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Bad Incentives?
The Center for Union Facts will ask parents, students and other teachers Tuesday to nominate the "worst unionized teacher in America." The center says it will choose 10 and offer each $10,000 to quit; "winners" must allow the center to write about them on its website.
More here.
Thanks to Lee Spector for the link.
Posted by Alex Tabarrok on March 11, 2008 at 10:18 AM in Education | Permalink
Comments
First, they should start within one school district. Second, I think the incentive to nominate a "friend" in order to collect the $10,000 prize is countered by the stigma of being the "worst teacher" -- nobody wants that rep, esp. after years in the trenches. Even bad teachers have some pride/self-delusion left... unlike some reality show "stars".
Posted by: David Zetland at Mar 11, 2008 11:55:27 AM
"Union Facts" and their About Us link, which doesn't tell us who 'they' are anyway:
"Are you against unions?
No. We are against union officials' abuse of power, often at the expense of their own rank-and-file members. We are against corruption, violence, and intimidation. We are against the misuse of union dues. We support employees who elect to join a union, as well as the right of employees to remain non-union without intimidation."
How about this:
Are you against CEO's?
No. We are against CEO's abuse of power, often at the expense of their own employees. We are against corruption, violence, and intimidation. We are against the misuse of corporate money. We support employees who elect to work for CEOs, as well as the right of employees to remain employed without intimidation.
This site would be less laughable if it were reforming unions and making them stronger rather than by attacking them, ostensibly for the sake of the employer. I know people who work on both sides of labor issues and I recognize this site for what it really is and for what it's purpose truly is.
Posted by: chappy at Mar 11, 2008 12:03:34 PM
What a spectacular idea! There should be a full time organization dedicated to doing just this, in every field.
Posted by: Jolly Bloger at Mar 11, 2008 12:40:20 PM
chappy,
Yeah, somebody really needs to clamp down on those CEOs. They're getting way too much of a free ride in the press.
And unions, they just can't seem to get any respect at all.
[/sarcasm]
Posted by: Rimfax at Mar 11, 2008 12:46:45 PM
Nobody sees a problem with a system which prevents failures to just be fired without being paid off?
Posted by: Methinks at Mar 11, 2008 1:16:49 PM
Hey thats a great idea. Lets do away with all unions and these kids can go back to the factories and work. They have had to easy any way. Oh and all those Americans that were beaten and shot to death in the streets for the rights we now have today, lets just make them a plaque and call it even. I'm sure there are some bad teachers out there and something but giving groups that pride themselves in union bashing any credibility is a joke.
Posted by: dag at Mar 11, 2008 1:22:49 PM
Wouldn't it be more productive (and informative, if the process could be honest) to pay $10,000 to get the ten worst teachers (simpliciter) to quit? What's the value in restricting the offer to unionized teachers?
How much should we pay to get the ten worst surgeons to quit? Millions, right?
Posted by: Zippy at Mar 11, 2008 1:29:42 PM
I would humbly accept $10,000 to stop posting bad blog comments. If they're not bad enough yet, just wait.
Posted by: at Mar 11, 2008 1:46:59 PM
> How much should we pay to get the ten worst surgeons to quit? Millions, right?
$0. Malpractice insurance premiums ''pay'' them to quit. It's more profitable not to practice if you suck, and no hospital wants a numbskull on staff due to institutional exposure.
Teachers are an entirely different ball game. The stakes are lower and the battles that much more bitter as a result. The AMA does not have anywhere near as much juice as the teachers' union in California, for example.
Posted by: Tim at Mar 11, 2008 1:47:52 PM
I remember the day a school principal told me that yes, this teacher is incompetent, and no we can't fire him but in three years he will have his 35 YEARS OF SERVICE and he will retire.
35 YEARS OF SERVICE
INCOMPETENT
AAARRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH.
Posted by: save_the_rustbelt at Mar 11, 2008 3:43:17 PM
The Link doesn't work for me, takes me to a basically blank page.
