.
You "literally" (June 12, 2014 8:33 PM!) don't know what you're talking about... You're a busboy.
Always good to hear the opinions of concerned citizens, even the kind who don't read for pleasure.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 13, 2014 11:30 AM
> so effective in mocking the hyperbolic
> use of "literally"
Carolla used to get some mileage out of it too.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 13, 2014 11:31 AM
> something out of the ordinary in regards
> to his sexuality
You're not wrong, but detachment of this magnitude exceeds the isolation of virginity. Remember Orion? There've been dozens of these guys over the years. They'll type so furiously that their points are lost, but they can't understand how everyone knows they're full of shit. (After 15,000 words: 'But I've given you no clues! You know nothing about how my mind works! I'm an International Man of Mystery! There's no way you could have penetrated my thicket of preteen bravado and baseless "expertise!"' Remember Amy's squadron of foreskin lunatics, "Tony" etc? These aren't people who can socialize comfortably in a bar or coffeeshop.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 13, 2014 11:43 AM
Aw, busted link… Sorry. I feel bad. It was late.
Here's the earlier chatter about TKOCITO's adoration of ad hominem.
Amy sends me $5 for every good blog comment. After a mistake like that, I have to return $4.50 back to her office.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 13, 2014 11:55 AM
There is a fundamental difference in advocating for changes and adjustments to the tenure system and advocating for its complete destruction.
There is merit to the first sort of argument.
There isn't merit to the second.
Sorry, sis.
1. You're hopelessly verbose.
2. Your last argument to me was a defense of tenure in that it would avoid a contextually inconsequential problem.
3. You're not in a position to being declaring ex cathedra what there is and is not 'any merit' to.
4. If there were an implementable 'modified' tenure system, where would I find it?
Art Deco at June 13, 2014 3:21 PM
No more Latin.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 13, 2014 9:19 PM
Lujlp Says:
"Also Artemis learn to use "quotes" or italicize so people can differentiate between your comments and the line you are arguing against"
Are you blind by any chance?
I use quotations in almost every post I make to distinguish what other people are saying from my own statements.
I do it in exactly the same way I just did in this post where I quoted you above.
It is very odd that I would be criticized about failing to do something that I do as a matter of course.
Artemis at June 13, 2014 9:22 PM
Conan Says:
"The easy removal of the incompetent or corrupt is what will protect the integrity of the grading system."
Then I suppose you would also advocate that we eliminate tenure for all judges including supreme court justices.
After all, the argument that the easy removal of individuals from positions somehow preserves integrity cannot be a special case just for teachers.
The arguments are parallel.
"Creating tenured incompetents won't protect anything but the incompetents' jobs"
How exactly do you think someone earns tenure?
Teachers do not walk in the door with tenure.
They have to prove their competency to the administration to earn tenure status.
They are rated and approved of by the administration.
Based upon your argument one must conclude that the administration is incompetent if they keep giving out tenure to teachers who are unsuited to perform the job.
Prior to earning tenure those new teachers can be fired extremely easily.
The way you talk about tenure you would think the instant a teacher is hired they are impossible to remove.
The teacher has to prove themselves to their boss over several years in order to earn tenure status.
Artemis at June 13, 2014 9:36 PM
Conan Says:
"Let me help you a bit. The background of the person making the point can have a great deal of impact on the validity of the point."
No it cannot. That sort of mentality is at the very heart of fallacious reasoning.
The person making an argument is completely and utterly unimportant.
The only thing that matters is the argument itself.
If you judge the validity if an argument on the basis of who is talking then you aren't being rational.
An argument doesn't become stronger or weaker simply because you happen to have have a bias toward or against the speaker.
The argument stands or falls on its own merits.
Artemis at June 13, 2014 9:43 PM
Conan,
Let me apologize in advance for parsing your recent comments into three posts, as I was reading it different items jumped out at me as being important to respond to.
This particular point I think is one you need to carefully consider.
Please think about what you are saying here:
"You bash the corporate model as if you have experience in it."
First of all, I don't bash the corporate model. I simply don't think that model is appropriate for the public school system.
That I think the corporate model works well in some instances and poorly in others isn't "bashing" the model any more than me saying that using quantum mechanics to calculate the trajectory of a bullet is not the best method available.
Different models work well in different situations. It is about comprehending the nuances and applicability of the model.
The corporate model works well in corporations... it works poorly for public schools and the prison system.
That you see each and every problem as having a one size fits all solution is what I am arguing against.
Furthermore, I assume that since you appear to require that an individual has experience working in the corporate world in order to criticize it... that you would hold yourself to the same standard and only criticize the public education system you have substantial experience working as a teacher.
To do otherwise would make you little more than a hypocrite, don't you agree?
In any case, my comments about how corporate America works come from personal experience... when I mentioned having conversed with individuals who have climbed the corporate ladder over the course of 2 decades and how they achieved their success I was talking about information I gathered from my corporate mentors... the people I meet with on a regular basis for the purposes of professional development and network building.
I have no issues with the corporate model within corporations where there is a profit motive.
In such a situation the incentives are properly aligned.
The incentives of the corporate model are not however properly aligned with the goals of educating our children.
Artemis at June 13, 2014 10:09 PM
This one is going to come off a bit mean, but there isn't really a nice way to get to my point on this one.
"His two brothers dropped out with neither reading at grade level. Of his seven cousins, three dropped out and four graduated with only two reading at grade level. They went to different high schools in different cities. One thing they had in common is their teachers all had tenure."
Can you think of anything else two brothers have in common besides teachers with tenure?
I'll give you a hint... they have the same parents.
Where exactly is the personal responsibility here for parents whose children cannot read?
I for one could have had the most incompetent teachers in the universe and I would still would have learned my basic number facts, how to read, and how to write because my parents wouldn't have been so monumentally irresponsible to let me grow up like that.
You are arguing that an entire family is full of drop outs who can't read... but it is primarily the teachers fault.
Want to take bets that there were other families in that same district whose children had the same teachers and that those kids somehow had better outcomes?
So now that you've told me about that family... let me tell you a little about mine.
All of the children in my generation have advanced degrees. This includes myself, my siblings, and my cousins.
Every single one of us has a minimum of a masters degree, we are lawyers, physicians, and PhD's.
We all went to different elementary schools and high schools... all had different teachers, all went to different universities, all went to different graduate institutions, and none of us even considered the possibility of dropping out of high school, we all have collections of awards and scholarships from our time in school.
Want to know why?... because our parents all valued education and made sure it was a priority for us.
Not every teacher I had was the greatest educator on earth, some shined and others were a bit dull by comparison... but one thing I grew up knowing was that my success depended upon me.
Why do you suppose drop outs tend to cluster within family units if it is primarily the teachers fault?
Maybe you should consider the possibility that the problems that upset you so much aren't the result of tenure, but are instead caused by piss poor parenting.
Artemis at June 13, 2014 10:29 PM
That's exactly the kind of reasoning someone who never took the time to earn credentials or develop a level of expertise in at least one field uses - as if one can make relevant points in any debate on any subject simply because of one's inherent magnificence and brilliance.
I wonder if the folks who children developed whooping cough after they accepted Jenny McCarthy's anti-vaccination argument still believe her argument to be superior to the AMA's. After all, the credentials and expertise (or lack thereof) of the person making the argument means nothing, right?
That's irrelevant to the discussion on tenure for elementary and high school teachers. It's a different job with different considerations - unless you think an elementary school teacher is the equivalent of a US Supreme Court justice and deals with equally weighty matters and whose decisions have an equal impact on society.
Tenure for elementary and high school students is not earned. To receive tenure at the university level, professors must show contributions to their fields by publishing and doing research. Tenure, for public elementary and high school teachers is, thanks to union collective bargaining agreements, automatic after a short period of time on the job.
I read somewhere that the average time requirement for US teachers to get tenure is 3 years on the job. In California, it's 2 years. Schwarzenegger tried to change that with Prop 74 but the measure was defeated after a concerted campaign by teachers unions.
2-3 years is not enough time to evaluate a new teacher. A Nov. 21, 2008 study by the University of Washington's Center on Reinventing Public Education found that the first 2-3 years of teaching do not predict post-tenure performance.
What's more, a June 1, 2009 study by the New Teacher Project found that less than 1% of evaluated teachers were rated unsatisfactory.
Conan the Grammarian at June 13, 2014 11:04 PM
Why should a public employee be guaranteed more job security and legal protection than another employee in the same position?
Teachers are not hard to find, or particularly special, or particularly well educated.
Tenure brings due process, great in theory but horrible in execution. I went to a fantastic highschool, with upper middle class whites.
My English teacher lost all our state mandated coursework that we had done for thr past 3 years, he never taught a thing during class, just sat in his desk browsing the Internet , and was aggresive with a student who was dating the daughter of another teacher.
He was not fired despite the fact all of his classes were fucked for state exams.
Another teacher was caught looking at pornography during class. Oops.
I can only imagine what it is like in poor Hispanic schools. But of course you have no understanding of that. You think that it's all about parents that value an education, because that was your situation.
But I have lived and worked long enough in the Hispanic community to know that they do want their kids educated they just don't know how it's done or exactly what it is. They just view it as a concept, a daydream with no idea how its executed.
I've had some of my employees come and ask me if certain behaviour is apropriate from teachers. What is that SAT test my son has to take? Did you take it?
Again I went to school with upper middle class whites who cared about their children's education and could afford to educate them via other venues because they had the time and resources. Yet these powerful parents couldn't get rid of the bad teachers. Teachers who openly admited they were just riding things out for their pension.
Ppen at June 13, 2014 11:21 PM
My relevant example was not the drop-outs. It was the one who was graduated 20 credits short and reading at a 7th grade level. He was cheated by teachers (and a system) that didn't care if he actually learned anything because there were no consequences to failing to produce their promised product - an educated graduate. They certified him diploma-ready when he was not.
