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Comment by Edman274 | Hacker News Reader

You do understand at least intuitively that it's not even mathematically possible - let alone practically - to train 100 percent of teachers to be in the top 10 percent of teachers, right? The definition of "good" and "gifted" is only used relative to an average. No amount of training can make the average teacher better than the average teacher; it's a logical impossibility, and misunderstands the central effect of training and the goal of the person being trained. No student nor teacher cares about be trained to some objective standard of competence. Rather, the goal is to be better than one's peers and you can't have all teachers be better than all teachers unless you reject the concept of teachers being comparable.

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> it's not even mathematically possible to train 100 percent of teachers to be in the top 10 percent of teachers

…yes, but it's totally possible to (by, say, 2036) train 100% of teachers to perform at a 90th percentile as compared to teachers from 2026. That's how improvement works, which is what people are describing here.

> No student nor teacher cares about be trained to some objective standard of competence

What are you talking about? Students are extremely invested in whether their teachers have attained objective competence. If all teachers suck equally, that is very bad for me as a student. If I'm rich, my parents can probably hire me tutors or take me to a private school. If I'm naturally talented, I can teach myself. Otherwise, I'm totally screwed.

So, yes, objective competence matters. It's extremely silly to pretend otherwise.

> it's totally possible to (by, say, 2036) train 100% of teachers to perform at a 90th percentile as compared to teachers from 2026. That's how improvement works, which is what people are describing here.

I doubt you can pull this off unless you’re willing (and able) to fire at least 25% of teachers who appear not willing (and under strong unions cannot be required) to outperform the current 90th percentile teacher.

There are great teachers; there are also entirely lazy/entitled teachers who will never willingly be at the performance of the current top 10%.

Oh yeah I mean theoretically possible, not practical, haha.

Okay, then by 2036 the curriculum and standards of teaching will have been updated too, the expectation of what teachers will be able to teach will have been updated too, the competence of students will have been updated, and the hidden expectation will still be that every teacher can do as well as the "gifted" teachers of 2036. You can predict that this is what will happen because this has been happening for the last century. Up until the last five years student test scores were improving, and if you believe that teacher performance is at all linked to student performance, then improving student test scores ought to draw from teachers getting better too, but that's not good enough. Why? Because the concern - after a baseline is established - is seeking exceptional performance, which definitionally cannot be made routine.

> Okay, then by 2036 the curriculum and standards of teaching will have been updated too, the expectation of what teachers will be able to teach will have been updated too, the competence of students will have been updated, and the hidden expectation will still be that every teacher can do as well as the "gifted" teachers of 2036.

Yes? I don't understand what you're trying to argue here. Rising standards does shift expectations. But this all sounds good. So I really don't understand what you're trying to get at.

> if you believe that teacher performance is at all linked to student performance, then improving student test scores ought to draw from teachers getting better too, but that's not good enough

There are several confounding factors. It might be that teachers getting better led to better students, it might be that universal access to information led to better students. I think you're overreaching with the claim that if students get better, it means instructors got better. But, sure, let's imagine I agree. So? I am of the belief that there is a ton of room for improvement.

I think that your post stems from the belief of 2 things. That education is zero sum. And that education has a filtering function not a quality improvement function. Both of which, I deeply deeply disagree with.

I do agree in the abstract that the "human social ranking" will be just as stratified as today. But that does not preclude many many classes of improvements.

Again, sorry if I am reading too much into your position, but I feel as if you run on a set of assumption here that you expect I share with you and that to me, feel alien.

who will train them ? average trainers. it's a chicken/egg problem

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