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Comment by aik | Hacker News Reader

It's amazing to see all the action that is taking place all of a sudden, largely sparked by a sensationalist documentary and a Department of Education contest (Race to the Top).

I'm very curious to see what will come out of it. A lot of harm can be done in periods like this. What I'm afraid of is that the teacher role will be turned into an even more mechanistic role and will kill teacher care and passion even more than it already has with even more endless teaching-for-tests motives. It may increase student learning, but probably only a minuscule amount to what is possible.

Here's one teacher evaluation guide that is being implemented in DC: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2010/10/ok_and_it...

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Honestly, the main reason for the action that has taken place over the past 5 years or so is due primarily to the authors of this list. More specifically, it is due to their getting into positions where they have unusually wide breadths of power.

I agree with you that reform movements like what is currently building in education can have disastrous effects. However, in this instance, most of the reforms being proposed are a product of observing what has worked in charter schools, rather than a product of running in the opposite direction of what doesn't work.

I see the current reform movement as an overwhelmingly positive force in education. As long as they stick to the ideal of spreading successful charter school practices to the broader public school community I'll be happy.

PS: All you genius hackers with backgrounds in machine learning, AI, social networking, (god knows what else might be applicable). Don't like the way teacher performance is being quantified? There's a multi-billion dollar industry that could use some disruption.

I agree that some of the movements are positive, and I agree that there are HUGE opportunities within education that hackers can solve.

On the first point, I think we are moving into the right direction, but we have a long way to go. With the changes described here, we will still have schools full of mostly-bored students. School still sounds like it will be a mostly-passive activity for students, which naturally results in low amounts of development.

On a much broader level, I think certain deeply rooted ideas need to be reconsidered. For example, how beneficial is it to split up disciplines like we do, such as have math completely separate from the sciences, or reading separate from the humanities? Or for that matter, is such a ridiculous focus on math and certain sciences and humanities really needed in school to the same degree? What other topics in our world have grown to be more important? Should math be taught in taking one minuscule bit at a time out of any meaningful context, or can concepts be lumped into projects that add contextual and experiential meaning? On a different note, a lot of people can't understand that learning can take place outside of a traditional classroom with a teacher. Do we even need traditional classrooms anymore? What structures would be more beneficial to learning? And, one last point, should structured or semi-structured school take up 9-12+ hours every day of the week (including homework) for a majority of the year? When do students have time for their own thinking, discovering, and involved and time-consuming interests?

> All you genius hackers with backgrounds in machine learning, AI, social networking, (god knows what else might be applicable). Don't like the way teacher performance is being quantified?

You don't understand. The measurement problem is relatively minor compared to the problem of getting measurements used.

Teacher's advocates (lobbyists and the like) will say that teachers support evaluation in the abstract but they oppose any actual implementation. When asked to provide one that is acceptable to them, they duck and start namecalling.

I believe that there are ways around this.

In the ideal world, such a focus on teacher evaluation wouldn't be necessary. One example: In Finland, from the beginning teachers receive maximum education themselves and so administrators trust their judgments. I realize we aren't there, but there may be other ways of getting there.

Firstly, what if all teachers were more motivated? What if all teachers had clear proof that their methods suck? What if clear evidence of superior methods that have clearly better results existed?

What if there was a piece of technology that was so attractive, showed such promise and proved better learning occurred, that teachers themselves took it up out of interest and started using it and improving on themselves and their learning through this new methodology. The lobbyists and the like would probably be against it, but with enough backing and proof of its benefits, they would lose.

Creating a product like this is the kind of technology and innovation we need, and I firmly believe it's possible.

You're assuming that the purpose of the public education system in the US is student education. The observed behavior suggests otherwise.

I said lobbyists and teachers organizations, but teachers support them.... And, when evaluation comes up for a vote, teachers vote against it overwhelmingly. They strike to get rid of it, and so on.

There are no technical solutions to social problems.

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