🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Nov19.191129.6219@pcnntp.apple.com> (Larry Starkand) writes:
>In article <1992Nov19.073901.12388@pei.com>, fred_s@earwax.pei.com (Fred Scott) writes:
>> Flame bait!  Anecdotal evidence is worse than worthless and I'll tell you
>                  ^^
                  (what?)
>> why: out of all the godzillions of teachers in the public school systems in
>> California, I would expect at least one to be incompetant.  It's impossible
>> to make sure every single teacher is competant in the course of hiring a
>> large number.  Does that mean that the hiring process (or firing process)
>> is broken?  Not necessarily - it just means it isn't perfect.  I wonder how
>> many private school teachers have done as bad or worse.  But you're ready
>> to damn the whole system on the weight of one incident.  It's just stupid
>> to bring something like this up and pretend it's an argument.

>Therre is a way to ensure at least a minimum competency among teachers, it's
>called a competency tests. Several states hove implemented these tests -
>against the wishes of the teachers union- with great success. In order for
>this to work though we need to combine the tests with Merit Pay for the best
>teachers. Between tests, regular reviews and merit raises for the best
>teachers  (and denial of tenure for the worst) our school system would
>improve tremendously.

And what "competency tests" do those wonderful private schools out there
administer?  I don't know why exactly teacher's unions oppose such tests but
if I were a teacher, I might be insulted by them and be somewhat sceptical of
the so-called "great success" to which you refer.  Private companies do not
feel the need to regularly test their engineers, executives, accountants, and
other professionals on subjects such people are expected to know to do their
jobs competantly.  So why don't you take a clue from those who advocate the
wisdom of the private sector - if such tests were an econmical and cost-
effective way of insuring the quality of your personnel, everyone would use
'em.  But somehow, noone else seems to...

Fred