Conan the Grammarian at June 13, 2014 11:26 PM
Conan Says:
"That's exactly the kind of reasoning someone who never took the time to earn credentials or develop a level of expertise in at least one field uses - as if one can make relevant points in any debate on any subject simply because of one's inherent magnificence and brilliance."
You honestly think that the person putting forth the idea gives you greater insight into the validity of the position than a critical evaluation of the idea based upon it's own merits?
Every time you speak you manage to garble my position with another straw man.
In what sense does saying that the only thing that matters is the argument itself... imply that someone is correct because they happen to be brilliant?
It actually means the opposite of that.
It simply does not matter how smart, stupid, educated, uneducated you happen to be... the only thing that matters when evaluating a position are the merits of the argument.
The person putting forth the argument doesn't matter at all.
That you keep getting this confused suggests maybe you didn't learn to read either.
"I wonder if the folks who children developed whooping cough after they accepted Jenny McCarthy's anti-vaccination argument still believe her argument to be superior to the AMA's. After all, the credentials and expertise (or lack thereof) of the person making the argument means nothing, right?"
That is correct... to be absolutely clear Jenny McCarthy is wrong because her argument is completely unsupported by the evidence.
The virologists, pathologists, and doctors are right because their argument is well supported by the evidence.
The people do not matter.
"That's irrelevant to the discussion on tenure for elementary and high school teachers. It's a different job with different considerations - unless you think an elementary school teacher is the equivalent of a US Supreme Court justice and deals with equally weighty matters and whose decisions have an equal impact on society."
It isn't irrelevant.
You are arguing that the prospect of tenure is entirely unrelated to eliminating corrupting influences.
If that is true then it would apply universally.
The arguments are parallel, hence logic that is applied must be similar.
I don't even know what you mean by "equivalent" in this context.
What does it matter what the weight of the decision is if you are correct in your assertion that tenure has zero effect with regard to people making impartial decisions.
I think you know very well that tenure acts to ensure the integrity of the evaluation process... which is why you want to preserve it in the case of the supreme court.
This is essentially an admission that I am correct in saying that tenure helps to keep the student evaluation process impartial.
That you don't seem to care about the integrity of the grading system is deeply troubling.
"Tenure for elementary and high school students is not earned."
So you believe that elementary school teachers are hired and immediately tenured?
If that is your belief I am sorry to inform you that you are absolutely wrong.
Newly hired teachers at all levels start off without tenure and only receive tenure if the administration evaluates them favorably.
If the school system is littered with incompetent teachers... then the administration is equally incompetent for giving them good evaluations when they don't deserve them.
Yet this begs the following question... if the administration has evaluated them favorably, doesn't that suggest their boss believes them to be competent?
"2-3 years is not enough time to evaluate a new teacher."
This is a fundamentally different argument than saying tenure should be eliminated.
Arguing that the probationary period may need to be extended is about modifying/adjusting the tenure procedure, not about abolishing it.
"What's more, a June 1, 2009 study by the New Teacher Project found that less than 1% of evaluated teachers were rated unsatisfactory."
So doesn't that suggest that your assumptions about the educational system are flawed?
I mean... you've got to be wrong based upon your own logical framework.
The administrators (who are the experts in evaluating teachers) are finding 99% of teachers to be competent.
You on the other hand (in this analogy you play the part of Jenny McCarthy... the layperson trying to argue against the experts) keep harping about the abundance of incompetent teachers.
According to the experts who you are citing, the overwhelming majority of teachers are good at their job.
Please remember that you are not an expert in evaluating teachers... the administrators are experts in that area.
Hence by your very own logic you should happily defer to their opinions by default... right?
Artemis at June 13, 2014 11:53 PM
Conan Says:
"My relevant example was not the drop-outs. It was the one who was graduated 20 credits short and reading at a 7th grade level. He was cheated by teachers (and a system) that didn't care if he actually learned anything because there were no consequences to failing to produce their promised product - an educated graduate. They certified him diploma-ready when he was not."
He should not have been granted a diploma if he didn't earn it.
He failed out and should have had to earn a GED on his own.
Social promotion is a problem that I agree needs to be addressed.
Let's get one thing straight though. It isn't primarily teachers who want social promotion, it is parents who argue against having their children held back a grade.
If you haven't mastered the material you have no business advancing.
Artemis at June 14, 2014 12:04 AM
Ppen Says:
"Teachers are not hard to find, or particularly special, or particularly well educated."
As I said before, the people who argue the most fervently against tenure tend to be those with no respect for the teaching profession.
It seems to have much less to do with tenure being a bad policy, but a believe that if you don't have tenure... someone who you believe to be lesser than you shouldn't have it either.
I guess if you are so amazing and want tenure so badly you could always become a teacher and produce the most well educated students the world has ever seen.
And yet the same people who argue how amazing tenure is never seem inclined to become teachers themselves.
"But of course you have no understanding of that. You think that it's all about parents that value an education, because that was your situation."
Actually I do have an understanding of it.
I don't criticize the parents because I think they are terrible people.
I criticize the parents because that is where the focus needs to be if we are to improve the education of our youth.
In every community, no matter what the demographics happen to be, some students succeed and some faulter... these students often have the exact same teachers... so what tends to be the difference? The ones who succeed have parents who are there for them.
Teachers cannot effectively educate students if their parents do not believe education is important, it is really that simple.
"But I have lived and worked long enough in the Hispanic community to know that they do want their kids educated they just don't know how it's done or exactly what it is. They just view it as a concept, a daydream with no idea how its executed."
Which is precisely why I think the best way to improve student performance is to provide additional support and education to the parents of the children who are struggling.
For example, it is difficult to teach a child to read when you are illiterate. Such a child was never read bedtime stories and hence starts off at a huge disadvantage.
Blaming tenure in that kind of a scenario is not addressing the root cause of the problem.
"I've had some of my employees come and ask me if certain behaviour is apropriate from teachers. What is that SAT test my son has to take? Did you take it?"
I get all of this Ppen... and this is an actual problem that should be addressed in a comprehensive manner.
That being said, how is this related to tenure?
If tenure was suddenly eliminated would your employees suddenly know about the various scholarship opportunities that might be available for their children?
There is definitely a knowledge gap with regard to these systems... the same is true for the financial system where the children of parents with some money grow up learning how to save and budget and get their own bank accounts and learn to write checks and pay credit card bills.
That is a huge advantage later in life as well... but it has nothing to do with tenure or with teachers.
The first step to resolving a problem is to identify the root cause. You've brought up some good points that I think deserve real attention.
Artemis at June 14, 2014 12:25 AM
> Every single one of us has a minimum of a
> masters degree, we are lawyers, physicians,
> and PhD's.
No. It's not possible.
Artemis, you aren't a guy (or gal!) who's been taught & equipped to deal with complex enterprises, or to move through challenging environments, or to act in critical events (such as health & legal crises). You obviously aren't of great use to people in sudden, desperate need. And you certainly aren't a man who's been paid (and admired) for conveying delicate ideas to our best younger minds.
The ironic part!: If you were such a person, the clumsy desperation of your rhetoric on this blog would argue against your posture on Amy's topic. We'd think, 'If this is the kind of family that needs to defend tenure....'
But irony, as noted in the earlier comment, doesn't happen for you. Artemis, every word you've posted argues that real-world experience and interaction with others have no meaning, because you've got all the world's magnificence available in your own shallow skull... Which makes the rest of us (strangers all) wonder why our opinions summon such (wordy) persuasion from you.
Thing is, and we've seen this over and over again, commenters who have genuine and demonstrable achievements in their lives —whatever the context— are never diffident about specifics. Whether it's a tough degree from a mediocre institution, or a typical degree from a famous one, or an unremarkable career in a famously specific context... People who've really seen some shit will share their credentials.
(Over the years: Bio-entrepreneurship! Ivy league! Publishing! Law! Science! Transportation! Intense chemistry! Finance! Warfare! Education! Housewifery!… They've all made time for Amy's.)
You could name your degree, field and alma mater without risking personal exposure. You don't.
We know why.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 14, 2014 2:05 AM
As I clearly stated, teachers get tenure after 2-3 years on the job. And studies show that performance during that short period of time does not predict post-tenure performance.
Moreover, only 1% of teachers are evaluated as unsatisfactory, so whatever rating system you think grants tenure only to high-performing teachers does not exist.
Tenure for K-12 teachers is nothing more than a union work rule and needs to be eliminated to wrest control of the education process from the union bureaucracy.
Teachers are paid to produce a product, an educated adult, from raw materials that vary in quality. Thanks to tenure there are no consequences to failing to even attempt to produce that product. Talk about a corrupting influence.
And what Crid said, tell us your field of study. 'cause in your rants I'm not seeing evidence that you were trained in a field with serious academic rigor. Nor am seeing evidence that you been outside a structured environment exchanging value for value with your labor, insight, or ideas. You come across as sheltered and not very worldly.
Conan the Grammarian at June 14, 2014 9:05 AM
Conan Says:
"Moreover, only 1% of teachers are evaluated as unsatisfactory, so whatever rating system you think grants tenure only to high-performing teachers does not exist."
Again with the straw man arguments. Your reading comprehension skills are sorely lacking.
When did I state or even insinuate that only high-performing teachers get tenure?
Tenure only goes to teachers who receive favorable evaluations. Those who receive unfavorable evaluations prior to receiving tenure are fired.
You and others who share your perspective insinuate that the teaching profession is plagued by "incompetent" individuals who are impossible to dismiss due to tenure.
My point is that if they were truly incompetent as you assert they couldn't have received tenure in the first place... unless the administration was equally incompetent at determining their competency.
However this conclusion suggests it would then be a monumentally stupid idea to place their careers in the hands of people who apparently are incapable of sufficiently judging their quality.
You are simultaneously arguing that the very same administrators who are apparently inept at judging their quality prior to getting tenure are suddenly very qualified at identifying incompetent teachers who have tenure... and that their hands are tied by union contracts to get rid of the dead weight.
