A teaching moment

Had to admit, I derived immense amusement from the Tribe game, watching Johnny Mac -- the new and improved utility infielded -- blowing a made-to-order DP ball...to his credit, Corey Kluber pitched one hell of an inning, using the fastball/cutter/slider combo most effectively.  Strasburg is Strasburg...I had thought about going to the game, but I figured with the weather and the rain and the return from the DL, he wouldn't pitch much.  Oops. I did see him before, and that was cool enough.

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/06/ohio_teachers_graded_by_value-.html#comments

On the one hand, I get this; teaching is a highly subjective profession, as you put one person in charge of 25 children, all of varying intelligence, backgrounds, learning styles, etc...and you expect this one person to go and teach them equally well and ideally turn them into adults.  And of course, the state and testing and community pressure, which feeds into even MORE effort for excellence, which may or may not be matched by the students, their parents, etc....

On the other hand, this is also total bullshit.  We do this all time, taking a profession and subjecting it to rules and standards and goals.  Most people who have jobs are expected to do them in a certain way, demonstrating a certain competence, and with a string of goals (projects completed, stuff built, etc.,) to boot.  You're subject to regular reviews, and your salary is highly dependent on said reviews.  This is NOT to say that other factors aren't taken into consideration, but at the end of the day, you have to produce.

I always think of baseball; a generation ago, little if any attention was given to the statistics side of things; people came along and looked at certain things, but that was that.  Now -- call it the Bill James effect or Moneyball or whatever -- most teams, if not all, use statistics as a large part of identifying and quantifying talent.  You can adjust for platoon effects, ballpark effects, aging, defensive efficiency, the switch from a league or a division...anything.  I know there are some people who pine for the old days, but I would argue that a system that has worked to bring some level of parity -- in an era of big and little spending -- to the game is a good thing.

In other words, I suspect that this sort of approach could be used in education...and it should be, given the importance of the subkect and the fact that we spent shitloads of cash on schools and we really have no idea as to whether or not we're getting the maximum return on our investment.  To be sure, I can see how the the teachers (and their unions) would disapprove of this, and I suspect a LOT of parents would go apeshit -- imagine telling Mr. and Mrs. Johnny their son isn't college material -- but I really don't think society would be any worse if we took the same approach used in hundreds of other careers to education.