Posted on 03/15/2006 4:37:57 AM PST by summer
WINTER HAVEN -- The modern reality of teaching in Florida schools makes Bess Lott, a 32-year veteran, wonder whether she'd choose teaching as a career if she had it to do over.
Constant paperwork, comparatively low pay and FCAT pressure are all headaches, said the third-grade teacher at Winter Haven's Snively Elementary School of Choice.
But e-comp, the Department of Education's performance pay proposal, is the final straw, she said.
"They're talking about our salaries," she said....
(Excerpt) Read more at theledger.com ...
Seems that this would just cause "teaching for the test". I'm in favor of incentive plans but perhaps there are better ways to measure a teacher's performance than the results of a standardized test.
Sorry about that typo: instict = instinct
Agreed, there is a lot to be said about the degree in which neighborhood and family play a roll in a student's performance.
I think this would be agreat incentive plan, and I am not kidding: Fire all administrators, and allow teachers to run schools on a rotating basis. Increase teachers' pay substantially after saving all that money from administrator salaries, and extend the school day and year. Allow teachers one hour for lunch under this new plan, and give incentives like green stamps for merchandise to parents in inner city schools, so they can start helping their kids succeed. OK, no one is going to do any of that, but that is where I would begin!
Thanks. :)
The problem with merit pay for teachers and for government workers are the "measures" that are established to measure the worker's performance. In the private sector, in the case of a salesperson, measures can be determined, e.g., how much did that person sell in a quarter? in a year? In some instances the time frame may be too short.
What measure is used for a teacher? I have maintained that teachers should be evaluated by students after they have graduated. All of you can look back, and recall your best teacher and the worst ones. I don't think in most instances it is possible to say an the end of a year. Maybe after 5 years.
Now think for a minute about how one would write performance measures up for a spare tire. In one year, it may have done nothing. However, when the day comes that you need one, you are glad that you have one in your trunk. A spare tire is a good example for positions in the police, fire and other deparcments. IMHO
I am very much in favor of K-12 students evaluating teachers on a teacher report card. I am also in favor of teachers evaluting administrators. I think this kind of feedback would improve a lot of situations immediately. Thanks for your thoughtful post.
You are correct. They already do teach to the test. I have my kids in private schools because the public ones in Florida really are a joke. Jeb Bush, bless him, is a great governor who really wants a better educational system for the kids of Florida, but the FCAT is failing because the teachers are only teaching to the FCAT. I know at our districted elementary school (we have many friends whose kids attend) that there are psychologists on school grounds the day of the FCAT to help kids who are feeling overwhelmed by the pressure. In ELEMENTARY school. Geez.
Also, we had 1 yes 1 high school in our county receive an A grade after FCAT testing. However, when looking at the numbers only 53% of kids could read at or above their grade level. If that gets you an A rating I'm afraid to see what a B school is.
As another poster has already said, the problem here is that high-performing students are often high-performing because of the enrichment given at home. Parents in middle to upper SES catagories expect so much from their kids that do not leave schooling only for the teachers. These are parents taking their kids to historical sites, arranging extra tutoring when needed, supervising homework and just having an atmosphere at home positive to learning. For this system to work, there has to be something in place that recognizes that a years worth of growth looks different in each kid.
In addition, I was shocked to learn that the FCATs mean little to the kids except in grades 3 and 10. That is total BS. If the test means that much to the school and teacher, it needs to mean quite a bit to the student. The FCAT's need to become somewhat of an exit exam from grade to grade. That will stop the random bubbling in right there in all but your most hard-core test haters.
Overall, I'm not opposed to the idea of merit pay, nor am I opposed to getting rid of teachers whose students consistently under perform. But there needs to be a balance between the poor and wealthy schools so that the low performing schools don't have a revolving door in the front admitting and releasing brand new teachers.
This would be a non-issue if parents would simply put their children in private school and abandon the failed public system..... OK..now flame away!
I make under 40-thousand a year here in PA to pay people who teach at an average salary of around 50-thosuand. I don't buy this "comparatively low pay." That's National Education Association propaganda. Parents would make a big difference in their children's education if they cared more. If they cared to the point of personal sacrifice, they would teach at home and we could save a lot on teacher salaries then. Oops, I let some truth slip out. Its easy to blame administrators, but the salaries and benefits of all the people who work in schools make up over 60 percent of budgets around here. Some people who work in schools only pay $24 a month for medical and dental benefits around here. That has to change, too. It costs a lot more in the real world of taxpayers out there.
