Cheating

One of my relatives once said that he considered a teaching career. He would have made an excellent history teacher or math teacher. He even went so far as to look into the requirements for a Master's Degree. Then he heard in the news about teacher's pay being based on the children's grades. He said, "The teacher's pay will adjust to the kid's grade? You want to see huge and I mean HUGE results? Adjust the PARENT'S pay based on the kid's grades! Then you will see radical improvements with the grades! All that's going to happen if the pay is adjusted on the teachers is that there will be more teachers cheating!"

This made sense to me and yes, it does happen. Greg is reading "Freakonomics" and I'm reading it over his shoulder. Greg likes to read at night, lying down in bed and flipping the pages on the iPad. I can curl up next to him and read right along. It's nice and cozy and a good time to share thoughts and interests. (I also like it when Greg reads portions out loud, he has a handsome voice.) It just so happened that the chapter in Freakonomics was about cheating teachers.... to quote.. "A cheating teacher may tell herself that she is helping her students, but the fact is that she would appear far more concerned with helping herself..." And if pay gets involved, a lot more teachers are going to be helping themselves.

Interesting book and I'm looking forward to reading more.

Comments

A New Yorker said…
I kind of agree accept it sounds very anti capitalist which bothers me. There must be incentive. Don't you think?
Kavi said…
Freakanomics is a swell read. And now there is Super Freakanomics too !

:)
RGB said…
Who ever came up with that! I mean, teacher's pay depending on students' grades....unbelievable!! What else do they expect....'teaching' or 'cheating' in return!
Lisa said…
It's one of the problems with NCLB. And it's a lot more than just individual teachers cheating. It's whole school districts "cheating" by moving kids around, consolidating schools to dilute lower-performing schools, and doing everything they can to make the numbers fall in their favor.

You can't put a purely capitalistic framework around education. When you apply pure capitalism, it is always devolves into a numbers game. Perception is never the reality. And if we want a better education system, it must be a reality-based education system.

I'll get off this soap box now.
What fascinating thoughts, Aleta...sounds like an incredibly interesting book...and I think it is so great that you and Greg share your reading like that!!! What a great relationship you have!!! Love, Janine XO
Joanna Jenkins said…
Wow, I never thought of it that way, but sadly, I think you're right. There would be way more cheating.
How sad is that!
jj
The Forscheins said…
so sad. Because that is ultimately really not going to help the students out
Lilly said…
How true. Teachers are assessed that way here too. I wonder how much cheating is now going on. Whichever way you look at it the kids will miss out!