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" What would happen if teachers were not unionized and had to compete for their jobs? What would happen if teachers lived in a true meritocracy without a sure protections?"

Incidentally, practically every teacher in Finland belongs to an union, and it's unheard of to fire teachers on the basis of bad job performance. A true rationalist looks at the empirical evidence regardless of ideological opinions. You may not "like" the fact that teacher's unions are widespread in many countries which outrank the USA in education. Sometimes the American way of firing people is not the correct fix.

" What would happen if teachers had to have advanced degrees and even some real world experience before being able to teach?"

Now that's something I agree with. Teachers in Finland have Master's degrees, and all teachers have real-world experience by teaching in real schools ("normaalikoulut") during their studies.

"Why do we have a system that disallows rapid goals-oriented experiments with realistic measurable metrics and a goal to weed out those who are not serving our children?"

The problem is that you can't measure learning very well. Measuring test scores means that the teachers will teach the kids to do well on tests instead of learning.

He didn't specifically mention measuring test scores, you did. But is your argument that effectiveness of teachers, effective educational outcomes are unmeasurable? Then how do we know that schools aren't doing perfectly fine right now? Why is there even a discussion about improving schools?

Would it be that objective comparisons between US and foreign students is trending downward (while costs go up)? Would it be that more and more a high school diploma (then college degree) means nothing as far as employability?

Is it that the demands of modern economy is not matched up with a supply of highly skilled workers? I think these are all evidence that public education needs modified... not necessarily that someone needs "blamed" for it, just that everyone needs to acknowledge it and be supportive of change.

Now I'd argue that measuring student test scores should be one part of many that go into evaluating teachers. But above all there has to be something that we use to evaluate them, otherwise how do we know it's working... or not... or when or how to try new ideas? It's not just the teachers but the whole system that should be constantly evaluated. Not necessarily to fire someone, but to give feedback and constantly improve.

For sure it could be argued that it's not teachers themselves that are failing students, but the system is structured to be resistant to change and innovation. Metrics that should be used to guide curriculum are graduate employability, job placement, are skills being taught to satisfy the needs of the job market, what's working and what isn't etc.

Introducing some sort of competition will allow schools to figure out the evaluation process themselves. Look at places like Dev Bootcamp that claim 80% of graduates are hired with X salary after graduation. That's succinct way to measure the effectiveness of their teachers. Not that I'm saying this example exactly compares to public school or that a CS solution is applicable to the overall problem but... on a side note why isn't programming and such more prevalent in high school? There's no reason a private company can impart those skills in 9 weeks and public schools couldn't do it in a year. Maybe this type of thing has been incorporated into public schools if so disregard...it's been a while since I've been there. Generally, I think high school was an extreme waste of time in regards to what was actually learned. And then college is four more years with knowledge that itself could have been taught in high school. I tell people all the time, nothing I learned in CS major in College couldn't have been learned in high school. It just wasn't offered.

Likewise for subjects like economics, finance, personal finance, etc. Handling ones finances is something that more Americans need to learn and these lessons are not being taught early enough.

Measuring education well is a hard problem. I don't know a good solution for that, but usually schools simply use test scores, which is a pretty bad solution.

"But above all there has to be something that we use to evaluate them, otherwise how do we know it's working... or not... or when or how to try new ideas?"

You can do qualitative analysis instead of quantative. It also works when you use a test that the schools don't / cant directly optimize for, which is probably true for the PISA test.

"There's no reason a private company can impart those skills in 9 weeks and public schools couldn't do it in a year."

While I agree that schools shoud teach programming more, the Dev Bootcamp's 80% metric is not really relevant. It filters only the most exceptional applicants to the program, not the average school kid. Many of those applicants probably already know the basics of programming.

"Generally, I think high school was an extreme waste of time in regards to what was actually learned."

Most people say the same thing here in Finland.

Master's degrees have no detectable impact on teacher effectiveness.

http://econpapers.repec.org/article/eeeecoedu/v_3a30_3ay_3a2...

It's easier to pick a good teacher than to train one: Familiar and new results on the correlates of teacher effectiveness

Matthew M. Chingos and Paul E. Peterson

Economics of Education Review, 2011, vol. 30, issue 3, pages 449-465

Abstract: Neither holding a college major in education nor acquiring a master's degree is correlated with elementary and middle school teaching effectiveness, regardless of the university at which the degree was earned. Teachers generally do become more effective with a few years of teaching experience, but we also find evidence that teachers may become less effective with experience, particularly later in their careers.

