[baby_wipe]

TeachBay (for grade schools) - Parents bid in an auction for seats in a teacher's classroom at the beginning of the school year, instead of having the principal assign students to teachers. This will reward the good teachers, punish the bad ones, and give everyone an incentive to do better.

[jtbigwoo]

I did a fair amount of volunteering in my kids' school. There is a huuuuge difference between the effective teachers and the teachers that parents like. The school is a public school that uses a lottery to determine admission because 200-250 kids apply for 100 spots each year. Because of this, parent involvement is considerably higher than an ordinary school. You’d expect that this would be the kind of school that would embrace great teachers.

There are a few terrible teachers at the school but they aren't the ones that the parents complain about. As long as a teacher is nice and most kids get good grades, nobody complains. The most hated teachers are the ones who actually try to get kids to behave better and learn more. This is because most parents look at test scores when choosing a school, but they don’t really care about their kid’s score. (It’s easy to rationalize a poor test score--"The test doesn’t measure what’s wonderful about Taylor.") Instead, parents mostly want their kids to be happy and stay out of trouble. A teacher that doesn’t make her students work very hard and doesn’t demand good behavior meets those criteria perfectly.

[jeffmould]

While I believe your idea is with good intent and I am not going to bash you, I would strongly consider going back to the drawing board on this idea. I can't even imagine the number of ways this could possibly go wrong. From punishing lower-income students where parents are able to compete for the "good teachers", abuse by parents to punish a teacher, and even going as far as to create a racial barrier within the school preventing access to "good" teachers by parents blocking access to classes.

[baby_wipe]

The number of ways this could possibly go wrong - It's true. It could end up being a disaster. But there are also probably unimaginable ways it could go right.

Lower-income students being punished - Lower-income students are already being punished for living in poor neighborhoods and being forced to go to terrible schools. Parents are already competing for good teachers by moving to wealthier neighborhoods. It wouldn't bother me one bit that some kids would get better teachers than others because I believe this system would provide better education for all students in an absolute sense.

Abuse by parents - I'm not sure what mean by "abuse". I am certainly not advocating for physical violence. I wouldn't use the word "abuse" for teachers having to be responsive to parents' demands.

Racial barrier - I'm not sure why anything in this proposed system would inherently be racist.

[jeffmould]

To address "abuse by parents", I am not referring to physical violence. Abuse by parents in the sense that a group of parents can conspire to "punish" a teacher they perceive as being unfair to their child by not bidding on that teacher's class, potentially resulting in the teacher being fired.

The racial barrier doesn't mean that it has to be inherently racist. It can simply mean that, for example, white parents avoiding African-American teachers. Or vice-versa. A bidding system such as this could potentially result in an unintended segregation within the school.

In many school systems, there is already a "bidding" process among schools that put the good teachers at the good schools and the bad teachers at the bad schools. It is called school choice and allows parents to choose which school their child goes to.

[germinalphrase]

Assuming parents even have adequate information to make good choices, this seems like a surefire way to create wildly unbalanced classes. Giving difficult students to a bad teacher doesn't "punish" the bad teacher - it just creates a dysfunctional learning environment for the students who need it most.

I would seriously question the ethical resolve of my kid's school if they used such a system.

[baby_wipe]

Adequate information - Do you think principals have adequate information? If so, why couldn't they just provide it to the parents then? Besides, there are many tools such as feedback reviews + word of mouth which would help with the information asymmetry.

Unbalanced classes - Classes may currently have balance within the school, but there is already a massive inbalance between schools. And why do we assume that all classrooms should have an equal distribution of IQ? Colleges do the opposite - they purposely exclude lower IQs.

Difficult students going to bad teachers - Maybe this is how it would turn out. I'm not sure. (But even if it did, it would be even more of an incentive for teachers to perform better - just a thought).

I would be hesitant to predict any specific outcome of this scheme, only that teachers would be more inclined to provide the service that parents actually want.

Ethical grounds - I would question the ethical resolve of any school that isn't open to whatever system will help students best.

[avip]

>teachers would be more inclined to provide the service that parents actually want.

Teachers are there for the children. Satisfying parents is orthogonal, and often conflicting, objective.

[germinalphrase]

Adequate information - Do you think principals have adequate information?

About the relative quality of teachers? Yes. They absolutely do as the monitoring/mentoring of teachers is a prime function of a school's administration.

If so, why couldn't they just provide it to the parents then?

For the same reason that any employer doesn't publicly release performance reviews to their clients? Are performance reviews public information in your work place?

Besides, there are many tools such as feedback reviews + word of mouth which would help with the information asymmetry.

Ratemyteacher/Ratemyprofessor have been around forever. They do

Unbalanced classes - Classes may currently have balance within the school, but there is already a massive inbalance between schools.

Your comments were not about balancing students/teachers between different schools so I'm sure what you're going for here.

And why do we assume that all classrooms should have an equal distribution of IQ? Colleges do the opposite - they purposely exclude lower IQs.

Higher education and k12 have intrinsically different missions. Public k12 schools are legally required to teach every student who walks through the door. They are also increasingly punished for failing to show educational growth for every student, regardless of that student's abilities and/or desire to learn.

Colleges not only get to exclude students that don't meet their requirements, they have no obligation to see that those students learn. If a student fails a college course it is patently assumed that the failure is the student's fault. K12 education isn't provided with that luxury (appropriately, IMO).

Difficult students going to bad teachers - Maybe this is how it would turn out. I'm not sure.

If you're creating a competitive, zero-sum game. Your wealthy/highly engaged parents will already assure that their students will be well supported (and take active benefit of legal devices to ensure that they are e.g. medical referrals/504 plans/etc.). By creating an explicit mechanism to further sort students based on their ability to bid financially for particular teachers you are intentionally skewing the playing field. You may not be sure, but I have zero doubt that your scheme - intended to "punish bad teachers" - would result in difficult/poor/reluctant students being placed into one class with a teacher who is inexperienced or otherwise less popular. Were that to happen, it could very quickly become a violation of the Equal Education Opportunities Act. Good luck at that rodeo.

(But even if it did, it would be even more of an incentive for teachers to perform better - just a thought). I would be hesitant to predict any specific outcome of this scheme, only that teachers would be more inclined to provide the service that parents actually want.

Dude - five tough students in a class of thirty is already a huge hurdle, even for experienced and professional teachers. Your system would not incentive teachers to improve. They would simply quit.

You're also assuming that there is some large deficit of effort between successful and unsuccessful teachers - as if unsuccessful teacher are just kicking their heels up on the desk all day. This is fallacious assumption. You may not believe it - but teaching is a complicated, difficult job.

Ethical grounds - I would question the ethical resolve of any school that isn't open to whatever system will help students best.

If the system itself is unethical then no ethical professionals will employ it.

[alex_g]

This sounds terrible. Poor students get slapped down even more than they are now.

[randyrand]

Yes we'd have to accept some would benefit more than others. But the idea is education as whole would improve and everyone benefits.

[avip]

Please let this be some weird SV satire and not a real thing...

[baby_wipe]

I seriously think it's great idea, but I am not seriously pursuing it at the moment.

[pergadad]

Even more pressure for teachers to teach tu the test and /or give inflated grades.

Even less incentive for teachers to accept /focus on weaker students.

[baby_wipe]

Teach to test + inflated grades - If that turns out to be true, then I suppose that is what parents want. Who else should be the one deciding how/what students are taught?

Weaker students - Maybe. But if weaker students are being overlooked then that could also create a market opportunity for other teachers to focus on those weaker students. Again, I would be hesitant to predict any specific outcome, only that teachers would be more responsive to what parents wanted.