On Fri, 24 Dec 1999 16:36:58 -0400, "Richard A. Beldin, Ph.D."
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I also want to add a bit about my predjudices. In my seventeen years in industry, I
> rarely heard of anyone getting praise for "trying". The emphasis was on "results",
- prejudices straight from a free-enterprise propaganda mill?
- pardon my incredulity, but are you talking about U.S. businesses?
The country with CEOs who get million dollar bonuses (or billion
dollar IPOs) despite huge losses?
Maybe there is a different track for administrators. The ones in U.S.
universities and schools are not nearly so overpaid as the ones in
industry, and I think they are held to a more stringent (such as it
is) standard of accountability. Oh, defining "results" is a problem,
too. Are the "results" supposed to be good services, good product,
educated students, or is the reward supposed to come for raising the
stock price, or bringing in contributions and building new buildings?
What teachers collect much praise for "trying"? Student teachers?
The official rewards at University level go to the folks who win
grants, and publish. In the El-Hi tradition, as I understand it, the
rewards go to the ones who most successfully suck up to the school
principal; which is not quite "merit" in the universal sense, either.
Just like corporate middle management, so I hear.
> even at the cost of some formal policies. However, in the twelve years I spent in
> academia, both before and after my industrial work, I have heard of getting rewarded
> for "effort". Somehow, I think there is a correlation. Teachers don't get rewarded
> for results, but for effort. Maybe that's why we consider rewarding students in the
> same way. Educational institutions have not come to grips with measuring the
> effectiveness of teachers. It's about time we did!
One semi-official source of "praise" is in the form of awards voted by
students, "Golden Apples" or some such. After knowing a few
recipients of those awards, I concluded that, as indicators of
knowledge, they had to be worthless.
I suspect we will be measuring the effectiveness of teachers at about
the same time we measure the effectiveness of politicians.
--
Rich Ulrich, wpilib
http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/index.html