I'm not going to flame you, because I think it is very important to have many options and choices in education. Thanks for your post.
Believe me, you could fire half the adminsitrators in some districts and never know the difference -- and move into smaller buildilngs. These districts spend money on adminiistrator salaries and office buildings like crazy. Teachers are always last on their list in terms of who might get a raise.
When I was finally convinced (10 years ago) that my son's education was more important than a new car or vacation....it finally dawned on me that I could afford private school.
the flaw in the Pay portion of this story is that a teacher with 20 years of work history could be earning 50K+ work nine months plus all the "snow" days that are time off thus, if they have a summer job at DisneyWorld or the GAP and their salary they could earn 65K+ a year, retire at 55 and start career #2 with a huge nest egg. (my writing needs some taching help this morning)
Think steel buildings... The local school district here in Katy, TX spends approx $90 million on JR & SR High School buildings...which includes mosaics, murals, marble, imported tiles, etc...
Did I mention that they also build 3-story parking garages for all the kids that drive to school?
I'm a strong advocate of performance pay for teachers when done at the school level. Our school offers a very nice bonus to the "Teacher of the Year," and a lesser bonus to the runners up. The TOTY is voted on by the teachers themselves in a 2-level voting scheme. Yes, there's always going to be some favoritism, but that's true in industry too. At least in my memory, the TOTY bonus has never gone to someone other than a truly outstanding teacher.
While I'm on the subject, why is it that we pay large bonuses to sports coaches (admittedly who spend extra hours coaching), but nothing to outstanding teachers who spend extraordinary hours doing paperwork, grading papers, and preparing for classes? Do we value outstanding football teams and baseball players more than outstanding students? Which are going to contribute more to our society in the long run?
They could cash in their green stamps for their children's school supplies. Kids could earn them for good attendance and behavior/discipline records.
Ya, God forbid you get raises based on performance.
First, not all public school teachers are members of the N.E.A. My daughter teaches high school classes and is not a member nor are all teachers liberals. I know you haven't stated that at all but it seems to be "common knowledge" to some.
As you have already pointed out, rating a teacher's teaching ability based on how well the students do on a test does not take into consideration the ability of the students to learn to begin with. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, (That's my observation, not my daughter's).
My daughter also informs me that students who do well are usually the students who have parents who are involved in their education, parents who bother to show up at parent/teacher conferences,parents who impose discipline and order in their child's lives, parents who care.
In one of her classes of 30 students last year, four of the girls were pregnant, one of them with her second child. Assuming that half the class were girls, that's 4 of 15 and we may safely guess that at least as many of the boys in that class were involved with getting somebody pregnant.
In addition it's difficult to teach high school level classes to teen agers, many of whom have difficulty reading simple instructions. If a kid can't read by the time he is in high school there are only two choices, either flunk him or pass him on through the system.
There are incompetent teachers to be sure, I am positive that my daughter is not one of them, she is a frustrated teacher.
Back in the 70s I was watching news coverage of a teachers strike in Chicago. One of the reporters asked a picket sign holding teacher what her position was at the school. Her reply was, "I teaches English" Teachers who are incompetent should be fired but not on the basis of some test given to students.
"Some Teachers Say Merit Pay Plan Is a Bitter Apple [FL E-Comp Plan]
Sure. An apple tastes sour after eating cake and ice cream.
I remember when Dallas was going to have to 'let go' nearly 300 teachers due to budget concerns - then it was discovered that DISD had more or as many admins as Houston, while 1/3 the size. Needless to say, some admins lost their jobs.
I remember another survey on how much teachers pay out of their own pockets for classroom supplies - about $2000 a year.
We had a brief time of 'merit pay' here in TX - called the career ladder - based on classroom observations. I was working with some admin people on training for observations. Each of them had a spouse working in the district - and asked - since it will benefit 'my pocket', who do you think is going to get the best evaluation?
Any suggestion for merit pay has a possible backlash. If a teacher has A students, the evaluation would be good for that teacher.
Administration has been fattening up to be sure, but when the National Education Association wants the salaries of teachers to go up 19 percent in one year (an actual proposal in a school district near me) that's too much. Especially considering the average salary is over 48-thousand a year in that school district. That would mean a three million dollar expense in a school district with a 37 million dollar budget. (An eight percent budget increase just for teacher pay.)
Understood... My brother is a public school teacher in Centerville, Texas....still, there must be an effective and fair method to compensate "excellent" teachers. The problem is most are not excellent and those control the union, which controls the policy.
Poor teachers in a private school get fired.