What I am saying is that the very same administrators cannot simultaneously be qualified to judge teachers after tenure and unqualified to judge them before tenure.
Your argument is incoherent because you want to have it both ways.
"And what Crid said, tell us your field of study. 'cause in your rants I'm not seeing evidence that you were trained in a field with serious academic rigor."
You say this not because my statements lack rigor, but because in this particular instance you happen to disagree with me.
You erroneously judge expertise, knowledge, and insight on the basis of how closely another persons perspective happens to match your own.
Crid thinks the same way. In his estimation you are intelligent on the basis of how much you think like he does.
That is a piss poor way to estimate another persons qualifications or expertise unless you enjoy living in an echo chamber.
Quite frankly, based upon your behavior in this thread why should I be convinced if I told you my field of expertise that you would even believe me?
Crid is a prime example of this effect. First he asks if I have any credentials at all and asserts without evidence that I don't.
I then share a little bit about my background and his first reaction is to essentially call me a liar by saying "No. It's not possible."
It simply doesn't matter what I say... you've created a caricature of me in your mind to help you to justify dismissing my points without further consideration.
That this caricature has no resemblance upon reality doesn't matter, you will defend and preserve it independently of any facts or information I bring to the table.
This is a very robust defense mechanism.
It will resist all facts and evidence up until the point where I tell you where I live, what I do for a living, how long I have worked there, what my educational background happens to be etc...
At that point you won't dismiss what I am saying on the basis of my credentials or work history, but on some other made up facet of my life that fits the narrative you prefer and dismiss what I am saying on that basis.
Please note that you aren't dismissing my statements on the basis of factual errors, or flaws in logic... you are dismissing my statements on the basis of what you imagine me to be like.
Artemis at June 14, 2014 11:41 AM
Conan,
I forgot to address this part which is actually quite important:
"Teachers are paid to produce a product, an educated adult, from raw materials that vary in quality. Thanks to tenure there are no consequences to failing to even attempt to produce that product. Talk about a corrupting influence."
Teachers are not paid to produce a product.
Teachers are paid to teach.
Most students who fail do so because they don't do the work.
A teacher has no power to make a student study.
Your statement above suggests you believe that it is a teachers responsibility to create an educated adult out of a student who doesn't show up to class, doesn't take notes, doesn't turn in their assignments, etc...
If a person ends up as an uneducated adult most of that responsibility lands squarely on their shoulders for being lazy.
You are so far off the mark that it boggles the mind.
Let me ask you very directly.
If teachers are to blame for the production of any uneducated adult, do you also blame pediatricians for all of the overweight people in our society?
I've got news for you, the very same qualities that cause our society to have an epidemic of childhood obesity (e.g., laziness and inactivity) are the very same qualities that lead to being uneducated.
I'll buy your argument about teachers being primarily responsible for poorly educated students if and when you start arguing that children in this country are overweight primarily because of incompetent pediatricians.
Artemis at June 14, 2014 11:49 AM
Crid Says:
"People who've really seen some shit will share their credentials.
You could name your degree, field and alma mater without risking personal exposure. You don't."
You go first.
As a matter of fact, why don't you and Conan both provide all of us with your resume and/or CV.
You have innumerable demands about my background and yet have never once shared anything about your own.
I think I know why.
Artemis at June 14, 2014 11:58 AM
While we're playing this game let me add some additional things to the list.
We should all be made aware of your high school class ranking and GPA.
Because if you had poor grades it suggests you are trying to place blame for your own personal failures on someone else.
And while you are providing all of this personal information always remember that I never thought any of this was relevant data for this discussion until you each insisted that the only way to judge the validity of an argument is to know everything humanly possible about the possible motivations of the person making the claim.
Facts and evidence be damned... what is apparently most important is how easily I can construe it that you have an agenda or personal grudge regarding your apparent lack of success in life.
Artemis at June 14, 2014 12:25 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/06/10/wow_--_californ.html#comment-4760940">comment from ArtemisOkay: I took the easiest classes possible in high school -- nothing with AP in the title (that would have taken away from the reading I wanted to do on various subjects). I wrote papers (on the typewriter), got As mostly, got into the University of Michigan and considered quitting school (and didn't because some people have a prejudice against people who didn't graduate college). I probably read more in some weeks -- and wander around thinking about what I read -- than some people do in a year. All my grade point tells you is that I'm smart enough to make it in an easy midwestern high school in the 80s and clever enough to know how to game the system.
Amy Alkon at June 14, 2014 1:05 PM
Amy,
That is great, but you have never once suggested that the validity of an argument is primarily based upon the person who is speaking.
You know better than this.
The correctness of an argument is entirely based upon the merits of the argument. It is the facts, evidence, logic, and reason that matter in evaluating the correctness of an idea.
"All my grade point tells you is that I'm smart enough to make it in an easy midwestern high school in the 80s and clever enough to know how to game the system."
Right... that information is completely and utterly irrelevant when trying to determine if you have said something that is correct or in error.
That is why this obsession with my own background is utterly stupid and a complete distraction... it simply doesn't matter with regard to evaluating any arguments I have made.
Artemis at June 14, 2014 1:24 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/06/10/wow_--_californ.html#comment-4761009">comment from ArtemisIf I have any prejudice toward somebody's alma mater, it's to find, in general, that people who tell you they went to Harvard in some coded way, usually within two sentences of beginning to talk with you, usually have little or nothing of value to say.
Amy Alkon at June 14, 2014 1:39 PM
Amy,
I agree with you. I honestly don't care where someone went to university (or even if they went to a university).
When people suggest that it is their credentials that make them correct I instantly know that they do not understand how to evaluate information.
This isn't to say that things like degrees and credentials are useless (I wouldn't just let someone cut me open because they said they read a book on anatomy for example), but you cannot simply defer to credentials to win an argument or a debate.
That is what I find so funny about all of this.
In all of my time here I have taken pains not to talk about my background... and for this I am being criticized.
Yet as you rightly point out, if I just showed up saying flashing around degrees and credentials, that wouldn't suggest I had anything of value to offer.
The problem is that some people here (i.e., Crid) want to have it both ways.
His arguments are inconsistent from one post to the next.
Early in this conversation he was all about saying that being scholarly and well educated "counts for essentially nothing"... only to then assert that the reason he and I are on opposite sides of this discussion is because I am not scholarly or worldly enough.
He has created this warped little bubble of reality where if someone disagrees with him it is either because they are an uneducated nitwit... or an over educated shut in.
He doesn't argue against points, he argues against people and has conveniently generated a set of excuses to fit all situations.
If you disagree with him it is either because you know too much or too little.
In his distorted reality, the only correct amount of knowledge to have just so happens to be exactly equal to whatever amount of information he happens to be familiar with at any given moment.
Artemis at June 14, 2014 1:57 PM
> You have innumerable demands about my
> background yet have never once shared
> anything about your own.
Dood.
[About 112,000 results (0.27 seconds)]
With the possible (but uncertain!) exception of Amy Alkon herself, who pays for the disk space, no one in Internet America has put as much on this blog as I have over the years. Detailed anecdotes about friendships, career, education, travel, family, finance... Entire farms of Byte Bushes (Aegyptium binar flumen virgultum) have given their pulp to the exposition of my experiences for you, the casual visitor. When topics have had professional relevance, I've noted what I have to offer, as do commenters from the fields listed last night.
Nobody's "demanding" anything but a reason to think you know what you're talking about.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 14, 2014 3:55 PM
Actually that number looks a little high... But after nearly three dozen pages of citation, the Google listing stops:
But the point's been made, right?Nonetheless, it's mortifying to learn that the world's most reliable data-sorting algorithms have condensed the entirety of my genius to a mere 323 distinctly compelling insights.
Humbling!
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 14, 2014 4:06 PM
Artemis, Amy shares her sources and has spent enough time on this blog talking about the conferences she's attended, books she's read, and symposia in which she has participated that her credentials are well known and trusted - even by people who don't agree with her. Besides, its her blog.
And I've shared my background, experience, education, and experience on several different threads.
My guess is you're safely ensconced in academia and have never traded your skills and insight value for value in the non-cloistered world.
Conan the Grammarian at June 14, 2014 4:49 PM
He's previously admitted that talking to regular people is beneath him and he finds it on par with speaking with developmentally delayed individuals
And yet we're expected to believe he knows better in regatds to public policy especially created to teach regular intelligence folks.
Ppen at June 14, 2014 6:04 PM
> safely ensconced in academia
Ensconced, yes... He's tucked away somewhere. But see also Ppen: Academics don't quibble on blogs this way. (Or anywhere else, for that matter.) Unless he means Highland Community College or something, where most instructors have day jobs such that they shouldn't expect tenure, and where nobody's doing innovative research requiring political protection.
A riddle! Wrapped in mystery! Packed inside an enigma! How can we sleep? How???
And yet we do!
(Also, I don't know what Coney or Purp do for a living, either. But it doesn't come up, because they don't sell boolsheet.)
Are you all watching Le Mans? Just after dawn.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 14, 2014 9:11 PM
Crid Says:
"With the possible (but uncertain!) exception of Amy Alkon herself, who pays for the disk space, no one in Internet America has put as much on this blog as I have over the years."
Right... in otherwords... you are not sharing or answering the questions.
Tell all of us here, put it all in one place since that is what you are demanding of others.
"You could name your degree, field and alma mater without risking personal exposure. You don't."
If you have already shared all of this information elsewhere somewhere in the 10+ year history of this blog it is unreasonable to expect that someone could dig it up.
On that note... all of my credentials are listed on the internet somewhere too... have fun searching.
Artemis at June 15, 2014 8:50 AM
Conan Says:
"And I've shared my background, experience, education, and experience on several different threads."
Then what is you issue with sharing it here and now?
In the same space you spent explaining why you won't share your personal information here you could have listed all of the details.
