Unintended irony
Big Daddy Ezra K sez:
I’m always amused by well-paid journalists and pundits complaining that teachers’ compensation isn’t closely enough linked to performance. Is Megan [McArdle] hauled into James Bennet’s office once a week, presented with updated traffic numbers where traffic boosts and drops are disaggregated from intra-Atlantic links and general noise, and then paid less or more depending on her performance? Of course not.
Ironically, I think Ms. McArdle does rather well for herself in terms of traffic, if for no other reason than people like us are linking to (and laughing at) her on a fairly regular basis. Memo to Atlantic editors: if it’s traffic you seek, I know of this hot young writer named Mark Noonan who will totally drive up your page views. Please check him out.
“I need a job!”
Gavin adds: If Megan, as a pundit, were paid according to how often she knows what she’s talking about, she’d be wearing a barrel and eating government cheese.
People who want to complain that teacher compensation is not related to performance are welcome to spend a day teaching in my classroom.
I could use the laughs. They have no idea what they are talking about.
Not that I’d ever suggest such a thing, but I’ve often wondered what kind of traffic some of these colostomy bags would get if Sadly No, Alicublog, Tbogg, etc. stopped linking to them.
Then again, I hope I never find out, because I really need the laughs.
Ms. McArdle and a lot of other pundits have bigger problems than traffic. Reading Glenn Greenwald et al gives a good idea of how often pundits are accurate in anything they say – why not tie their pay to them ever saying anything that isn’t a total load of diarrhœa?
…aha, and Gavin Adds just in time to make the same point. Pardon.
Oops, sorry.
No big, you said it better and had a link!
Teacher’s compensation should be related to performance? Huh? In what world would that work? What’s in the teacher’s control. Books? Equipment? Supplies? Class size? How is she supposed to be judged on things that are entirely out of her control.
Plus, I just think about me. I had, what, three teachers who could actually engage me, get me to think about something other than motorcycles and the beach. Miss Baxter, eighth grade math. It was her first year as a full-fledged teacher, and I’ll admit I loved her passionately. Small, curvy, with brown hair and freckles, sparkling blue eyes and a ready laugh. And when I stabbed Hal Wood in the ass with my compass and he yelled? She sent HIM to the principal’s office. That totally rocked.
Mrs. Peterson. Ninth grade english. A total lush, by lunch she was incoherent every day. But I had her third period. Totally fucked up, red-faced, but still in command of her faculties (hee hee). She had no patience with willful ignorance, and if you didn’t appreciate the beauty of the written word, she had no time for you. I always loved to read, and could talk to her about both great historical and contemporary authors. She would rip off the most hilariously vicious barbs at the jocks and boobs in the back of the room, and there were exactly two of us snickering because we got it.
Mr. Colletto. PE teacher. NOT coach, just teacher. Wouldn’t let the jocks bully the rest, if you weren’t good at sports he would find a way to make it fun for you, and he was ALWAYS stoned. Which was very cool in itself.
California public schools, circa 1965. What a hoot.
Mostly me and my friend Ken cut school, went to lunch and headed for the beach. But when we were there, teachers had no control over how I was gonna perform.
Sergeants. Now those doods know how to get the best out of anyone. And sometimes it takes a big-ass boot in the rear to jump start the process. Sergeants are the worlds best teachers…
mikey
Links??!
We want sammiches…and photoshop.
Who could possibly deliver us these majikal things, Gavin?
(Not to be too demanding, I speak for all one of us who have recently been freed from the Sadly, No! free speech zone and chant: thank you, may I have another!)
OT: does it make me a bad person because I want to beat on Mickey Kaus until he bleeds from both ends?
Megan is so bad she drives people away from trying to drive her away. Ask Fishbone.
I always love when slogans are completely empty but are shouted with such passion. Paid for by performance. While I agree completely with Jillian people who shout such things should spent some time in front of a classroom and see how long they’d last, I just get angry over this.
How? How do you measure a teacher’s performance? He or she has 30-35 kids in her or his classroom. Most of them don’t want to be there. Does the average mark of the class glean any useful data? Does standardized testing reveal if the teacher spent extra time after hours helping kids learn? If the teacher is well liked (by students or parents or the administrators) does that mean anything in terms of performance?
