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Merit Pay Nickle-and-Diming

heather — Wed, 20 May 2009 16:46:07 +0000

Education Weekly is reporting that there can be negative consequences from some merit pay programs. It cites evidence from the private sector, claiming that offerring extra compensation pay hasn’t worked in the past. Yet ASCD Smartbrief is also reporting that “Obama Wants Teaching Shaken Up” by supporting a merit pay initiative.

What they are failing to mention, however, is that merit pay is a symptomatic attempt to solve the problem of disproportionate base salaries. If teachers were paid as they should be, there wouldn’t be a need for the nickle-and-diming that is the possibility of merit pay.

For merit pay is little more than a green card of hours for recognition. If a teacher works twice as hard as another teacher, shouldn’t that teacher earn more than their colleague? Period.

Merit pay will not be the difference in allowing a teacher the chance at homeownership. Hell, with the amount that we hear bantered about, we’re only talking about the equivalent to a trip to the grocery store once a quarter.

It this really what we are fighting for and what we are going to accept as enough?

If we’re talking about equity here, why not charge by the hour? I don’t need the hourly of a lawyer to know that I should be paid for the time I put in. At a teacher’s hourly rate (not a substitute’s rate, mind you – they get paid more per hour than I do), if I charged for every hour I did to just produce the minimum that it took to do my job, I would be paid 30 more hours a week. That would bring in approximately $30,000 more per year.

If it’s our only choice, I won’t refuse some monetary recognition, but don’t think for a second that with the passing of merit pay I won’t still be yelling for fair pay.

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Post tags: budget, merit pay, performance pay

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5 Things Teachers can do to Improve Teaching

heather — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 04:36:43 +0000

We all know there are many problems in education and not one bullet to solve any one of them. We as teachers can’t do a lot about many of the factors that have huge influence on student success: parental involvement, health care, funding. But there are a few steps we as educators can make in protecting our professional reputation, advancing student achievement, and making our day-to-day lives a little less challenging.(...)
Read the rest of 5 Things Teachers can do to Improve Teaching (996 words)

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Post tags: collaborate, Curriculum, Ed Tech, merit pay, middle school, performance pay, Title I, TLN, tween, writing project

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The mythical superhuman teacher

heather — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 22:22:17 +0000

Yes, there are many problems in education. But many of them boil down to the fact that we are a cadre of professionals who are taken advantage of as part of the job requirement.(...)
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Post tags: evaluations, Excellence, life long learners, merit pay, metacognition, middle school, performance pay, professional development, TLN, UCI, Writers Project

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Teaching Secrets: Finding a Job That You Love

heather — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 01:33:00 +0000

Know a teacher who got a pink slip? Maybe my newest post at Teacher Magazine can help. Click here for the article.

It’s Step 1 of my Top Secret New Teacher Handbook. Hope it creates some shortcuts, a machete even, through the education jungle.

-Tweenteacher

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Top 10: How to Take Control of Your Teaching

heather — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 07:00:00 +0000

Occasionally, I repost this article so that new readers can find it more easily. Based on some very enthusiastic feedback, it has since morphed into a book proposal called The Top Secret New Teachers Handbook. I’ll share more as it evolves…

I’ve been developing this Top 10 list of ways to take control of your teaching even in the face of, well, teaching. It’s an advice list on how to encourage respect, and, if necessary, how to demand it as a means to make sure you aren’t being taken for granted.

Let’s face it, if you are feeling appreciated, you will be happier in this difficult job. Consequently, your students will be happier, and quite frankly, if they are happier, they will be more successful. After all, an unhappy teacher’s room has the smog of misery in it, and for a student, it hovers like a stench that affects their own victories. And while it benefits a school to keep its teachers happy, it is a teacher’s responsibility to demand those things that make this challenging job better than tolerable.

I think that finding those tricks or strategies to keep in your pocket is important in any career; but in education you need them even more so. Otherwise, the day-to-day duties of the job will eventually grind your enthusiasm to a halt and it won’t just be you who is affected, your students will be affected as well.

