Merit pay rewards good test scores, not good teachers
There has been a lot of discussion and comment here over the last few days on merit pay. Here is piece by teacher Jordan Kohanim of Centennial HS. (Kohanim had many Website sources in her piece, but I have embedded them to make it easier to read the piece without all the long Urls.
Merit pay does not reward good teachers; it rewards good test scores.
Let’s first examine the background of this debate. “A Nation at Risk” came to the conclusion that American education was failing upcoming populations of students. The report claimed students were graduating without the ability to read. According to the report, a need arose to gauge how students were advancing out of schools without basic literacy. With that out there, let me first state there is some debate as to just HOW MANY people were graduating with low literacy levels and just what kind of crisis our schools were in.
In fact, many say this flawed report is “dead wrong. Some argue that it was a biased political maneuver to start tapping into the final social service monies.
Now before you start shouting how teachers are paranoid, please note that both sources are not written by teachers. Allow that a moment to sink in. Even so, the “Nation at Risk” report claimed huge areas of under-served, uneducated people graduating with no clear evaluation method before they were issued diplomas. The workforce cried foul!
The answer: NCLB and standardized tests, generally built by states/localities and given to students each year. The federal government then examines the scores of these tests.
Most educational research will tell you that these tests are statistically and empirically non-indicative of student achievement, progress, or even potential, which many in the educational field argue cannot be tested or measured. I agree with this statement. There is no way to accurately measure student achievement via a testing standard.
In fact, these numbers are so easily manipulated that they can be skewed for political agenda and end up demoralizing children that do not deserve such labels as “failed.” Caputo-Pearl even argues it is another form of racism. Not that using tests to sort the kids is anything new.
Now I know you say that all we, as teachers, have to do is teach the kids the basics, then the test is no biggie. We can get the test stuff out of the way and then get down to the real learning. While your ideology is sweet, it isn’t logistically possible. Teachers are already under enormous pressure, especially with Georgia’s shrinking budgets and furloughs.
Some argue that this leads to a cut-throat paring down of curriculum.
Think too – what does this message send to our students? That student learning is no more than a test module?
Not to mention what pressure that puts on new teachers who already have a hard time. Let’s say for instance, that a teacher is new to the profession and (as usually happens) is handed the lowest performing classes. The learning curve for a teacher– as I’m sure you are aware being new to the profession yourself — is exponential. That being said, the pressure of NCLB hs forced many new teachers to feel the loss of efficacy and thus to leave the classroom quickly.
The result? Teacher flight.
If being judged by a state or nationwide standard, historically and empirically low-performing schools are distinguished by socioeconomics. Rural and urban schools are routinely underfunded due to high levels of poverty, have less access to resources, and often aren’t able to spend as much time with students because of after school work, child care, etc.. High poverty students have more responsibility at home and less time to work in a school environment. Educational research confirms that this.
Teachers know high poverty students come with different obstacles. . This is why the federal government has had to begin offering numerous incentives for highly qualified teachers to take jobs at rural and urban schools, include sign-on bonuses, tax incentives, and higher education loan forgiveness.
These incentives to get good teachers into the areas where they are needed most, could be reversed by the merit pay system, since the students in these higher poverty areas might be seen as more difficult to reach testing benchmarks.. Now you may say, in your ideological way, well- why can’t we have both? The honest answer? Funding.
I would love for there to be a multi-level, collaborative, portfolio and observation-based system. I would love for students to be evaluated on different tiers of understanding (and they are in my classroom), but the bottom line is that educational politics is more of a buffet line than a full-course meal. It always has been. Sadly, politicians are going to choose the things that are most cost-efficient. So away goes portfolio/observation and in comes check list. Out with true measures of achievement and in comes testing that (when used without limits can do more harm than good.
On top of all of this, there is evidence that states that these poor assessments, when tied to merit pay lead to mass corruption and aren’t used in the corporate world as often as some proponents claim. Now I know you will say that grades and corresponding GPAs are equally unreliable for a number of reasons. Still, teachers, for the most part, will police themselves and there is no real incentive for allowing a student to pass without having earned a grade–until you start attaching money to it.
