Here's a good way to turn good teachers into financial planners, insurance agents, real estate agents, or entrepreneurs. Or retirees. Full-time grandparents. Anything but teachers.
...the Oregon proposal, backed by anti-tax initiative machine and teacher's union foe Bill Sizemore, is much broader in scope. It would make all teacher raises dependent upon the loosely defined criterion of "classroom performance," instead of on experience or seniority levels.
Years spent in the classroom, in other words, would no longer matter.
...Sizemore said the criteria could include classroom testing, but could also encompass peer review, supervisor evaluations or demonstrated student improvement over a year's worth of work.
"The goal is simply to move teacher pay and job security to some kind of performance related basis rather than seniority," Sizemore said. "All I want is to ensure is that they keep the best teachers, not necessarily the teachers who have been there the longest."
Because people will quit. If this passes, plan on a teacher shortage in Oregon.
Keep in mind also, this will drive the average teacher salary in Oregon, if it passes, to the lowest in the country. That's all this really is, just a means of slashing teacher salaries.
In other news, Hillary comes out against merit pay. Sort of.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Merit Pay on the Ballot in Oregon
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1 comments:
I expect you and I will go around and around on this until our fingers drop off.
We both know seniority does not equal effectiveness. I don't think it's even a good analog.
You can't say teachers aren't responsive to pay. The teachers' union in Southwestern City Schools (6th largest district in the state), has just authorized a strike, and the issue in money.
The teachers union in Hilliard came by the hundreds to the last School Board meeting as show of unity and strength. They're at a bargaining impasse with the Board. The issue is money.
Compared to many in the community, the teachers seem to have a pretty good deal. $56K average salary, 8% annual raises, no contribution to health care costs, and a pretty sweet retirement program.
I don't think the public necessarily begrudges the teachers these things, but the taxes are getting pretty outrageous in our school district and I think folks want to know that their money is paying for effective teachers, not deadbeats. We know they exist - we all had a few of them in school ourselves (e.g. that govt teacher I had in high school).
They just don't know how to figure that out. In the business world they exist in and are familiar with, employers are driven to increase profits and survive competition, and will get rid of anyone who is a non-productive burden.
I don't think most of us outside the realm of education believe that administrators really feel compelled to recruit and retain the best folks. Isn't it easier just to keep the team you have? Isn't it better to fill a classroom with a dolt than have it empty? After all, there's very little chance that your customers will find another service provider - they have to move to do that. Want to try selling a house today? Especially in a school district like Southwestern that seems poised to implode?
Those of us out here in the business world understand merit pay. If you say it doesn't work for teachers, tell us what will.
Otherwise I fear a widespread taxpayer revolt is in the making. It's already a gotten there in many districts. There are very few other taxes that folks get to vote on directly. If you shoot down the only thing they understand - merit pay - you have to give them something else to use to figure out if their hard-earned dollars are being put to good use.
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