""The most hopeful sign is that nearly 40 percent of the teachers who got off to a poor start managed to improve, thanks to extra help. Some who started out as poor performers were rated as “strong” or “effective” by year’s end. This shows that good teaching can indeed be taught, and that with genuine effort school systems can upgrade the teacher corps in a fairly short period of time.""
P1: Nearly 40% of teachers who got off to poor start [teaching] managed to improve, thanks to extra help.
P2: Some who started out as poor were rated as "strong" or "effective" by the year's end.
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C: Good teaching can indeed be taught.
This article was an editorial from the New York Times on a New Haven's school district attempt to critique and constructively criticize their staff. These evaluations were done by district officials to keep the strong teachers sharp and the weaker ones either out or improved by the end of the year. I thought that despite of the statistic in the first premise, since there was no other to build on, that this was a strong and cogent inductive argument. The article explains that of all the teachers evaluated, the ones in danger of loosing their jobs were notified, and nearly half of them improved to be much more effective.
"New Haven's Teacher Improvement Plan." Www.nytimes.com. 25 Sept. 2011. Web. <http://www.nytimes.com>.
I think you could take the end of P1 and put it at the beginning of P2.
ReplyDeleteP1: Nearly 40% of teachers who got off to a poor start [teaching]managed to improve
P2: Thanks to extra help, some who started out as poor were rated as "strong" or "effective" by the year's end.
C: Good teaching can indeed be taught
I agree with this argument. Since we are all recently out of high school I think we can all agree that some teachers just don't have it and it really kills any enthusiasm or interest you have in the class. I think that this system will have many kinks to work out to make it fair and consistent but I do believe that teachers should be evaluated.
Because standard form asks to cut out any unnecessary words, I would say that the "thanks to extra help" can actually be omitted from the premises all together.
ReplyDeleteThe Conclusion doesn't seem to directly follow from the premises either, though with a within the context of the actual article, that may not be the case at all. Given just this argument, however, I would question the strength of the argument simply because of the inference.
The argument itself is definitely one that I support as well; there are far too many high school teachers that don't care enough to teach effectively. While giving them an ultimatum may not be the best way to motivate them to be more effective educators, it is apparently a method that works.
[I'm channeling Douglas here:)
ReplyDeleteI'm going to jump in with will here : it would seem from this argument (it would seem to logically follow) that good teaching can indeed be taught or more specifically learned. As far as evaluating cogency I would offer that most of us, (through life experience of all shapes and sizes) known that we all must start somewhere and will likely not digress from there on. Systems of rating seem to be all the rage with public education these days- my heart simply goes out yo those well-meaning compassionate and dedicated teachers whose accomplishments are not immediately reflected in arbitrary systems and standards.
-Douglas