Teacher bonus plotted; Out of 30 schools invited, only 11 interested Written by NICHOLE DOBO The News Journal
The schools that are taking part are mostly charter schools. All but two of the eight school districts invited to take part declined. The schools will have the option of participating in the next year of the program.
OK, I can see the disparities between some charter schools and traditional public school teachers’ pay. But a selective bonuses system doesn’t address that need. If pay were a major concern for charter school teachers why didn’t they secure a teaching job in a higher paying traditional schools? O yea, I forgot its not about the the money, its about the kids.
If we are to handout monetary rewards we need to give them to schools themselves and that money be invested back in the school. Charter schools could use help in bring their school’s technology up to par with traditional schools. How about smart-boards for the classrooms?
Only math and reading teachers in grades 3 to 10, along with principals and assistant principals, are eligible for the $10,000 bonus. They must rate high on the state evaluation, which includes student performance on statewide tests and other criteria.
Teachers need recognition for outstanding performance but a rewards system that is selective and doesn’t include all educators within a school building is morally wrong. It devalues other support persons within. But we’re back to rewarding people for doing the jobs they get paid to do!
Red Clay Superintendent Merv Daugherty announced at the May 16 school board meeting that the district would not participate, according to a statement from spokeswoman Pati Nash. He said it might be “divisive” and that the work turning around a school is a “schoolwide effort,” according to the statement.
Well Merv, you may have blown your chances of ever becoming Delaware Secretary of Education. Once those St. Mary’s skeletons fall out of the closet Markell might be in the hunt again. 5 Kilroy’s gold stars wouldn’t get you a drink at a free wine tasting event. But indeed we agree 100% on that “schoolwide effort.” Markell and Skipper sells the partnership concept in education but fails to realize, partnership at the school level is the key and there is no “I” in “teamwork.”
Teachers receiving these bonuses will become sad poster-children for a wrongheaded financially unsustainable education reform movement. Taking credit for teamwork is about the lowest thing a professional can do. Its like saying you were awarded the Purple Heart when in fact you weren’t wounded.
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Where are we that an employer can’t provide a monetary award for an employee who does an exceptional job – America? or the former Soviet Union? You are ready to badmouth these folks, but as for me, I look forward to giving them a round of applause for a job well done and to hearing the stories of how they did it.
I am sorry, but the real problem won’t be solved by giving bonuses to a few teachers or principals. In another post a writer said a neighbor moved to PA for better schools. In Avon Grove and Oxford, less than 20% of the students qualify for free and reduced lunch. Unionville’s FRLpopulation is around 2%. The cost of housing and taxes keep most people struggling to make ends meet out of PA. PA schools perform like North Star, Brandywine Springs, and all of the other district schools in NCC that have free and reduced populations below 20%. Unionville H.S. performs like CSW. It isn’t that there’s a magic bullet in PA or that the schools are that much better, it’s that there are significantly fewer families struggling below the poverty line. Ensure that everyone is food, housing and health secure and you solve your education problem — just like Finland!
Riley, the issues regarding the bonuses is complex. The bonuses are only given to Math and English teachers in grades 3-10 which means in elementary schools that K-2 teachers, who absolutely teach literacy and math are ineligible, in may cases simply because a principal has assigned them to that grade arbitrarily. In High Schools grades 11-12 are not eligible, for often them same reasons despite contributing to the education of the same children.
Then there is the case of the Art, Science, Foreign Language, Resource Teachers, SPEC Ed., Interventionists, Band, Music, Drama, Social Studies, etc etc, ALL of who play a role in the teaching of math and English skills who are summarily ineligible due to the power of the might altar of only caring about standardized tests in 2 subjects.
Then there are studies like POINT from Vanderbilt University, that suggest that Merit pay offers no causal relationship to student outcomes.
Then there is the fallacious assertion that the program is an incentive. It is being given after the fact so teacher had no idea they were competing for it thus nullifying the label of incentive yet the DOE is portending that they will use that label to tie teachers to the school for 2 years in exchange for it (quid pro quo style) while not applying any metric or evaluative tool whatsoever to suggest that these selected teachers were the actual reason these students did well on the exams. They literally are handing out money with ZERO proof.
It is a TERRIBLE program and I am proud that my district has stood up to its baseless parameters and assumptions.
I will stipulate that Kilroy’s headline is a grabber though. I want to pay teachers right to begin with and hold them accountable with fair measures. Tests, in no way, meet the standard of a fair measure. There are just too many inputs to a student that yield the output.
“Where are we that an employer can’t provide a monetary award for an employee who does an exceptional job – America?”
Teacher’s employers are the taxpayers not private industry! If we respect them lets compensate them fairly as professionals and yes hold them accountable. Though % of raises each year are small at least they get some unlike whats going on in private industry. They get “great” healthcare and retirement better then most taxpayers.
If we are to give bonuses / rewards lets give them to the schools who meet the challenge as a team! “Exceptional job” should be expected of all professionals! Kind of sad we have to hold a golden carrot out there to push higher teacher performance. Also, lets not forget the yearly step in pay. But I’ll admit we need to start teacher at a higher starting pay. Purge the ineffective teachers and praise the effective ones
I failed to mention the cataclysmic notion that a teacher may be holding back instruction from a child in order to extract more money from their employer.
Insulting to the core.
Finland system sounds great. What is their population? Do they have unions? Would that work here? I don’t the answers, just saying that you need to compare apples to apples.
guest, I ‘get’ the poverty rate thing, but it doesn’t totally fly with me. I think it is part of the picture, but there are schools with better SAT scores overall and lower drop out rates, safer, etc. than some schools with much lower poverty rates.
They have higher childhood poverty rate and are 97% unionized.
higher childhood poverty rates? Are you sure?
and smaller class sizes. a no brainer if you ask me. but no one asks me. and the people who could make that happen don’t seem to agree.. or care. or something. (sigh)
oops, sorry, lower poverty, by a lot. I meant higher income.
smaller class size point, I’ll add after or something….. “or fund it”
so if their poverty is lower, by a lot, it is hard to compare eh? Or they broke their poverty because of this? I want to read more about Finland but I will burn my husbands scrapple if I do it now.
Happy Fathers Day John, Kilroy, and all the other dads on here.. I would guess your kids are super lucky to have you as dads, whether people agree on how to get there, it is obvious that the people on here have a big thing in common, they all truly care about education and want the best for all of our kids.
Thanks Pencadermom! What a nice thought and nice of you to say.
There is a great dvd called The Finland Phenomenon that describes the educational system and teacher training in Finland. While they have less poverty in their country (and I agree that povery is a major factor in our education performance but our country does not want to give anyone a hand up so we will continue to ignore half of the answer on to how to improve our schools), when you see how they train their teachers (especially if you’ve seen how the U.S. trains its teachers), then you will have the answer to the second half of the question on how to improve our schools.
Because pretty much the only way to see the dvd is to buy it, I will say that the education departments in the universities are very competitive to get in. Only the best students can train to become teachers. Their training is very rigorous and they spend a lot of time teaching in classrooms with their professors and classmates in the back of the room observing and critiquing. There is no testing in the schools to make sure the teachers are doing their job. Instead, they are considered to be professionals–just like doctors, lawyers and engineers–who have been trained to do their job well. The teachers do not actually get paid much more than teachers do here in the DE, but their status in their society is higher (it reminded me somewhat of how we regard university professors).