It is telling that you refuse to provide that information when you have demanded it of others.
Telling someone to go on a wild goose chase to dig it up through 1000's of web pages is a cop out.
Don't be a weasel.
Artemis at June 15, 2014 8:53 AM
Ppen Says:
"He's previously admitted that talking to regular people is beneath him and he finds it on par with speaking with developmentally delayed individuals."
This is a perversion of what I wrote and you know it.
If you recall, the discussion was regarding IQ.
My comment then was that an individual with an IQ of 145 is as far away in the distribution from the average as a person with an IQ of 65.
You are the one who then perverted this to mean something analogous to calling "regular people" the equivalent of being "mentally disabled".
If you understood anything about normal distributions you would understand that my actual statement is simply a statement of fact regarding how the distribution works when the standard deviation is 15 points and the center of the distribution is at 100.
Artemis at June 15, 2014 8:58 AM
Correction:
This should read "My comment then was that an individual with an IQ of 145 is as far away in the distribution from the average as a person with an IQ of 55."
Artemis at June 15, 2014 9:00 AM
Crid Says:
"Also, I don't know what Coney or Purp do for a living, either. But it doesn't come up, because they don't sell boolsheet."
When you say "boolsheet" what you mean is they don't ever take a strong stand on a subject that you disagree with.
The only time you ever make demands of credentials is when you are outgunned in an argument from the perspective of facts, logic, and evidence.
Only then do you suddenly derail the discussion completely and turn it into a congressional vetting session where you need to judge the qualifications of the person who dared to make you look foolish.
You have succeeded though... you successfully derailed Conan from the actual conversation and got him on board with your stupid diversion.
Bravo!!
Artemis at June 15, 2014 9:11 AM
Crid,
Also... since you are being a weasel and refusing to share information that you are demanding of me, I'm going to speculate on your current employment situation.
I am guessing that you are currently out of work... or forced to retire early.
The reason I say this is because you are not generally a compassionate individual, so this comment of yours stood out to me:
"Tenure? For schoolteachers? With tens of millions of productive Americans out of work?"
You aren't the kind of guy to call unemployed people "productive" unless you were one of the people in that situation.
I think this really drives to the heart of the matter for you. You got sacked for being an under-performing employee and are pissed that people who you deem to be beneath you have more job security than you had.
If you were gainfully employed at the moment I don't think you would refer to people who have been fired as "productive".
Artemis at June 15, 2014 10:53 AM
Oh, c'mon... This is silly. You're a child. Either you're a teenage boy or you're a shut-in, maybe profoundly disabled, raised by loving (but overwhelmed) people who we never going to be be able to give you normal childhood interactions.
> In his estimation you are
> intelligent on the basis of how
> much you think like he does.
Intelligence isn't worth "estimating": I don't care about it. We covered this earlier— You weren't reading.
My "estimation" —more literally, admiration— is for people who see and negotiate the world as it is, without comforting distortions. That courage is available to everyone, whether they carry a bright lamp or a candle. It's certainly available to everyone, stupid or brilliant, whether or not they have education.
If you compose your view of the world to flatter yourself, then I won't like you.
Coincidentally (but only coincidentally), a need for flattery means the things you say will be dumb. So that'll be the second good (and fun!) reason to give you a hard time.
Gainfully employed in a big company after a (richly rewarding) career as a freelancer, and thanks for asking. and more "compassionate" than you, no doubt: 13% of 2013's AGI to charity.
You're in a wheelchair, right?
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 15, 2014 12:47 PM
Artemis wrote
The only time you[crid] ever make demands of credentials is when you are outgunned in an argument from the perspective of facts, logic, and evidence.
Thats not entirely true, most times he'll jsut call people childish, or make snide remarks about spelling or punctuation and ignore the counter argument entirely.
lujlp at June 15, 2014 3:27 PM
Crid,
I'm still waiting on your "degree, field and alma mater", which is the information you are demanding of me.
Saying "Gainfully employed in a big company after a (richly rewarding) career as a freelancer, and thanks for asking."
Is purposefully vague and evasive.
Please remember that I didn't put us down this path. I don't believe any of this information is relevant to the discussion.
However, to use a poker analogy... You don't get to see my cards if you are too much of a coward to place a bet.
Artemis at June 15, 2014 4:44 PM
lujlp Says:
"Thats not entirely true, most times he'll jsut call people childish, or make snide remarks about spelling or punctuation and ignore the counter argument entirely."
I am happy to add this to the list of Crid's general behavior.
The guy wouldn't know how to argue a point if his life depended on it.
Things like facts, evidence, logic, and reason appear to be far beyond his grasp.
When someone disagrees with his perspective he has proven himself incapable of discussing the issues and instead derails the thread entirely.
Which is ironic because that is the behavior of a child throwing a temper tantrum... as he spends his time calling other people children.
Please note that from his perspective asking him for his credentials and speculating about his life situation is "childish"... but this is the behavior he engages in as a matter of habit.
I agree that it is unrelated to the discussion, but it is impossible to engage in an adult conversation with a child throwing a fit (i.e., Crid).
Artemis at June 15, 2014 4:53 PM
Crid Says:
"My "estimation" —more literally, admiration— is for people who see and negotiate the world as it is, without comforting distortions. That courage is available to everyone, whether they carry a bright lamp or a candle. It's certainly available to everyone, stupid or brilliant, whether or not they have education."
This is my point Crid.
You evaluate the correctness or incorrectness of another persons perspective on the basis of how well it matches your own.
It it matches they are correct... if it doesn't match they are a dim witted, uneducated shut in.
At no point do you engage in a conversation about facts and evidence or the logic of a particular position.
You have formulated your position in advance and no amount of facts presented by another person will be considered or discussed.
Your cup is full and there is no room for debate from anyone else.
It must be nice to be so ignorant and still feel like you know everything.
This is why on any subject you place yourself in the default position... you believe yourself to be the judge and take great umbrage if anyone so much as calls you out on your bull shit.
Most of the time you are talking completely out of your ass and you have no depth or perspective on the issue under discussion.
You are the most exquisite example of the Dunning-Kruger effect that I have ever encountered.
You are a person with no appreciable skill at anything in life who on the basis of their own ignorance presumes they know far more than they actually do.
In addition, since you are so ignorant, you are incapable of judging expertise in others.
Simply put... a layperson is in no position to just the extent of knowledge of an expert.
You simply know too little to make that kind of an assessment... but you also know too little to understand how limited your knowledge happens to be.
Artemis at June 15, 2014 5:02 PM
> I'm still waiting
Don't wait! Do Google, all one line—
— where "___" = your topic.Wheelchair, right? C'mon. Purp's dying of curiosity.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 15, 2014 5:11 PM
Also:
"You're in a wheelchair, right?"
What if I was in a wheelchair?
Let's say for the sake of argument that I was severely physically handicapped.
What baring would this have upon this or any other discussion that takes place on this blog?
Stephen Hawking is in a wheelchair... does that suggest that his thoughts are somehow inferior to your own?
Crid, if you believe that the validity of someones perspective on the subject of tenure is in any way related to their ability to walk you are a moron.
As I said, you are a person without compassion.
Hence when you say that the unemployed are "productive" I must invariably conclude that you are amongst their number.
You don't say nice things about others.
By the way, I am sorry you got fired and are having trouble finding a job.
Artemis at June 15, 2014 5:12 PM
Crid Says:
"Don't wait! Do Google, all one line"
If you can't be bothered to type it here, I can't be bothered to do a google search and sift through 100,000+ web hits to find a piece of data that probably doesn't exist.
I'm not going to invest that kind of time in you.
You have the following options:
1 - Put down all of the detailed information here about yourself that you are demanding of me.
2 - Stuff a sock in it.
Artemis at June 15, 2014 5:15 PM
C'mon... c'mon.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 15, 2014 5:40 PM
Dood... Please.... Throw me a bone.
A profound learning disability, right? Or something like that. Something that kept you away from other kids, while still on a typically rote and uninspiring course of readin' & 'rithma-tic.
But no class trip to the Aquarium, and no 5th-grade tenting for 4 days at Camp Minnepoonus, with s'mores and snipe hunts and that one kid who stole your underwear while you were in the shower... No Scout troop with a few kids from your school and a few from another one... And later, no high school football (not even to watch), no chess club, and no prom.
Not alotta friendships, and precious few with peers.
C'mon... Help a guy out. No cost to you... We were never going to meet anyway.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 15, 2014 7:40 PM
Crid,
Here is some friendly advice.
You really should be focusing your time and energy looking for a job.
Your unemployment checks aren't going to last forever.
Artemis at June 15, 2014 8:00 PM
Spent the afternoon car shopping.
Paraplegia, right?
C'mon.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 15, 2014 8:20 PM
Crid,
Someone who would be so heartless, so low, so ethically bankrupt to insinuate that the statements of a wheelchair bound individual can be disregarded and dismissed simply on the basis of their disability is not the kind of person who would say this:
"Tenure? For schoolteachers? With tens of millions of productive Americans out of work?"
Unless they personally fell into the category of being unemployed.
If you have no compassion for people who are incapable of walking you would not have any compassion for other people who were out of work either.
Someone like you only cares about themselves.
If you were gainfully employed you wouldn't even think of referring to out of work individuals as "productive" members of society.
Someone like you would consider them drains on society if you weren't in their shoes.
Please focus your time on finding a job... you obviously don't have the time to be screwing around on the internet.
Artemis at June 15, 2014 8:27 PM
> to insinuate that the statements of
> a wheelchair bound individual can be
> disregarded and dismissed
No... Merely that his statements can be distinguished.
Gotcha, don't I?
I knew it.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 15, 2014 8:34 PM
Crid,
The moment you started tossing around statements like "You're in a wheelchair, right?" as if it were an insult I decided that you were a truly pathetic individual.
I honestly feel bad for you at this point because only a truly horrible human being would say such a thing.
