>>>> Do you find that the fact you are paid by parents for your work has any effect on... your own motivation or performance?
>>> ...paying teachers more does almost nothing to improve motivation or performance.
>> The answer about teacher motivation/performance is interesting, not least because it isn't answering the question that was asked.
> I actually ignored your question because it seemed obvious (to me at least) that it would have virtually no effect. I cannot imagine a situation in which the motivation of the student would be in any way affected by the fact that the parent was paying the teacher.
Do you teach reading comprehension? I would have hoped that it was clear: I was asking about the effect that being paid directly by the customer has on the performance and motivation of the teacher. Much like it affects the performance of waitresses, auto mechanics, architects, dentists, store clerks, pro athletes, and in fact most occupations in a market economy. If we're not providing a service that customers prefer to competing services, we're out of a job. tokenadult is a teacher who might have some experience of this phenomenon, so I asked him about it.
I really hope you're trolling me here, but I suspect instead a sort of epistemic blindness.
Not trolling. Also, I note that you cleverly elided over the question to which I was referring.
You (to tokenadult): "Do you find that the fact you are paid by parents for your work has any effect on the motivation or performance of your students?"
Me (to myself): Is this a real question? Under what circumstances could that possibly be true? I guess ONLY in the sense that parents who are paying someone have higher expectations for their students, and those higher expectations correlate with higher student achievement.
I have also been paid as a tutor, though I have considerably less experience as a paid tutor than tokenadult has. As far as I can tell, he does not have experience as a public school teacher in America, so I'm not sure I'm less qualified to answer the question than he is.
I am paid for my work, albeit at one level of indirection. But believe me, public school teachers constantly talk about parents "paying for their kids to go to school here" because they pay the state taxes that pay my salary. In fact, some parents intentionally move into a district with higher property taxes (like mine) so that their students can go to a better school.
So in my opinion, my being paid by parents isn't different from tokenadult's in any meaningful way, so I felt qualified to answer your questions with the data I am aware of.
Reading this again I can see that I was ambiguous. Instead of, "How about your own motivation or performance?" I should have written "How about on your own motivation or performance?" I refuse to repeat the entire "Do you find..." clause of the immediately preceding sentence, however.
If you feel that your position is in no way different from tokenadult's, how many students have left your class for another class or another school because parents felt your teaching was in some way inadequate?
I wouldn't say my position "is in no way different", though I can see how making my statement more dogmatic is convenient for you.
"How many students have left your class for another class or another school because parents felt your teaching was in some way inadequate?"
Almost none, but it's because I'm the "good" teacher. I do however have a couple of students per year that transfer from other high schools in my district to my school in order to have me as their computer science teacher instead of one of the other five CS teachers in our district.
I very occasionally lose a kid (one every few years) for my video game programming course because there's another CS teacher in my district that's clearly better at teaching that course than I am.
Were you not aware that students can sometimes transfer within high schools in a school district?
Edit: Oh! Also I teach computer science full time. The teachers at the other high schools have fewer students in their programs than I do (even though our schools have approximately the same number of students overall), so they have to pick up extra courses to fill out their schedules (like babysitting the in-school suspension kids) whereas I get to only teach CS.
>>> ...paying teachers more does almost nothing to improve motivation or performance.
>> The answer about teacher motivation/performance is interesting, not least because it isn't answering the question that was asked.
> I actually ignored your question because it seemed obvious (to me at least) that it would have virtually no effect. I cannot imagine a situation in which the motivation of the student would be in any way affected by the fact that the parent was paying the teacher.
Do you teach reading comprehension? I would have hoped that it was clear: I was asking about the effect that being paid directly by the customer has on the performance and motivation of the teacher. Much like it affects the performance of waitresses, auto mechanics, architects, dentists, store clerks, pro athletes, and in fact most occupations in a market economy. If we're not providing a service that customers prefer to competing services, we're out of a job. tokenadult is a teacher who might have some experience of this phenomenon, so I asked him about it.
I really hope you're trolling me here, but I suspect instead a sort of epistemic blindness.