I will be expanding on each of these over time, but in a nutshell, here’s my TOP 10:

(...)
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Am I So Past My Prime?

heather — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 15:02:28 +0000

Somehow, and maybe I’m reading into it here, I feel a little written off already. Education Week is reporting that some districts are pondering the possibility of “front-loading” new teacher salaries, increasing their compensation earlier in their career to aid in recruiting “higher-calibur talent.” But, um, what about me?

I’m a little frustrated at the message this sends to those of use who have invested in this career. I mean, I know that we need to recruit new teachers, but a talented person with great ability in their field does not necessarily a good teacher make. Remember, teaching is about two skills that must be mastered: that of content and that of communication.(...)
Read the rest of Am I So Past My Prime? (198 words)

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Here’s why test scores shouldn’t be the only criteria…

heather — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 21:10:37 +0000

OK, so my first period’s “Advanced” group went up 40% between their 1st district assessment and their 2nd. Another period went up 37%. Even my Honors class went from 81% Advanced to 97% Advanced, with only 1 student found in the Proficient category. So why don’t I believe that my metal should be judged on test scores? Because I have one class, my 7th Grade ELA class that went down; and through careful reflection I’ve been analyzing why.

And these whys are the elements of teaching that are beyond my control. (...)
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Should a free education be unconditional?

heather — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 16:25:19 +0000

So you know when you get your group of kids on the first day, there are those who immediately set off your alarms? Well, that definitely happened to me on my first day.

I have a student who clearly needs help. His peers are weary of him already and his confrontational style seems not as intentional as inherent. The startling comments and “seething anger”, as his last year’s teacher put it only three weeks into the school year, seem uncontrollable. This same teacher recorded that he asked if her windows were bullet proof. I wasn’t, of course, given this information up front. I had to seek it out.

His first quickwrite of this year centered on cussing out his last teachers and cranking them nightly on the phone. His pride in his violent video games is apparent.

Like children with Asperger’s (of which he has not been tested to date), he seems unaware of cues or the goings on around him: calling out with inappropriate comments, walking in front of me while I talk to the class, handing me items while I’m in the middle of instruction. Annoying, yes, but harmless.

He also will not make eye contact (could be cultural, but this seems different than others of his ethnicity and nationality) and walks robotically, stiffly, without movement in his shoulders. Strangely enough, and I’m clearly not a diagnostician (though I play one on TV), the few students in my career who have had symptoms like this seem to also come with apparent sinus problems. His eyes are puffy with nasal issues, he is sniffy, and I can’t help but wonder if there is a connection.

So I approached the counselors who know me as a real student advocate and as a teacher with a somewhat effective antenna. I don’t send kids to the office. I handle my own discipline issues, which are few. So when I come in, they listen. The afternoon after the first day of school I walked in and said, “So, what’s up with X?” They pretty much flopped the file onto the desk, a file the size of our Language of Literature book.(...)
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Joanne Jacobs comment:”Stop facilitating and start teaching”

heather — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 04:16:35 +0000

I commented on Joanne Jacobs article, “Stop Facilitating and Start Teaching,” based on Fred Strine’s article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Strine indicates that more student-centered teaching is somehow less taught and, consequently, less learned. Jacobs paraphrases that the “’sage on the stage’ is more effective than the ‘guide on the side,’” that students of today lack the discipline that they had in his day, as if handing over the ownership to the class is handing over the reins entirely. (...)
Read the rest of Joanne Jacobs comment:”Stop facilitating and start teaching” (573 words)

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The Carnival #178 is in town!

heather — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:49:35 +0000

An (aspiring) Educator is hosting this week’s Carnival of Education #178. I’ve tweaked my How to Take Control of Your Teaching list and although it’s still in an evolving state, you can read it here. Enjoy the Carnival and the post.

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An Honors Student Does Not a Critical-Thinker Necessarily Make

heather — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 03:06:08 +0000

So my colleague who currently teaches 8th grade Language Arts tripped on a cord, flew to the corner of a table and was momentarily knocked unconscious behind her desk today. It was during her Honors class.(...)
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The Carnival #174 has Arrived!

heather — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:38:24 +0000

Check out this week’s Carnival of Education hosted by Eduwonk.

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Make an Offer They Can’t Refuse

heather — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 04:45:56 +0000

The Washington Post reported that the Washington Teachers’ Union is “proposing a three year contract…that would eliminate seniority.” This would allow administrators to retain newer but more effective teachers while relocating more veteran teachers to positions seemingly more suitable for the needs of the district as a whole. .