When you say that to someone there are only two possibilities:
1 - The person is actually bound to a wheelchair. Such a person has had a very difficult life due to their disability and so telling them that in some sense their perspective on various issues is disqualified on the basis of their disability is unnecessarily cruel. Such a statement would be an unnecessary low blow.
2 - The person is not bound to a wheelchair and hence the statement has no effect on them at all.
It really is that bimodal. It is not as if someone can be confused about their status in terms of being able ambulatory. You can't shake someones confidence in their ability to walk by suggesting they are in a wheelchair when they aren't.
The only type of person whose feelings you can hurt by saying such a thing would actually be someone who was unable to walk.
Hence that you would say such a thing to anyone makes you a pretty shitty person.
Artemis at June 15, 2014 8:42 PM
> You don't say nice things about others.
Not literally true!*
I'm just not slutty with praise… When people get some, they know they earned it.
So, I nailed it, right?
It would look cool on my business card.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 15, 2014 8:53 PM
I'll also point out that you only broke out the whole wheelchair thing after I pointed out that you were probably unemployed.
That my statement would trigger such a knee jerk horrible statement from you suggests I must have hit a sensitive nerve with regard to the whole employment thing.
I still do hope you find some work... even shitty people like you need to eat.
Artemis at June 15, 2014 8:56 PM
Dood. You have the following options...
C'mon.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 15, 2014 9:17 PM
Crid,
Just do a google search. My credentials are out there on the internet too.
Artemis at June 15, 2014 9:44 PM
So, you understand probability and the implications of being 3 standard deviations from the mean when it comes to IQ, but have no problems with a rating system that rates 99% of teachers as satisfactory?
If we assume a normal distribution and that "satisfactory" is the mean level of performance and we apply the three sigma rule, we should see roughly 68% of teachers being rated "satisfactory."
If we expand the standards of "satisfactory" to include 2 standard deviations from the mean, we should see 75% to 95% being rated satisfactory. But we're seeing 99%. That's three standard deviations from the mean (a probability of 0.27%).
That means the probability of a teacher being rated "unsatisfactory" is almost nil. As a result, all teachers are satisfactory.
And that raises no red flags for you?
According to your argument, nothing in this statistical aberration should cause someone to say "what?" because the administrators are the experts in rating teachers and we should defer to their expertise - even though you have argued in the same [metaphorical] breath that any expertise in a subject relevant to the argument is immaterial and should be ignored.
Conan the Grammarian at June 16, 2014 9:06 AM
Coney, this is not a grown man like you and I: He doesn't have a lot of productive interaction with others. His fingers really typed these words:
> You don't say nice things about others.
That was a paragraph. It's not just that he should be so childish & naive: He had time to compose that thought, and then to select its context, and that's what he came up with.
He doesn't understand how arguments & discussions breathe... How to make a point, answer a point, or let anyone else take the floor. He'll post five mundane points in a comment spanning a thousand words, and then immediately post six more mundane points in a comment with thirteen hundred. He's used to people being more patient with him than any adult friends or colleagues could ever be.
He's not evil, he's lonely. I think he's tremendously flattered by those of you who presume he's an academic, or some other kind of professional who happens to have some weird expressive habits. Defensive nature like this doesn't just happen... This kid is completely green.
> You don't say nice things about others.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 16, 2014 12:18 PM
Based on the posts Artemis has made in this and other threads about teachers and education, I'm guessing Artemis is associated with the educational industry, possibly as a teacher. The strident and knee-jerk nature of her reaction to any criticism of teachers in these threads strikes me as defensive.
Based on this defensiveness, and since Artemis is insistent that all members of her immediate family have master's degrees, I'm going to guess that, she has a master's in education - the least academically rigorous master's degrees a pseudo-intellectual can get.
"Supreme Court justices get tenure, so elementary school teachers should too" tells me she has an unrealistically romantic view of the public education system, as if the thousands of elementary school teachers in this country are each personally subject to the same level of political pressure that 9 Supreme Court justices must endure and in need of equally drastic protections.
In one of Amy's threads on dating, Artemis adamantly asserts that a woman should pursue a man she finds attractive in long-winded posts full of "mechanisms" and "predispositions." From that, I got a vibe that she's a woman (or an effeminate man who wishes a woman would chase him - which could be the source of Ppen's vibe).
Like Ppen, I get a weird vibe. There was no overt indication of gender in any of her posts (even the dating ones), like she's going out of her way to try to hide it ... or is unsure of it ... or something."
The scold about not saying nice things seems to indicate someone who spends a great deal of time around children and has become accustomed to insisting on enforced "niceness" in interactions - possibly as an elementary school teacher.
I suspect your perception that she's "used to people being more patient with [her] than any adult friends or colleagues could ever be" is because she's used to addressing a captive audience that is unable to formulate counterarguments, and probably forbidden from making them (no back talk allowed).
That would also explain why her arguments are rigid (almost binary) and lack the sophistication of someone who's regularly subjected to a normal adult give-and-take.
She pretends to intricate thinking by listing multiple sub-points in defense of her main point, but gives little indication of truly understanding the subtle complexities of her main point. "I'm right and you're wrong and here are five reasons why ... and here are six more."
Her posts, especially those on American history, tend to be pedantic - and she's very brittle and defensive when corrected on the subject.
This is a lonely person who wants to be taken seriously as a thinker and held in high esteem, but lacks the internal road map to get there.
The pretense of sophistication in her posts (intimations of insider connections to high-ranking individuals, suggestions of urbane cocktail party chatter, denigration of pop culture, etc.) is an effort to show herself as more worldly and intellectual than she actually is.
Finally, the moniker "Artemis" is from Greek mythology, the goddess of virgins and protector of young girls. This choice of nickname indicates someone with a rich fantasy life and, likely, a tenuous connection to reality.
Note, Artemis could also come from Artemis Fowl - the male anti-hero of a series of young adult fantasy novels, which could indicate someone more in touch with fantasy than reality.
There's also Artemus Gordon (a character in The Wild Wild West) or Artemas Ward (who lost the job of commanding the Continental Army to George Washington), but the spellings are different.
The lateness of her posts (usually in the late pm or early am) is interesting - possibly indicating she lives beyond the West Coast, maybe Hawaii or Guam. Or it could mean the burger joint at which she works closes late.
Perhaps she's one of those teachers caught in an inappropriate relationship with a student because she desperately needed to fill some emotional void left unfilled since high school; someone unable to form a relationship with an adult equal - also possibly a source of Ppen's vibe. And, as a result (and in line with your suspicions), she is living in an institution.
I hope this will be my last post on this. Patrick used to do this (and still does on occasion), tar baby me into a quagmire of post and counter-post that in the end was little more than him claiming I was putting words in his mouth and me pointing out that he was being deliberately obtuse. The original point would be long lost before it ended. I just don't need the last word that badly.
The original topic of this thread is tenure. My argument is that tenure is bad because limits the ability of the school board to fire or discipline bad teachers and locks the school board into a last-in-first-out mechanism for promotion and reward. Artemis' argument is that tenure is needed because 99% of teachers are satisfactory (ergo, no bad ones to discipline) and Supreme Court justices get tenure ... and the integrity of the public elementary education system is the foundation of Western civilization.
'nuff said.
Conan the Grammarian at June 16, 2014 2:59 PM
NNNNNNNNNNNNNevah!
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 16, 2014 7:26 PM
Just reread this and realized there may be some ambiguity about who I was referring to when I posted this. I was referring to Artemis sucking me in on this.
Conan the Grammarian at June 16, 2014 8:15 PM
Rereading personal emails from others, it turns out that Amy's Artemis is also Amy's Orion, which everyone else probably already knew. So that's TWO famous ancient names about which I know nothing,* including the genders for their first holders. But yes, sexual indeterminacy in commentary is probably a clue.
*At age 13, enjoyed WWW reruns on a big B&W TV late at night.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 16, 2014 9:32 PM
Conan Says:
"If we assume a normal distribution and that "satisfactory" is the mean level of performance and we apply the three sigma rule, we should see roughly 68% of teachers being rated "satisfactory.""
Sure... IF we assume something that I don't believe to be an accurate or reliable way to judge "satisfactory" performance.
People do not generally define "satisfactory" performance in this way for the purposes of firing people. They evaluate skill and performance on an absolute scale as opposed to a relative scale for the purpose of determining if someone is qualified to perform a specific job function.
If we did define "satisfactory" performance in the way you suggest then we would expect to hover around an unemployment rate of 32% and anything less than that would imply that the economy was running inefficiently.
Something tells me this isn't the argument you are trying to make because it is ridiculously absurd.
For example, in the military you don't make it through boot camp by being in the top 68%... you make it through boot camp by meeting a set of minimum expectations for competency.
If you pass those minimum standards you are considered qualified to move on, that other people might be better than you doesn't disqualify you from service.
"That means the probability of a teacher being rated "unsatisfactory" is almost nil. As a result, all teachers are satisfactory.
And that raises no red flags for you?"
That statement in and of itself does not have the informational content to render a decision.
Even if it did raise red flags for me, when a red flag is raised it indicated that further investigation is required to generate an opinion.
For you, the red flag alone is enough for you to start jumping to conclusions.
It isn't even that you are speculating about causes here... you are confidently stating that you know what the cause is as well as what the fix is.
I don't believe you can know any of this on the basis of a "red flag".
Furthermore, while it might be fine for someone with my stated position to consider it a red flag, that you would consider it a red flag makes your overall philosophical stance inconsistent.
You are the same person who claimed that when experts and laypeople come into a conflict on a particular idea... the layperson is by default incorrect due to their lack of expertise.
Taking that into consideration, as a person who is not an expert in evaluating teacher performance, where do you get off criticizing the evaluations of the experts who are telling you that 99% of the teachers are satisfactory?
To put it simply for you... on the one hand, if you were correct before that expert opinions always trump the opinions of laypeople then you need to just accept the 99% number as fact and stop complaining about it.