As it stands the incentives are perverse, in most places the teachers in affluent districts working under the best conditions with the easiest to teach students are the most highly paid.
If teachers and adminsitratorshad to produce improvement in test scores to increase their income, and the greater the improvement the greater the increase, market forces should re-direct teaching talent to the places were the greatest improvement is possible, the schools and students with the lowest current relative performance.
Of course, it might be that no matter how motivated and skillful the teachers and administrators their efforts would be overwhelmed by other factors,
But if so, we would at least have a convincing demonstration of the limits of schools in effecting such improvements, and to move on with greater confidence to other sorts of efforts.
It seems that Florida is using a scale of 100-500. So, if little Billy scored 347 in 4th grade and then scored the same or higher in 5th grade, you can tell that Billy's 5th grade teacher taught Billy a full year's worth of 5th grade skills.
If Billy was the smartest kid in 4th grade and scored a 499, but only got a 378 in 5th grade you know that his fifth grade teacher didn't teach him enough.
if Billy is the class dunce, and his test the following year went up the teacher did her job, even if he started below average and is still below average.
As long as the merit pay is based on each student's score the merit pay is beneficial. You can then track how well a teacher is imparting knowledge in a tested subject. If a whole class has there test scores drop, the teacher is no good or the curriculum is horrid. If a couple scores fall, well that can be attribute to those kids. If the whole class improves, instead of staying the same, you have got a great teacher or a great curriculum and should try to replicate it in other classrooms.
You make a good point about how A students will continue to be "A" students even if they are taught in the "F" school. And I agree with you that the merit pay increase would unfairly benefit teachers with the A students.
However, merit pay tied to score improvement is still a good idea if offered only to the "F" schools and using the standardized test scores is really the only way to access merit fairly. Any other accessment could be political.
I disagree with this statement. Students rate based on easiness. Did you ever look at ratemyteacher.com?
A merit pay plan based on standardized testing could work out fine, if it incorporated a regression model of student improvement that controlled for variation in each teacher's classroom student composition. This type of model was used in Dallas several years back, but I'm not sure how it worked out.
Can someone PLEASE tell me why "teaching for the test" is a bad thing?
The only way "teaching for the test" could be bad is if the teacher somehow had prior knowledge of what questions would be on the test, so that they could repetitively drill their students on those specific questions. I'm guessing they don't know the questions beforehand.
Without knowing beforehand what the questions will be, "teaching for the test" would, of necessity, require the instructor to... (wait for it)... teach the subject material thoroughly!
I think that's the whole point. :-)
For example
“...it checks to see if a student has acquired a year's worth of knowledge, as determined by the FCAT achievement…
leaves it unclear if a teacher is eligible for a bonus if a student is performing below grade level; for example is a teacher rewarded at all for bringing a 6th grader up 18 months in tested level in a year if they are still reading at the 5th grade level?
Or, is there adjustment for the difficulty of the task?
Teachers at schools like Snively, a high-poverty school with 89 percent of its students qualified for free or reduced-price lunches, can't possibly compete for the bonuses against teachers at magnet schools, said Viola Frazier, a third-grade Snively teacher.”
IMO it’s quite possible that bringing a student reading at far below grade level at a “Snively” type school up half a grade level in a year is more of a teaching accomplishment than producing a full year's improvement in a student starting the the term at grade level at a school with more stringent entry requirements.
I don't understand the problem with "teaching to" these comprehensive tests. The tests test their knowledge of content. Kids who don't know the subject matter will do poorly; those who do will do well. Isn't that what teaching is all about?
The problem that I see with attaching merit pay to the test results is that you have to be able to follow the kids on a multi-year basis in order to determine if the teacher made a positive contribution to a child's knowledge base. If Johnnie made a 56 last year, and under Ms. Smith's tutelage made an 82 this year, then apparently, Ms. Smith deserves a merit raise. So you would have to track all of her students' progress for this year over the last (or last several).I think the "teaching to the test problem" is really a red herring.
Tell me, did everything you learn in highschool get included in the SAT? ACT? As a teacher, if your payraise depended on your kids doing well, would you bother teaching them anything other than the material that would be covered on the test? I guess this makes teaching really easy, just follow the leasson plan that the testmakers will map out and you've put yourself into the fast track for teacher of the year.
A major factor in academic performance (not politically correct or warm and fuzzy) is genetics. Some kids were born with straight As (in real academic subjects), they can do no work and still get them, it's in every cell in their body. Some just can't, no matter what.