There are countless cases of teachers who have manipulated grade systems or test systems for their own benefit. Even state governments have been accused of and confessed to “dumbing down” assessment tools in order to secure monetary benefits or administrative stability. Manipulation of tests rose when the government implemented the No Child Left Behind Act, which directly tied these assessment tools to merit-based benefits for schools.
Again, I know you will argue that the current system is flawed and that merit pay is at least a step in some direction. I would, however, disagree with you. To foster a system that has proven to not only create no net benefit, and in fact creates several large harms, is to create a false sense of justice. False justice is the worst kind of injustice because it lulls our populace into thinking good is being done, and it undercuts resources that could be used in a more productive manner.
What is the bottom line? Merit pay causes teacher flight, corruption within the education system in order to gain merit pay, even as high as the state level, and will ultimately pair public education down into nothing more than a test-preparation mill. What is my solution?
My solution is start by paying teachers at least what we are contracted, looking at alternative sources for “seat time,” and admitting that not every student is the same and should not have the same little bubble on a Scantron decide their fate. Stop using corporations to judge students. In the words of my mentor, I teach kids, not cogs.
Respectfully yours,
Jordan Kohanim
Centennial High School
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44 comments Add your comment
V for Vendetta
January 19th, 2010
10:23 pm
Excellent, well-written article. Too bad no educrats will bother to read it as they create a merit system entirely based on nothing more than test scores (and maybe a cursory observation or two).
As long as education remains in the hands of those who know nothing about it, we will fail to see a change. From a larger perspective, the two-party system of government is ripping this country apart. It baffles me that no one can see this. Education is merely one of many victims suffering under the war between the parties.
But all anyone wants to talk about is healthcare . . .
Echo
January 19th, 2010
10:37 pm
Email this to Sonny, hopefully he has someone in his office who can read it to him.
sped teacher bibb
January 19th, 2010
10:40 pm
Amen!!!
Dora Taylor
January 20th, 2010
1:17 am
Enter your comments here
Here here!
More more information on merit pay, see:
http://seattle-ed.blogspot.com/
Way to go Jordan!
January 20th, 2010
4:42 am
I could not have said it better myself Jordan! In addition to the aforementioned arguments against merit pay for teachers, I have a couple of questions for Sonny and this proposed merit pay system.
1) How do you plan to pay teachers in teaching fields such as Art, Music, Drama, Foreign Language, PE, Career/Tech, etc. who do not give “standardized-tests” as the academic fields do?
2) How will administrators be paid on this new merit pay system or will administrators and county level supervisors stay on the current pay schedule which is based on number of degrees and years of service?
3) If merit pay comes to fruition, how can you entice a teacher in a Metro Atlanta school district to take a job at a low socioeconomic school that has never even made AYP over a school that has a higher socioeconomic level of students where the students consistently score off the charts on standardized tests? If it comes down to 50% of my pay being determined by a group students on ONE standardized test, I think most teachers will take the job at the higher performing school, seek employment in the private sector that does not pay according to performance or change careers all together.
You have a lot of questions to answer Sonny-better get the details out in your bill so we know what is what!
Fed up with Sonny and KCox!
January 20th, 2010
5:27 am
Well said! We should give merit pay to teachers when we include politicians in the merit pay system.
Lee
January 20th, 2010
5:28 am
Jordan’s entire arguement hinges on her statement that the “Nation at Risk” report was inaccurate and schools were not graduating illiterates.
Okay, then how do you explain the fact that time after time after time I come onto this blog and read where you teachers are complaining about high schoolers who are performing on an elementary grade level?
You’ve got to fix the root problem and if you do, then merit pay becomes a moot point.
IE, eliminate grade inflation and passing students from grade to grade who cannot do the work.
Reality 2
January 20th, 2010
6:22 am
Although the statement “not every student is the same” is absolutely true, I just wonder who and how they will be judged. We can have a system like many European countries do that will separate children at relatively young ages – via testing. The US system is a system of second chance, that allows “late bloomers” to indeed bloom. I realize that there are many issues with a merit pay system, but people, including Jordan, seem to somehow miss some important points.