On the other hand, if you feel that as a non-expert in evaluating teachers your opinion is valid even when you disagree with the experts... then you should be able to admit that I was correct earlier when I said that the only thing that matters is the merits of the argument and not the person making the argument.
You can't have it both ways Conan.
Artemis at June 17, 2014 2:24 AM
Conan Says:
"Based on the posts Artemis has made in this and other threads about teachers and education, I'm guessing Artemis is associated with the educational industry, possibly as a teacher. The strident and knee-jerk nature of her reaction to any criticism of teachers in these threads strikes me as defensive."
Of course you would guess that. You would guess anything that would help you to put my objections to your arguments in a neat little box that you can tuck away in the closet without consideration.
It isn't that your arguments are poorly constructed, ill conceived, and inconsistent... it is that I have some sort of an agenda.
Not that you'll believe me, but I am not, nor have I ever worked in the educational industry.
Please keep in mind that it is people like you, crid, and ppen who make a habit out of generating caricatures of people who disagree with you instead of actually dealing with the arguments being presented.
The lot of you can't even get onto the same page on what I must be like.
Crid suspects I am a wheelchair bound shut-in.
Ppen suspects I am a lonely, dateless, nerdy guy.
You suspect I am a female teacher with an ax to grind who lives by myself with multiple cats.
All of these caricatures tell a great deal more about the mind they were generated in than they say about me.
They are pictures of the type of people who each of you have no respect for and feel comfortable disregarding without a second thought.
Things like reality don't influence any of you, instead you each like to live in some delusional fantasy world where the only people out there who disagree with you have something profoundly wrong with them.
It is time for each of you to get a reality check and come to grips with the fact that reasonable normal people can and will find your positions to be stupid from time to time.
This is one of those times... and your position happens to be stupid in this case.
Artemis at June 17, 2014 2:36 AM
Conan Says:
"The original topic of this thread is tenure. My argument is that tenure is bad because limits the ability of the school board to fire or discipline bad teachers and locks the school board into a last-in-first-out mechanism for promotion and reward. Artemis' argument is that tenure is needed because 99% of teachers are satisfactory (ergo, no bad ones to discipline) and Supreme Court justices get tenure ... and the integrity of the public elementary education system is the foundation of Western civilization."
Thank you for finally discussing the actual topic after your lengthy "analysis"... needless to say you are as wrong about tenure as you are about me.
None of your speculation or ideas about either subject even remotely resembles reality, but you simply don't know any better. It is easier for you to live in a world where blind speculation is the equivalent of truth.
Needless to say you have my argument all wrong.
I have no problem with tenure for the following reasons:
1 - It does not prevent the removal of "bad" teachers in the sense that you mean. "Bad" teachers can still be removed... tenure simply establishes a procedure by which those teachers are fired. It is due process, not a guarantee of employment.
2 - If the administrators are finding 99% of teachers to be satisfactory, exactly which teachers are going to be fired for being "bad" anyway? The principles are the ones who do those evaluations, so if they are finding 99% of the teachers to meet their expectations, why would they suddenly be having difficulty getting rid of the huge quantity of substandard teachers you presume to exist?... unless you want to take the firing aspect out of the hands of the administration and put it into the hands of other parties. However that begs the question of who would be charged with the responsibility of evaluating and firing teachers if not the principles whose evaluations you apparently do not think are accurate?
3 - The integrity of the student evaluation system is critical to uphold. Tenure helps to keep the grading system fair and impartial. That further improvements could be made in this area is not an indictment of tenure, it is a justification for further measures that help to ensure that our children are treated fairly.
That you do not seem to believe that public education is a foundational element within western civilization suggests that you have been living under a rock.
Artemis at June 17, 2014 2:57 AM
Conan,
Something else for you to consider... it seems you have done your math wrong:
"If we expand the standards of "satisfactory" to include 2 standard deviations from the mean, we should see 75% to 95% being rated satisfactory. But we're seeing 99%. That's three standard deviations from the mean (a probability of 0.27%)."
Let's even say for the sake of argument that this whole normal distribution model was the right way to go.
~95.4% of all values exist within 2 standard deviations of the mean.
However, let's take a closer look at that remainder, shall we?
Of the ~4.6% that remains outside of 2 standard deviations, half ends up on one side of the distribution while half ends up on the other side.
To put it in simpler terms, if someone tells you they are 2 standard deviations from the mean in terms of height, that isn't sufficient information to know whether they are extremely tall or extremely short... all you know is that they are at one of the extreme ends.
Based upon your analysis, you are as quick to fire the exceptional teachers as you are to fire the crappy ones simply because you have lumped them together into the same group.
So let's split them up as would be appropriate for this type of analysis.
When we do this we would fine that ~98% of teachers would be defined as satisfactory or above average according to your own chosen metric.
And yet you are pitching a fit over this 99% figure.
Really?... all of this is about 1 percentage point difference between the administrator evaluations and what you would expect to be the results based upon your statistical assumptions?
That 1% might as well be in the statistical noise. Their evaluations are therefore statistically matched with your model.
There is nothing for you to be complaining about here.
You're assumption that there must be a problem resides in the fact that you couldn't tell the difference between the parts of the distribution that reside above the mean from the parts that reside below it.
Artemis at June 17, 2014 3:14 AM
> To put it simply for you...
1700+ words over 4 separate postings, with a boast of "simplicity"? Who in your life is that patient?
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 17, 2014 3:45 AM
Crid,
Simple doesn't imply brief.
A simple explanation of a complex subject is still going be lengthy.
As a matter of fact, the more one simplified things, often the longer the explanation becomes because it becomes filled with analogies and examples designed to get the point across.
Euler's formula for example can be written out very briefly as e^ix = cos(x) + isin(x).
However that briefly written statement would be incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't had all of the math behind it explained to them.
That explanation, no matter how simple and well thought out is going to be much longer than the formula itself.
Needless to say, if you understood more about the world I wouldn't have to constantly waste my time explaining all of the basics.
Artemis at June 17, 2014 4:03 AM
Also, your hypocrisy is showing again.
My 1700+ words over 4 separate postings were in response to 1300+ words over 4 separate postings from you and Conan.
So sure, 1300+ words is perfectly reasonable, but 1700+ is over the line.
You are constantly looking for trivial excuses not to have to address any point I bring up, and as lujlp pointed out earlier this isn't a unique strategy you are using with me, you do this with everyone who disagrees with you.
It is time for you to stop being a weasel.
Artemis at June 17, 2014 4:10 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/06/10/wow_--_californ.html#comment-4769078">comment from ArtemisA simple explanation of a complex subject is still going be lengthy.
Not necessarily. It's just fuckloads harder to write.
This is what I struggle with in my column -- reading scientific research, understanding it well enough to be able to describe it (understanding is far easier than describing), and then translating it into ordinary language -- short enough for people not to die of boredom reading.
Amy Alkon at June 17, 2014 5:07 AM
Amy,
Of course "not necessarily".
My argument is that brevity is not in and of itself a the hallmark of simplicity.
It can be associated with it, but it doesn't have to be.
However, when you say the following:
"and then translating it into ordinary language -- short enough for people not to die of boredom reading."
I feel I must point out that more often than not, this translation into ordinary language that I see you perform results in massive confusion amongst your readership on what the actual scientific research says.
As such you need to keep in mind that is is possible to so oversimplify things for the sake of making it entertaining that any real knowledge is utterly lost.
Incidentally, this is why scientists often become incredibly frustrated with science journalists.
In an effort to make exciting, entertaining and eye catching headlines then often butcher the scientific information.
Sometimes you do the same thing and the individuals who read your columns who aren't themselves familiar with the science end up drawing false conclusions about that the real experts are saying.
Artemis at June 17, 2014 5:23 AM
Here is an example of what I mean:
http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2094665,00.html
This is an article in time entitled "Was Einstein Wrong? A Faster-than-Light Neutrino Could Be Saying Yes"
Exciting title, right?
Also a complete and utter perversion of that the scientists would claim.
However, people like you and the author of that time piece are in kind of a tough position.
You want to grab readers... and actual science can be boring and/or tedious... so sometimes accuracy takes a back seat to exciting "translations".
Artemis at June 17, 2014 5:27 AM
Amy,
Also, just to inject some facts into this conversation.
In your recent column "Bad Harem Day" you responded to a 100 word introductory question with a 700 word response.
Your answer was a factor of 7 times longer than their comment/question.
My response to Conan who wrote nearly 1000 words wasn't even a factor of 2 longer.
If I took a page out of your book on being brief my response would have been over 7000 words long.
Artemis at June 17, 2014 5:44 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/06/10/wow_--_californ.html#comment-4769302">comment from ArtemisAmy, Also, just to inject some facts into this conversation. I
Those aren't facts. That's you arguing dirty.
My column is many things -- among them, humor and entertainment.
There is, in many of my long questions, an explanatory paragraph with some bit of research that's turned into advice. This typically starts as pages of notes from me on the subject and related issues and becomes a paragraph. It sometimes takes me days to write it short and in English (instead of professor-eze).
I find that you, Artemis, frequently argue dirty. I disagree with many commenters on this site many times, but when people, probably lacking the chops to argue clean, argue dirty, it makes the discussion unpleasant.
In short: Apples to green peppers and don't be such an asshole.
Amy Alkon at June 17, 2014 6:22 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/06/10/wow_--_californ.html#comment-4769332">comment from ArtemisHowever, people like you and the author of that time piece are in kind of a tough position.
Not if you're ethical.
It's why, for example, you almost always see me crediting researchers by name in my work. Most readers aren't going to care, and when researchers have irritatingly long titles (and especially when there are two who really deserve first author status, it can bog me down in the word-count department -- because I can put out only a limited number of words per column). But people deserve credit for their work, so unless there's some body of work by a whole bunch of people, I generally name names.