Posted by: LemmusLemmus at Mar 11, 2008 3:51:51 PM
Malpractice insurance premiums ''pay'' them to quit. It's more profitable not to practice if you suck, and no hospital wants a numbskull on staff due to institutional exposure.
Come on. Surgical errors cause about 1 in 8 hospital deaths. That's something like 5 to 10 thousand deaths every year. You don't think we could save a bunch of lives by removing the 10 worst surgeons?
Posted by: Zippy at Mar 11, 2008 4:07:00 PM
this teacher is incompetent, and no we can't fire him but in three years he will have his 35 YEARS OF SERVICE and he will retire.
My housekeeper's kid has a social studies teacher who is completely incompetent. The guy talks about what he had for dinner the day before, tells them to go ahead and listen to their ipods during class - everything except social studies. The school can't fire him because of the union. Their advice to the parents: pray he is not their teacher next year. That's the school's solution. Pray.
Posted by: Methinks at Mar 11, 2008 4:59:21 PM
Methinks,
that reminds me of something, but do I really want to tell the stories? After all, pretty much everyone here seems to agree that tenure for teachers is A VERY BAD IDEA! So this may be pointless.
On the other hand, we might well break the record for the MR post with the most comments. What's the number to beat? 250?
Posted by: LemmusLemmus at Mar 11, 2008 5:11:45 PM
I can beat out "at". For only $5,000, I will stop posting here.
Yep, you heard me right:
-No more addressing people by their full handles with underscores in place of blanks.
-No more make gratuitous references to my implausible Don Juan life.
-No more subtle hints that you suffer from mental retardation for merely attempting to refute my arguments.
All for the low, low price of $5,000!
If there's a collective action problem, I can broker an aggreement that reduces transaction costs.
Don't be a free rider! Sign up today, for the "Pay Person to keep away from MR" project!
Posted by: Person at Mar 11, 2008 6:09:46 PM
Oh, and save_the_rustbelt: What does 35 years have to do with anything?
Are you saying there's a pension that attaches, but is worth NOTHING (or a relatively small amount) if you
are fired ANY MOMENT before the 35th year is completed?
Can you not understand why the person responsible for paying teachers, would have enormous incentives
to make sure the teacher is fired right before that day?
Think about it.
Posted by: Person at Mar 11, 2008 6:12:54 PM
Person,
will you cool it, please? "Mental retardation"?
There's other outlets on the Internet for this type of discourse.
And don't try to tell us you were being very witty.
Posted by: LemmusLemmus at Mar 11, 2008 7:10:46 PM
Hey, the posts here are great.
Since this is such a smart group, I'm wondering if I can maybe hear a few good (or at least interesting) ideas. Most public teacher contracts stipulate that teacher performance may not be measured students' performance. If student performance could be taken into account, what would the most democratic, or most effective means of determining student success? It sounds simple, but asking the question in a room of people, everyone will have a different opinion. It seems like there is a lot of tension between effective and democratic. It depends largely on your view of the role of public schools.
If we continue to evaluate teachers by observable practice alone, what would effective teaching look like?
Posted by: G.ira at Mar 11, 2008 7:50:01 PM
G.ira: How about just letting their managers evaluate them? Yes, the results would sometimes be unfairly influenced by office politics or personality conflicts. We in the private sector deal with that, and still we manage (averaged over the long run and across many businesses) to improve our outputs, because (averaged over the long run and across many businesses) managers have incentives to reward good people and fire bad ones.
Posted by: David Wright at Mar 11, 2008 8:07:25 PM
In the private sector your outputs are fairly easily defined. The case is different in education. Office politics? yes. But you are forgetting about the other stakeholders that influence management in education, and I'm not just talking about the union. At the school level alone, parents disagree on what constitutes quality education. I have my beliefs about what constitutes quality, and if I viewed that as the expected output that'd be fine; but as an administrator I believe that by itself is insufficient. I ask from the perspective of the manager who has to decide.
