Superintendent Peter Gorman's announcement that he'll make teacher performance pay the centerpiece of his next four years in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools has teachers abuzz. His vision, which he says teachers will help him flesh out, calls for shifting from a system where raises are based on graduate degrees and experience to one that rewards student gains on tests and other yet-to-be-determined measures of effectiveness.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Assocaition of Educators has set up a blog to let members weigh in and raise questions. Early comments range from skeptical to angry.
Read Gorman's plan and see video of last week's speech here.
Monday, November 9, 2009
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10 comments:
If we are to measure the output of product, we need to be able measure the quality of the raw materials. Will it be possible for a principal/teacher to refuse students who they think will keep the school and the individual teachers from being effective?"Focus on what you want done. Measure what you focus on. And what you measure gets done."
Note: The problem is not with our teachers but the system!
I am tired of people who don't know what goes on in the classroom telling the teachers what to do. There are excellent teachers in low performing schools and average teachers in high performing classroom. Am I a better teacher because my kids come from involved parents and Mrs. E a bad teacher because her parents either don't have the time or don't want to get involved. Measure the kids not the schools or teachers. That is the administrator's job.
What incentive do I have to get a Master's Degree in Education? Obviously, Gorman has not spent enough time in classrooms. Students come to school with many skills OTHER than dedication to schoolwork. You're going to measure my pay by whether or not I can crawl in a student's head to help them understand test material? Can we teachers also create an administration pay for performance system as well?!
Actually some of these posts are off. All students have a projected score on EOC tests. Many students who are not high performing are not projected to score well. The instrument used to measure teacher performance is based on avg. growth of students. Student A whose projected scale core is 135 but scores 143 still does not meet the level of 3 or 4 yet still shows measurable growth based on the previous year. What is disturbing about this pay for performance crap is that the leader thinks we teachers have more "in the tank" that we do not use....but would use if we got more money. Pete get a grip, teachers are not motivated by extrinsic things like money WHAT AN INSULT TO OUR PROFESSION.
So let me get this straight, we are going to pay for preformance in an industry (yes education is an industry) where the highest pay allowed for a teacher with 32 years/masters/nbpts certification is 72K in Charlotte? SO after 32 years in a profession you cap out there? Where else can you work that long, go to school that long and still make that little. By the way it takes 10 years and a masters to get to 50K. SO what does that give an average teacher? 30K?
Seems to me that we had to cut teachers this year because we couldn't afford to pay them, so does this mean that we will just cut up the pot so some make 20k and others 100k, not a great idea.
We as a society talk about valuing education, but we don't. We don't respect educators or place value on what they do or the benefits society receives from it. Across the country you see more community support for building jails than schools. Teachers are entrusted with our most precious resource (our children) yet we don't pay them enough, don't support them and don't ensure that they have adequate resources (text books, space, field trips, supplies, etc) to provide the high quality education we profess to desire.
It is time that everyone be held accountable administrators, elected officials, teachers, parents, students, and the community at large. We all take responsibility for righting the ship or we all sink with the captain.
Master Degrees in Education are a joke. I had to take several "pure" education classes (those not directly related to teaching math), and they were so easy that I felt ripped-off.
Here's one easy fix: pay elementary teachers the least, middle school teachers more, and pay high school teachers the most. Additionally, high school teacher pay should be adjusted according to supply-and-demand. That is, math and science teachers should received the highest salaries (with English teachers a close second or perhaps on the same level). All other instructors should earn less as it is easier to fill those positions.
It's simple common sense. Corporations don't pay janitors as handsomely as they do CEOs, so why should a gym teacher make the same salary as a Calculus or Physics instructor?
To the one who stated that elementary school teachers should be paid least...Try walking in our shoes sometime. I taught in high school math and was ready for a change, leading me to middle grades elementary. High school teachers have it much better when it comes to planning time, planning expectations, and expectations from the parents. Since when are high school teachers expected to conduct DAILY notes to parents... or teach without a planning period one to two times a week. Don't readily assume that "little people" are easier to teach.
How can you measure a PE teacher's performance? Is it by the improvement of her students' average BMI or cholesterol level? Or the average number of seconds reduced in a quarter-mile run? Or the improvement in number of push ups or sit ups? How do we hold parents accountable for what they must do to help their kids, whether it is helping with homework, making them study harder, feeding them the healthy food? Parents are still the most effective instrument in making the students successful. Look at every successful student's home life. Almost everyone of them has full family support and parents who make sacrifices to ensure their child's academic success. If we are going to treat education as a business then we must make sure we pay everyone accordingly and hold every party involved accountable with measurable goals. So far, teachers are grossly underpaid, highly controlled by the system that is full of politicians playing the political game. None of them dares to go out there and tell the truth,"Get the parents of those who fail to do their job at home then the results will come", because they don't want to lose the votes.
We teachers teach because we love what we do. However, we are human beings also and we can only take so much. Fix the system, get the parents to do their jobs, teach the kids to be responsible, respect the authority, know the value of education, not sports. Stop the blame game.
I was a substitute teacher for a year, if that and I was at West Mecklenburg High School....where they let the kids curse the teachers, fight the students , and stay in class (after you send them to the principal's office) for $8.50 an hour, with a college degree and YOU want to do what to a teacher...with a MEd...or a B.A.degree based on how a child performs.........I THINK PETER GORMAN needs to go teach in a class room. see how the students respond to someone tryint to help educate some of their ignorant and disrespectful behinds and see then what he has to say. Many of the principals, administrators, and other school officials work like slaves to help some students, with a lack of appreciation and hell to contend with. Parents think that it is a teacher's responsibility to educate their "ingreats", who should be raised by their "ignorant" parents who comes to school to fight the teachers, so what message does this send the student??? I DO NOT HAVE TO LISTEN TO THAT TEACHER....Take the animals out of school......and put them in cages.......THE no child left behind bull has caused more harm than good.......AND BRING BACK PRAYER.....cause many of the teachers should be paid for teaching, combat drills, should have vest to wear, abd given monthly stipends!!! CMS SUCKS!!!
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