Amy Alkon at June 17, 2014 6:30 AM
Amy,
How is demonstrating how your response to a comment is 7 times the length of the original comment in any sense "arguing dirty"?
"There is, in many of my long questions, an explanatory paragraph with some bit of research that's turned into advice."
Right... and those explanatory paragraphs have a certain length associated with them that cannot be arbitrarily short.
You are the one jumping in insinuating that in some sense my explanations are too long.
My example is to demonstrate that when you are put into a similar situation your own explanations are comparatively longer when normalized for the length and depth of the question you are responding to.
That isn't an unfair statement or arguing dirty.
Since we are on the topic of "arguing dirty"... why even say such a thing to me when you remain notably silent as people like Crid and Ppen argue that I must be a wheelchair bound shut in or an autistic mentally handicapped individual?
That is arguing dirty... and it is telling that you would stay so very very quiet when you see that happening and then start crying that somehow I stepped outside the bounds of being nice simply by demonstrating that I am more brief in my responses than you are.
Artemis at June 17, 2014 6:51 AM
Amy,
Scientific journalists in general "name names" even when they screw up the content of the science.
The article in Time that I cited ALSO "names names".
It is fantastic that you offer attribution when you can.
This doesn't mean that your "translation" of the science is always completely accurate.
Sometimes information is lost in "translation", and I find that when people bring this up when something has been lost in your translation you become downright nasty in how you defend yourself.
Others have noticed this as well on numerous occasions.
It seems to me what you consider "arguing dirty" is when I bring up a point that suggests you are being hypocritical and that for some reason the standards you apply for yourself are different than those you apply for others.
That isn't arguing dirty though, it is a call for you to more fairly appraise the situation.
Artemis at June 17, 2014 6:57 AM
Amy,
Let's cut through the bs for a second and get down to brass tacks.
Are you honestly asserting that the scientific community at large would read your columns and never... not even once have valid criticisms for how you have portrayed a particular tid bit of information while "translating" it into "ordinary language"?
Not one expert anywhere would have a legitimate criticism that in some situations the way you explain things is in a sense oversimplified or lacking nuance?
Because that is the type of criticism I generally offer, that you tend to overextend certain findings, or present your own speculation on certain things you have read as if it were scientific fact.
My criticisms of your work have always been fair and reasonable, your response to those criticisms have not generally been fair or reasonable.
Artemis at June 17, 2014 7:06 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/06/10/wow_--_californ.html#comment-4769601">comment from ArtemisArtemis, again, debating dirty. What a bore. Use of the word "never" is the key to your unscrupulousness here.
But I get high marks from tough critics. AJ Figueredo, an anthropologist and math genius I deeply respect, read and vetted this book and found only one minor thing he thought I needed to add nuance to and also told me I should have used "band" where I'd used "tribe" in a few places (size-wize). I made these changes. He's one of a number of researchers to go through my book.
When I invited Barry Schwartz on my radio show, writing him a long, persuasive email, he told me there was no need because another researcher had been singing my praises for scientific rigor at a conference. (I didn't know Barry Schwartz -- she mentioned me out of the blue.)
I work very, very, very hard to get it right. And yes, I'm told I do get it right.
I'm sorry you're an asshole. Your wrists must get weary from all the typing you do to try to defend yourself against all the people who see right through you.
I'm on deadline today. I'll leave the rest of the Artemis cleanup to others here.
Amy Alkon at June 17, 2014 7:58 AM
Apparently Artemis killed Orion by talking him to death.
Conan the Grammarian at June 17, 2014 8:01 AM
Also, just out of curiosity.
If naming names and giving credit is a matter of ethics for you, why on earth should it matter how many people were involved in the work?
"But people deserve credit for their work, so unless there's some body of work by a whole bunch of people, I generally name names. "
So what you are saying is that as a matter of ethical principle people deserve credit for their work... unless you decide it would be inconvenient to provide credit to the relevant individuals because it would eat into your word count.
Ethical principles don't work that way.
On the other hand, your rationale is completely consistent with my contention that people who write for newspapers function by different constraints than actual scientists. Accuracy takes a back seat to entertainment value, which is fine because the purpose is different... but it doesn't make sense to then get angry if someone points out a lack of accuracy.
No co-author on a scientific publication would buy the argument that they had to be eliminated from being given credit for the work because it was eating into the word count.
Proper attribution simply isn't optional for scientific journal articles.
That is why the combined author list for the discovery of the Higgs Boson took up ~20 pages.
Artemis at June 17, 2014 8:06 AM
Amy Says:
"I work very, very, very hard to get it right. And yes, I'm told I do get it right."
Sometimes you do get things right. I'll even give you most times.
This is why you only very rarely find me in threads pointing out where you or others have gone wrong.
You are not good at taking constructive criticism Amy... it simply isn't one of your strengths.
"Artemis, again, debating dirty. What a bore. Use of the word "never" is the key to your unscrupulousness here."
No it isn't debating dirty because I haven't ever seen you once accept criticism of one of your columns where you said something to the effect of "good point, I didn't think of that" or "good catch, I'll make sure to correct that in the future".
You simply do not admit the possibility that you have gotten something wrong even when the weight of the evidence is on the other side of the conversation.
Artemis at June 17, 2014 8:13 AM
Amy Says:
"He's one of a number of researchers to go through my book."
Don't be a weasel. I've never criticized your books.
I have only ever issued criticism of your expressed thoughts in your columns or blog items.
I'm pretty sure you don't vet those through a number of researchers before posting them.
This is why when you claim I "argue dirty" you are projecting.
We were clearly not talking about your books, but as soon as you want to defend the integrity of your work you jump to the item that got the most scrutiny from experts before going to print.
Pulling that kind of a trick in a conversation is playing dirty from an argument perspective.
You wouldn't have been confused about which work I was referring to in terms of my own criticisms.
I have never even discussed your book with you before, nor have I made comment on it to anyone else.
Artemis at June 17, 2014 8:17 AM
But the film is a saddening bore....
Everybody recognizes the piano player, right?
No Googling.
There's no way this person has earned a living for board and shelter, paid taxes etc... The absence of self-awareness is just too great. Again, I'm wagering on a lifetime of being bathed and fed in a setting for the profoundly disabled, maybe from a rich family where the caretakers were paid extra to overlook the personality thing. (I have a film treatment sketched out for this, mentally... The odors are that powerful. Even "Lovelysoul" never summoned this kinda speculation.) This person couldn't buy a bus ticket without pissing off the driver, let alone hold down a job.
("This person" is a clumsy locution, but Purp and Coney have me thinking, for the first time in my life, about what it would really mean to experience a lifetime with a completely indistinguishable sexual identity... And not in a fun, Bowie's-1973-tour kind of way.)
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 17, 2014 9:06 AM
Amy Says: "He's one of a number of researchers to go through my book."
Artemis says: "Don't be a weasel. I've never criticized your books."
No, but you did accuse her and "others" like her of perverting science to grab readers atention
I quote "Also a complete and utter perversion of that the scientists would claim.
However, people like you and the author of that time piece are in kind of a tough position.
You want to grab readers... and actual science can be boring and/or tedious... so sometimes accuracy takes a back seat to exciting "translations"."
This is why she accused you, rightly so, of debating dirty. Crid is quite apt a making others sink to his level. Case in point, you.
lujlp at June 17, 2014 11:17 AM
Adept.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 17, 2014 11:21 AM
I didn't know that, but after googling some of Orion's archived posts, they've got to be the same.
The unnecessary wordiness, repetitive posts, gender ambiguity, head-in-the-sand world view, inflexible reliance on written rules, refusal to share relevant personal experience or the source of his expertise while arguing that only the argument matters, etc. - it's all there.
In one thread, Orion actually lectured what he thought was a police officer on police authority and proper police procedure; and questioned whether the officer deserved his badge.
I'm starting to get why he argues that relevant expertise or experience don't matter when debating a subject. He doesn't want someone with real expertise or experience in a subject to disrupt the fragile reality he's created for himself.
And the segue from Orion to Artemis (in Greek mythology, Artemis accidentally killed her hunting companion, Orion) smacks of a reliance on fantasy as a metaphor for reality.
I'm coming around to Crid and Ppen's views that this guy is some kind of shut-in; perhaps a high-functioning autistic being cared for at home. But he's not educated, not in a setting in which he would have to endure an adult give and take.
That's 197 words, Artemis. That gives you 1,379 for a rebuttal.
Conan the Grammarian at June 17, 2014 12:18 PM
First chance to come back here and comment/reply...
Crid, I am concerned about merit for everyone. If you are a salesman, and you don't sell stuff (or not much), you won't get as much money. If you are a mechanic, and you don't know what you are doing, you will loose business because you do not merit it (or you'll be fired if you don't own the business). You don't have to feel the same way, but that's how I see it.
Obviously, we aren't talking about greatness in innovation or similar when we're talking about KG teachers, but there are still good ones and crappy ones. One could argue (as I did as devil's advocate) that the good ones should be able to earn some protection from capricious administrators. I'm not saying tenure should make it impossible to fire somebody, but that it should have to be for a real reason instead of something like, "Doesn't show proper deference to authority."
Truthfully, I see both sides on this one. I CAN see a reason for it, but I also see how it is more than just "basic protection" that it is supposed to be. Since it is abused/morphed/whatever, I think there should be a serious discussion about the pros/cons. I don't just readily accept it, I think about it.
Also, I'm an outlier in just about everything, so don't presume I'm a typical citizen!
Shannon M. Howell at June 19, 2014 9:12 AM
I see much, MUCH less at work in "the other side." This is abject careerism by ninnies, and we can't afford to be so indulgent with them any more.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 19, 2014 1:46 PM
But yes, I should been gentler to a Devil's Advocate. (Hitchen's played that part for Mother Teresa once. She may be canonized anyway, but we do what we can....)
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 19, 2014 10:35 PM
Here's an interesting column on why teachers can't teach.