Now, while I would be totally devastated if I had to uproot and move my middle school life into another school in the district, the fact is that the union needs to have some flexibility here in giving administrators a modicum of power over their staff positions, even those with tenure.(...)
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Teacher Observations: Principals vs. the Union

heather — Sat, 24 May 2008 22:40:03 +0000

Teacher Magazine has an article today about Idaho’s progress in developing a standardized teacher evaluation that could be a stepping stone for developing an acceptable pay-for-performance legislature. The article didn’t get me thinking so must about the concept of a standardized teacher evaluation that might be more effective then our current process. I mean, let’s face it, what’s the controversy? We all know it should be a better process.

But it did get me thinking about an incident that happened last year at my school where the union was brought in to protect a teacher from being observed beyond the allowed contracted hours after complaints had been waged against the teacher. (...)
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Don’t Knock the Less Experienced Teacher

heather — Fri, 23 May 2008 17:41:59 +0000

Look, we all know the statistics. Many of the hardest-to-teach classes are being taught by the least experienced teachers. According to Education Week, a study was recently conducted in Philadeliphia evaluating 9th graders, “the make-or-break year for many students on the path to dropping out of school” which found that “students are more likely than their upper-grade peers to be taught by inexperienced, uncertified teachers.”

While I understand the argument, I also know that these young teachers have an advantage that I will not have years down the line: energy.

When I was in my early years of teaching in my mid-twenties, I was hired to teach at an inner city school. It was, in fact, the under-funded alternative school for those students kicked out of the other schools. We had broken glass in the halls, police tape from the weekend still strewn over the kindergarten yard come Monday, and no textbooks. A classic Michelle Pfieffer/Hilary Swank/Morgan Freeman movie in the making.

I actually jumped into the deep end of the pool, and there wasn’t any filter, so there was moss on the top and calcium deposits coming from the cracks in the bottom, but it was there that I learned to swim. (...)
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Top Ten #9: Don’t Work for Free

heather — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 04:44:39 +0000

This week I’m in Wickenburg, Arizona, a small western town I’ve been going to for quite some time with my family, and it got me thinking about an artifact I picked up a few years back at an estate sale on the outskirts of town. I was idly going through a stack of paperwork someone found in an old attic, when I came across a teacher’s paycheck from the 1800s. It was for one month’s work, was for $8 and some change, and in the memo line was lightly scripted in ink, “cannot be married.”

So I find myself sitting here in April 2008, feeling the beautifully crisp Arizona morn’ on my cheek, hearing the sounds of my son playing outside with his Grandpa and the sounds of my husband snoring away in our room, and thinking how that ole’ paycheck, which is pressed in a book at home, relates to my own current practice as a teacher.

If you check out my Top 10 List of Taking Control of Your Teaching, you’ll notice #9: Don’t Work For Free. It could also be called: Don’t Make Sacrifices Without Compensation.

The memo line of that schoolmarm’s check said it all: “Thou shalt not have a life outside of teaching.” And I think that this attitude towards teachers, this insistence that a teacher be some self-sacrificing, Florence Nightengale-esque, single gal just grateful for the job, is a reputation that has haunted the career ever since the dawn of chalk and slate. It is also one that we as teachers have helped to propagate.

(...)
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Fundraising Stinks

heather — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 04:45:31 +0000

In response to a recent Washington Post article:
Obviously nobody has a problem with tackling the obesity problem in this country in any way we can. I remember the time when everyday for 10 months straight students would come up to me, carting a cardboard box, its cardboard handle cutting into their hands with the weight of the various evil, wicked, Wonkalicious treats inside. The student always said the same thing: “Mrs. W, would you like to buy a candy? It’s to support the .” Well, of course I want to support them, but have you ever taught hormonal middle schoolers jacked up on sugar how to write a thesis statement for a Response to Literature? It’s not easy, let me tell you. So, clearly, nobody is against the ratification of irradicating the candy on campus more than I am. But, it turns out, there was a down side to this decision. Yep, you guessed it, more work on the teachers; because now we have to fund our own programs and figure out how to do it as lucratively as we did before.

(...)
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