I tend to like the concept of vouchers, which in my mind allow parents to define proper outputs, but absent that, I'd like to know what people think is prudent given the situation as it is.
Posted by: G.ira at Mar 11, 2008 10:51:53 PM
There are plenty of jobs in the private sector where the desired outputs are not easily quantifiable or universally agreed upon: receptionists, nurses (the worst 2% of nurses may kill patients, but there are still big differences between the other 98%), even engineers (the difference between a good and bad engineer is not how many bridges per year he builds) are just a few examples. Still, we rely on managers to judge these workers, based on how well their colleagues respect and get along with them, how often customers ask specifically to work with them or ask specifically to avoid them, and other criteria the boss might believe relevent. It's not necessary that all bosses in the industry apply the same criteria for that job, or that those consuming the services agree on or even know the details of those criteria. For the industry as a whole to improve, it's only important that the criteria of the average boss be correlated with customer satisfaction. Achieving that doesn't require objectively measurable consensus criteria -- indeed I would argue that imposing such a system impedes the very innovation that is the most important source of breakthrough improvements.
Any fool could, without any background in education, do better than pay-by-senority and never-fire-anyone. Give the teachers that many parents request raises. Fire the teachers that many parents ask to avoid. Is that the end-all and be-all of pay-for-performance in education? No. But it's a decent start.
Posted by: David Wright at Mar 11, 2008 11:54:55 PM
The problem is that you keep assuming that the unions are the cause of poor teaching when in reality they are not the cause, but just the symptom.
Posted by: spencer at Mar 12, 2008 8:59:47 AM
yeh well, my lawn guy's niece has a friend whose teacher PICKS HIS NOSE during class. Unfortunately he's only been there for 5 years and no one can fire him because the union would be upset by his loss of health benefits (by now his nose issue counts as a pre-exisiting condition).
Jeez ...there are clearly problems with public education, but why do people give so much credence to stupid anecdotal 3rd-party accounts. I suppose the writers must be public school graduates.
Posted by: Mike at Mar 12, 2008 9:07:14 AM
if there's anything that will drive me out of the profession i love it will be the lack of accountability for teachers. i have seen my share of incompetent and just plain lazy teachers, who have nothing to hide due to union protection. i can't stand it! i'm a union member based on principle, but i don't think it is doing what it was meant to do. most union reps that i have come across are terrible teachers, yet the complain the most. meanwhile there are many of us working our asses off for the good of the students who see no personal rewards other than satisfaction. the sad thing is that the reputation and view of teachers is ruined by those who should have been gone long ago.
luckily everytime i think, "i'm tired of this s--t!" i'll have a good interaction with a student(s) and remember, "this is why i do this."
Posted by: moruno28 at Mar 12, 2008 9:48:34 PM
Now obviously a lousy ten grand is just the equivalent of a Razzie award. But, beyond that how are we to define a lousy teacher? The harder ones won't be popular as lots of teaching in Economics research shows.
Yet to lower standards in schools just means more reliance by the country on technically trained foreign elites. At USC only a small minority of computer engineers are traditionally ethnic Americans.
If we are to rely only on excellent teachers will there be enough to go around? More disturbing is that we know so little about good teaching that we could not define it in practice. My best teacher was an alcoholic college teacher who fallen down to the high schools. He was loathed by the students and with good reason because he had ridiculously high demands on students. He taught English literary criticism to dolts and somehow it caught fire with me and I went college prep not vocational. I didn't understand or appreciate his influence as a teacher until I walked the podium for my doctorate. No way any measure of teaching will define such intangible and subtle influences. The very attempt to do so by units of education credits has lead to the bureaucratic, intellectually dead teachers of today. Its one more example of the evils of ill thought out so called "progressive" meddling in complex social functions..
Posted by: edwardseco at Mar 13, 2008 12:59:56 AM