"A true rationalist" would be smart enough to recognise that there are many other variables that can effect the quality of education. The greater levels of unionisation in Finland compared to the USA tell us exactly nothing on their own.

Requiring master's degrees may improve education but probably not for the reasons most people expect: it encourages greater selectivity and filters out those with less commitment and desire to be a teacher. But, as someone with a little experience of teaching in high schools, I doubt that learning to teach outside of a classroom has any positive effect on teacher performance. Effective teaching is about understanding your pupils, knowing how to communicate and having the ability to effectively prepare materials, all skills that can only be learned through classroom experience. I would argue that the most effective form of teacher training would be to require prospective teachers to do several years as assistant/apprentice teachers in schools, and do away with all education degrees.

I could be completely wrong on this. I suspect US labor unions are very different from Finnish labor unions.

While I don't have any experience in Finland, I have organized and conducted a number of trade show exhibits in London, Amsterdam, Munich and Barcelona. My experience in dealing with unionized labor in Europe has always been extremely positive. I could not find one negative anecdote to relate here. In sharp contrast to that I could write a book about the bullshit, abuse and cost I have endured at the hands of US labor unions at convention centers in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Chicago and New York.

Based on these data points I developed this idea that European labor unions operate under different cultural and ideological principles when compared to their US equivalents. I could be wrong.

>Is the idea that the rich somehow conspire to do as you suggest?

Not a conspiracy. See, everybody wants a good education for their children. Everybody invests, but the rich obviously spend more money. And that buy their children a better education and better jobs earning higher wages. Isn't that obvious?

> How about Bill Gates or the many other rich folk?

That is called anecdotal evidence. There is no cast system in America, but the American dream is not dead, but close. The social mobility in Europe is higher.

> What would happen if teachers had to have advanced degrees and even some real world experience before being able to teach?

That would be great, but that won't be for free. But i think it would pay off.

"What would happen if teachers were not unionized and had to compete for their jobs?"

That only makes sense if the schools are all private. Keep in mind that public schools are not for-profit institutions, they are constantly at the mercy of the government. Without unions, what you get is a system that pits individual teachers against the government itself, which means each individual teacher is now at the mercy of the mob. Unions have their flaws, but it would be far worse if teachers had to constantly worry that the latest political climate will cost them their jobs or their salaries.

"My gut feeling is that the rich have nothing whatsoever to do with the problem"

Your gut feeling is wrong. Wealthy people spend a lot of time ensuring that their children receive a quality education; few volunteer to improve the education of the poor in any meaningful way (like ensuring that the poor learn enough to attain any real power). Wealthy people oppose stronger progressive tax systems, but have little to say about public lotteries and other regressive taxes.

The entire system of credentialism -- the use of a degree to judge a person's merit -- is an invention of the wealthy, and it is by far the most destructive force in education today. The idea that one must be educated in order to be employed has been pushed by the employers themselves, and those employers are generally owned and controlled by rich people.

"Did Steve Jobs receive a letter once his net worth passed a certain threshold inviting him to join the various "protect the rich" conspiracies?"

That's a simplistic way of putting it, but as a metaphor, yes. It's not an organised conspiracy with secret meetings and hidden agendas dedicated to this, but yes. Wealthy people are powerful. Wealthy people mix with other wealthy people. Their friends are wealthy people. Their social groups are wealthy. People protect themselves and their social groups.

"Just wondering, because that kind of thing would require planning and organization."

Do you know how hard it can be to get people to vote against their own interests? It requires vast amounts of planning and preparation. Bodies such as the American Enterprise Institute and Cato Institute, for example. These require serious funding and planning and organisation.

People try to frame these things in terms of the rich intentionally hurting everyone else. That's very rarely the case; it's indifference, not malice.

People who have kids and aren't worried about where their next meal is coming from generally don't mind spending some money on their kids' school. They're probably somewhat less interested in spending money on your kids' school. Schools[0] are therefore largely funded using fairly local property taxes, and rich people have more valuable property.

This arrangement is beneficial for rich people in the short term. Their own schools are well-funded, and they pay less in taxes than they would if the funding wasn't geographically localized.

[0] I will ignore private schools for purposes of this explanation