Ah man! I thought this was going to be another Mark Noonan post 🙁
I always love when slogans are completely empty but are shouted with such passion.
Great Taste!1one!
Less Filling!11eleven!!
I’d like to see baseball players’ compensation tied to performance. I’m lookin’ at you J.D. Drew…
I know this much, if we had a photo of Megan McArdle wearing a barrel, it would boost OUR traffic.
How do you measure a teacher’s performance?
you know, my brother failed out of college. I think his elementary school teachers should clearly be fired.
Probably they should have to repay their salary for the past 15 years as well.
How do you measure a teacher’s performance?
We’ll make this time machine, see, and we’ll go forward and see if the kids have remembered their quadratic equations and/or have killed anyone. Then, we go back and adjust the teacher’s salary accordingly. Simple!
I am Foehammer! Me Foehammer! Foehammer tis I!
My skin crawls even making a comment of my own in this box, but I enjoy making sure that all of you have to look in the mirror and recall how much contempt I justly hold you in. That you mock and derisionify such a stalwart yeoman as Mark Of Noonan rises my gorge that I justly choke down. You must not know of mine reasoning for Constructing The Anvil Of Truth And Veracity. I keep the Anvil in Annville, near Coulterstown. I hide mine identity to protect the vassals of LoftenFoehammer from retaliation for my Tru-Veracity spell that I spake to my noble charger, my ’74 Charger with bad brakes. I spake to the brakes, of cakes and snakes and rakes and bellyaches.
Those that must seek the illusion of Liberalism in order to hide their own cowardice, ignorance and self-serving natures are truly beyond being reasoned with. Prepostions has endeth me with! Liberals are in love with lies, otherwise you would decipher the runes of Foehammer and have honored my loyal yeoman, Gagme Of Spoon. You revel in personal insults, attacks and attempts at either, even when it is useless and trivial and inconsequential and incompentent and immaterial and irrelevant. My writing skills aren’t a debatable topic, but my table manners are, go for it.
Foehammer, your writing has improved. Keep hanging around here and maybe there’s hope for you.
Shouldn’t have dropped that hint about Annville, though – the librul Google Mappifying Hordes will be searching the area now!
I thought Foehammer (the real one) sounded just like Ignatius Reilly.
The Muslims have once again been responsible for the untimely closing of my valve.
O Fortuna!
Has Foehammer bollixed this thread? Foehammer is sorry!!!
the perfect setting for megan in a barrel
I choked so hard I almost passed out at that Megan wearing a barrel comment. Awesomest comment!
Pfui! Knowing what you’re talking about is sooo twentieth century.
Mark has a terminal case of Bush Butt Kissing Syndrome. His latest inspiration has Laura Bush running in 2012 for the senate seat vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchison.
Let’s pay the President according to performance. According to my calculations, we now owe him. . . negative 800 billion dollars.
Notorious P.A.T. said,
Let’s pay the President according to performance. According to my calculations, we now owe him. . . negative 800 billion dollars.
And it’s his fault if he doesn’t buy health insurance.
I think the best way to say that is
He owes us!
Wouldn’t THAT be fun! I’d love to see that check in my mailbox.
No Navy Field patch update and no improved 15″ oh my Gneisenau makes Some Guy a Dull Boy.
Look, my CS3 demo version expired, but the raw materials are here
My eleventh grade lit teacher was maybe 5’4″ 105 lbs, hot as hell and wore miniskirts. Man, when she dropped the eraser and bent over to pick up it, all of the guys would immediately stfu. I think she did it on purpose when we got rowdy.
But government cheese is so tasty!
Megan is so bad she drives people away from trying to drive her away. Ask Fishbone.
It’s true. I can now only tolerate indirect exposure to her work, filtered and (mostly) sanitized by the likes of S,N!
I’m sure there’s a prescription medication that could fix this, but frankly, I’m happier this way.
Once we have Megan in the barrel, can we send her over Niagra Falls?
Um, barrels aren’t cheap, you know. You could buy a cheaper outfit at a used clothing store. A good pine barrel costs about $50. It’s not like you could find a sturdy used barrel in an alley, like in the good old days before the New Deal ruined everything.
It’s not like you could find a sturdy used barrel in an alley
Plenty of used barrels around, but either the bottom’s been scraped out, or they’re peppered with fish scales and shotgun pellets.