Jim Devine writes: >> With _which_ public was it that the LA union lost credibility? all of >> the people in LA? or just the upper-middle class and rich ones? the >> one that David Shemano talks to? which one?
You are in LA. The LA Times articles had people talking like few other political issues. What was your sense? We are close to a family in which the husband is very active in the LA teachers union. My sense from talking him is that he senses, and I use him as a proxy, that based upon the positive general reaction to the LA Times articles (and the negative reaction to the response of the union to the articles), is that the general public now sees the unions as self-interested as opposed to primarily interested in the success of the public school system as a whole. My goodness, the LA Times editorializes against the teachers union, and the LA Times editorial page is not the reactionary LA Times of 70 years ago. >> >> By the way, following the precedent set by the LA TIMES, all of the >> bar exams scores of all of the lawyers in California should be posted >> on line, along with how many times they had to repeat the exam before >> passing it, their ranks in their law-school graduating class, their >> salaries, their win/loss record in court, their number of publications >> in law journals (and the quality rankings of those journals), their >> accusations of malfeasance, etc., etc. To make information-processing >> more manageable, the state should give all lawyers a rating (based on >> a weighted average of merit measures such as those I just listed, >> using eminently objective weights) which should be also published on >> line. It should be like the signs that the Los Angeles Health >> Department makes restaurants post in their windows: each lawyer should >> be graded with an A, a B, or a C (based on a 100-point score), while >> those who get lower grades would be shut down. Just as diners should >> know if their restaurants are unhealthy, the lawyers' potential >> customers should know, too. After all, a lawyer might be able to hurt >> you much more than a restaurant can: you share private information, >> etc. First of all, bar pass/fail information is public, as are bar disciplinary actions. Second of all, US News & World Report just listed our little boutigue firm in the "National Tier 1" of national bankruptcy firms, which we found quite amusing. http://bestlawfirms.usnews.com/firmprofile.aspx?firm_id=33105&tab=overview Third, you seem intent on ignoring my point that evaluating knowledge producers is really hard and subjective, which is why I think it so important that the decisionmaker be properly incentivized. The reason people are searching for an objective criteria to evaluate teaches is precisely because subjective evaluation by an incentivized decisionmaker is effectively prohibited. >> If teachers don't have privacy rights (so that their personnel records >> are made public), why should lawyers have them? It really is insightful that you think student test scores are teacher personnel records. David Shemano _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