It's not a 100% correlation; but when you're looking at averages in groups living in an area, higher economic performance in the US tends to correlate with higher intelligence which leads to cushier jobs. In a "good" school and a "bad" school you can find a few kids that disprove a notion that the school itself inhibits getting As or Fs.
Some teachers are likely more effective than others; but this is just really hard to measure. A private school has a chance to evaluate this as the private school makes decisions at the school level on pure economics if parents are discriminating customers of education.
A public school will never share these motives. And a teachers' union exists to provide safe cushy work for the lowest academic performers to set foot on a college campus - a group that is chock full of socialists to boot. There may be exceptions to this; but we're talking about some single-digit percentage (maybe low as 1%).
Imposing performance standards on public schools, though, is just punishment that will stratify payscales a bit against teaching in poor neighborhoods (low performance students). Whether the teacher union types "deserve" said punishment is a strategic/political action more than one based on education quality, unless said education quality is to be improved through punishment of teacher-union-dues-payers.
All I can tell you is what my daughters friends tell me. Their teachers basically hand them informational packets, kind of like SAT prep packets and just do those for weeks and months at a time.
But if nobody knows exactly what is on the test this year you just have to cover everything. (Truth be told I knew there was no advanced material in the SAT.)
Nothing is perfect but it's far better then not testing.
If the teachers see the tests first this will be a big problem. If on the other hand the teachers know the students will need to solve a quadratic and wright a thesis paragraph I'm fine with it.
Teaching to a good test is just teaching.
Hmmm. What kind of information do they learn from these packets? I'm guessing it would have to be the subject content?
Life is not a textbook (and thank goodness I've never seen a horse is to saddle as ox is to _______ question in my adulthood experience) and I prefer that my kids learn to think outside of the box so that one day hopefully they can solve complex problems. But hey, that's just me. If you think it's a good idea to do test packets all day that's fine with me. That's why I support educational choice in this country.
No, but if you read the article, their solution provides for that. Teachers of non-core subjects are judged by the school board for performance. I have no problem with that either. They are then accountable to people elected to run the school district.
I guess this makes teaching really easy, just follow the leasson plan that the testmakers will map out and you've put yourself into the fast track for teacher of the year.
Nope, it isn't easy. If it was, the ineffective tenured teachers currently pervading the system would do just fine. For my hard-earned tax dollars, I want teachers who can actually teach. I want the rest to have a fire lit under their lazy butts to start producing -- teaching their students effectively -- or find another line of work.
Dedicated, results-oriented teachers have nothing to fear from such a system, tenured or not. And that's the real point: changing the system from an incentive for simple longevity to an incentive for results. Without that incentive, the results will always suffer.
Call me a skeptic, but I have difficulty envisioning good teaching (or anything good) as the outcome of this program. I see kids with personalities like mine skipping class and going to McDonalds when that teacher concerned about how well we master quadratics goes through it for the 700th time in order to get that pay raise. Some see it as measuring success, I see it as a guarantee for marginalized teaching methods and removing the motivation for good teachers to expand their lesson plan beyond the "standard". As the previous poster mentioned, every good teacher I had helped expand the material to practical, real word applications. Its one thing to spit back an answer to a cross multiplication question, but can you use that skill to find how many more hits you'll need to bat .350 in a game? I try to imagine what it would be like if those same teachers who helped me develop that type of thinking would have instead abandon their effort in order to make sure I could score 2 more questions correctly on the test. Abstract thinking and life skill thinking aren't in lesson plans, but good teachers help students develop those skills. I don't know if that is something you can easily measure, but you realize later on in life that it made the difference between true retention and use-for-the-test-and-forget learning.
Teachers with a lot of years in the system are not doing so badly -- some NY teachers, with 20 years in, now make over $100K per year. And, they don't need any 2nd job at ther GAP. They probably don't care too much about a $2,000 bonus, either. But for new teachers making $25,000 in some places (and, yes, some teachers are still paid that little). they are having a tough time.
Re your post #20 - There are school districts in FL that have bought huge district office buildings, only to rent them out later, not kinowing what to do with all the space. In the district where I reside, there is marble flooring and countertops in the admin center, while teachers are still teaching in portables. And that's not the state's fault -- that's the fault of stupid adminiistrators whose priorities do not include teachers and kids as being the most imporant elements in a school system. But don't worry, those adminiistrators are already making their 6-figure salaries, so they need all the extra comfort they can get in their office space. And what do these people do? No one knows. The teachers only know they never see these people in the schools.
Re your post #21 - I agree with your entire post. Thanks for your thoughtful comments.
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