The article has some links to other interesting articles as well.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeleef/2013/10/24/a-key-reason-why-american-students-do-poorly/
The article touches on many of the reasons why protecting teachers with tenure only serves to further a dysfunctional system.
Conan the Grammarian at June 22, 2014 10:51 AM
lujlp says:
"No, but you did accuse her and "others" like her of perverting science to grab readers attention."
Hold on a second lujlp, let's be fair here and actually consider the manner in which this conversation evolved with regards to Amy's late arrival.
I was sitting here making an honest attempt to discuss the topic of this discussion while dealing with the likes of Crid who as always turns this place into a circus when someone disagrees with him on legitimate grounds.
Amy proceeds to jump into this circus not to try and calm things down or to call out Crid on his usual obnoxious bull shit, but rather to say the following with regards to me:
"Not necessarily. It's just fuckloads harder to write.
This is what I struggle with in my column -- reading scientific research, understanding it well enough to be able to describe it (understanding is far easier than describing), and then translating it into ordinary language -- short enough for people not to die of boredom reading."
Which anyone with two brain cells can recognize as the passive aggressive dig of a weasel.
Note she didn't pop in to criticize the loons who were continually diverting this conversation to whether or not I lived in a wheelchair... she popped in to offer a critique of the lengths of my posts.
Earlier she popped in to criticize my usage of the word "literally".
I didn't sink to crids level... I sank to Amy's level.
When someone spends their time and energy looking to make passive aggressive little nit picky remarks like that while utterly ignoring the more important nonsense going on in the thread it should tell you something.
So I called her out on being a hypocrite and for that she suggested that I was arguing "dirty".
If you want to see examples of "dirty" tactics in a debate I'd be happy to show you some of Amy's most recent interjections.
At any point she could choose to have an adult and reasonable discourse, but that isn't her style.
My position is that people who can't take it are in no position to be dishing it out.
Sensitive snowflakes who whine about being essentially told that "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones" are in no position to interject passive aggressive digs whenever the opportunity arises.
Artemis at June 25, 2014 1:08 AM
Actually, I'll provide an example of what I mean.
This is a quote of Amy responding to someone who disagreed with her and asked for evidence of what she was talking about:
"I'm sorry that I can't think of a book to help you be less of a condescending bitch."
If that is "clean" debate behavior then nothing I have said here even comes close to being defined as "dirty".
Let me remind you of what she called "debating dirty".
This is the quote:
"Are you honestly asserting that the scientific community at large would read your columns and never... not even once have valid criticisms for how you have portrayed a particular tid bit of information while "translating" it into "ordinary language"?"
And her response:
"Artemis, again, debating dirty."
So let's get things straight... calling someone a condescending bitch because they asked for a reference is perfectly legit argument tactics... but trying to get someone to admit that maybe, just maybe there could be valid grounds on which to criticize her work... that is "dirty".
Oh please.
Artemis at June 25, 2014 1:24 AM
> Crid who as always turns this place
> into a circus
No, I just happen to look good in a top hat and long red coat... The animals show up on their own.
Are you a boy or a girl?
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 25, 2014 9:12 AM
Crid,
Everyone who sees the way you behave recognizes you for the shit starter you are.
You enjoy stirring up trouble and running conversations into the gutter.
It is your defense mechanism against having to ever defend your position with pesky things like facts and decent arguments.
If I were to guess I would have to say you are probably a very lonely and bitter person who really doesn't have much going for him.
Of all the things you've speculated about me (here and in other threads), there is only one thing that you have ever managed to even get remotely correct.
That speculation is that I have many people in my life who love and adore me (although you got to the correct conclusion via faulty reasoning as to why).
I'm sorry that you don't seem to have people in your life who genuinely care about you. If you did you might not be such an ass.
Go out, get a job, and make some friends... it will be far more fulfilling than your current avocation as a blog troll.
Artemis at June 25, 2014 11:08 PM
Okay.
Female, then?
Ok, just wondering.
crid at June 26, 2014 12:01 AM
In what way is anything about me actually relevant to the discussion?
You and I are not on friendly terms and I have an extremely low opinion of you as a human being, so why exactly would I even consider telling you anything about myself?
I have made it clear that I have no interest in answering these inane and unimportant questions, and yet you continue to ask.
Let me save you some time, I'm not telling you anything about myself.
You can think of me as an artificially intelligent computer algorithm or a self-aware gerbil with access to a keyboard for all I care.
The questions you are asking have no meaning in this venue.
As for tenure, I'll just add that topic to the ever growing list of things about which you know next to nothing but have a very strong opinion about.
Artemis at June 26, 2014 12:31 AM
> The questions you are asking have no
> meaning in this venue.
Sure they do.
C'mon... C'mon, DudeGirlBro, spill some beans.
I'm guessing there's a size-hyooge & tragically poignant narrative that you could do. We don't have the teenage fonts on here to do it justice
C'mon.
Iron lung? Lifelong institutionalization?
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 26, 2014 1:51 AM
I find it especially interesting that you would paint a picture of someone whose life was so utterly tragic and lonely... and yet you spend your time attempting to insult and belittle such a pitiful individual.
I wonder what it says about you to treat someone so terribly who you honestly feel is living such a tragic existence.
Do you also make a habit of going to the pediatric oncology ward of your local hospital to attempt to torment the suffering children diagnosed with terminal illnesses?
Or... maybe, just maybe... you don't actually believe that I fit your caricature.
There really are only two options here crid:
1 - You are a terrible human being who gets a sick pleasure out of tormenting the tragically ill.
2 - You are full of shit.
I vote for option 2 with the caveat that someone who even jokes about tormenting the disabled is still pretty pathetic.
Artemis at June 26, 2014 8:52 PM
> There really are only two options here
Nevah! There are always options! Option City, California. Population: Us!
> you would paint a picture of someone whose
> life was so utterly tragic and lonely...
DudeSisGirlManBroBeast, you won't even confess to having a gender. You're THAT PARANOID. You're that terrified of actual human judgment. From strangers. Anonymous ones. On a 2001-era blog. Maybe from another continent.
This is, to my knowledge, terra incognita, innernet-wise... Completely unseen heretofore... An unprecedented example to social detachment and interpersonal resistance in human affairs. We're all enchanted, even those of us who pretend to have field skills in misanthropy!
> You are a terrible human being who
> gets a sick pleasure out of tormenting
> the tragically ill.
Naw, you said you were a normie, right? So, whatever.
Yet your behavior makes me imagine how, over the years, you've been unable to care for yourself in routine ways... Even as you entered puberty....
C'mon, Artster! You try a chapter now!
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 27, 2014 1:54 AM
Crid Says:
"DudeSisGirlManBroBeast, you won't even confess to having a gender. You're THAT PARANOID."
Don't confuse paranoia with lack of interest.
I simply have zero interest in discussing myself on the internet.
I already know about myself.
The only point to sharing about oneself to others is to form relationships and make friends.
I have more than enough of those in my day to day life, I therefore have zero interest in finding friends on an internet blog.
I only have interest in discussing issues.
"This is, to my knowledge, terra incognita, innernet-wise... Completely unseen heretofore... An unprecedented example to social detachment and interpersonal resistance in human affairs."
So something is odd about me cause I don't share in the desire to vomit my life story on the internet?
Sure, you will find people who are itching for the chance to tell everyone all about the trials and tribulations of their life. Such people are attention seekers who absolutely love drama.
I get enough attention each day and have no desire to become absorbed in drama... i find that in life there is enough drama that gets foisted upon you that you don't have to go out and try to create it.
Furthermore, in what sense do you find the community here to be "socially attached"?
On the contrary, I find the community here to be remarkably unsuitable for friendships with the vast majority of the most vocal members being individuals who continually fail at maintaining long standing and healthy relationships with others.
Can you for example name one other person on this blog who would consider you to be their friend?... someone they would invite over for lunch, go on a cruise with, invite to their special moments... etc.?
You've been posting here for over a decade now I believe... do you have even one friend to show for it?
I happen to love genuine interactions with people, I simply find most of those here to be fake, so why bother sharing anything about myself with people who strike me as lacking sincerity.
You are a prime example of this Crid... there isn't anything genuine about you here at all... it is all a circus act.
As a point of consistency, I also have zero interest in telling my life story to Bozo, I'm happy just watching him make a fool of himself.
Artemis at June 28, 2014 2:00 PM
Your tone says no, but your words say yes... Because there are EIGHTEEN HUNDRED OF THEM. You love this! It's great to be at the center of attention in front of all these people!
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 28, 2014 8:48 PM
Crid Says:
"Your tone says no, but your words say yes... Because there are EIGHTEEN HUNDRED OF THEM. You love this! It's great to be at the center of attention in front of all these people!"
I enjoy discussing my thoughts in this environment.
That you can't tell the difference between someone thoughts and the details of their life is a bit disturbing.
I choose to spend my time here talking about what I think about various subjects. Generally that doesn't involve discussing the details of my life.
That is the part you really don't seem to get.
Do you understand that it is possible to discuss a topic without talking about the people involved in the conversation?
Or is this concept beyond your grasp?
Artemis at June 29, 2014 2:51 PM
You're terribly lonely. We understand.
Rite? Amirite? Sucks to be you!We can tell, Artemis.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 29, 2014 4:37 PM
Crid,
Your knowledge of human behavior is really quite underwhelming.
Lonely people tend to reach out for human contact.
As you have noted within this very thread, I am apparently uncharacteristically unwilling to reach out to others here and share anything about myself.
The reason for that is simple... all of my social and emotional needs are met outside of the internet.
I have no need for "blog friends".
My only interest on the internet is to discuss ideas.
There is nothing strange or odd about that.
That you appear so obsessed to find out more about me despite my clear lack of a desire to share suggests something a bit odd about you actually.
Most normal people would just take no for an answer.
Artemis at June 29, 2014 9:56 PM
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