* we can judge “growth,” i.e., changes in test scores
* the “ceiling effect” tells us that if we want the most “profit” under such a system, we shouldn’t be trying to get the highest performing schools – you can go up only so far if they all start out with 85%
* if we move teachers around within a system, we can accomplish “fairness” – no teacher will get stuck at “low performing schools” and “low performing school” students will have equal chance of getting “excellent” teachers
* A Nation at Risk may be flawed in some ways, but there are other international studies in which US students didn’t perform well
* how can we “trust” teachers if they have been shown to cheat under a merit system that relies on test scores?
Furlough days are hard – and we all heard about how other state employees have had many more furlough days than teachers. However, why is it that teachers/schools are forced not to close schools due to furloughs, DOE, DDS, etc. closed down their offices affecting people seeking their services?
ScienceTeacher671
January 20th, 2010
6:24 am
Lee, you assume teachers are passing the students. Usually, it’s the administrators who force social promotion – I’ve seen many students promoted by the administrator after earning failing grades from the teachers, before NCLB. Now the committee, with the administrator as the committee head, socially promotes those students — and our General Assembly passed the law making that possible.
Chris Murphy, Atlanta, GA
January 20th, 2010
7:00 am
It’s a great letter by an obviously great teacher. But let’s get back to her first paragraph, about the history behind NCLB. She’s claiming there is no evidence for anecdotal reports of illiterate high school graduates. No evidence.
Yet, before, during, and after those reports, there have numerous examples of professional athletes- some graduates of colleges and universities, but all at least former students in higher education- that are illiterate. Where’s the truth?
Sam
January 20th, 2010
7:10 am
In Freakanomics, the author says that people statistically stop giving blood when they’re paid for it. I don’t know why, but I feel like I could apply that to merit pay. I definitely think politicians should have merit pay. They should also have to come work in the classroom before they’re allowed to make any legislation about education. How many of these guys have actually taught any classes in the public school system? I’ve about had it with ivory towers.
Ray
January 20th, 2010
7:33 am
“Merit pay rewards good test scores, not good teachers”
And it takes our eye off the real issue – really funding schools. Seen Cherokee County lately?
Elizabeth
January 20th, 2010
8:20 am
It is not my choice to have students in my 8th grade class who can’t read. It is the choice of administrators and parents who demand that their little darlings be promoted regardless of their skill/knowledge level and regardless of whether they have done the work. ” We can’t have too many F’s” has been a signal cry of administrators since I started teaching. People assume that I have control over the discipline and placement of students in my class. I do not. I am treated like an unskilled laboror who is expected to silently follow the process and do my job no matter what the conditions. NO other professional group is treated like this. No other profession would put up with it. That is why I have decided that teachers DO need to unionize.This is a total reversal of my postion ten, twenty, thirty years ago.
If you want NO Child Left Behind, don’t give them to me until they are not behind. Then I will be able to get them to 9th grade NOT behind. If they come to me behind, they will be behind when they leave me. I do not teach robots; I teach kids who learn at different rates and can only make a certain amount of progress in a year. The fallacy is that if I am entertaining enough, they will learn. Well, guess what? Some parts of learning are not fun. Memorizing multiplication tables is not fun; neither is learning to determine parts of spech. It is tedious. But so is doing my income tax, paying my bills and balancing my checkbook, and a host of other required tasks I do each day. Kids have to learn that there are some things they have to do whether these things are fun or not.
Teachers are treated like ignorant day laborors who are unqualified to make professional decisions about learning and teaching. They have no control over their work environment and job responsibilities. They have no recourse when they are told to work overtime with no expectation of bonuses, overtime pay,comp time, or other compensation for a 60 hour work week, which is the average work week of a classroom teacher when you add all the extras. Planning time? It no longer exists. It is meeting and paperwork time.We have no control over the discipline of the students who know that they will suffer no consequences for their actions.Until these things change, education will not improve. Period.
Elizabeth
January 20th, 2010
8:22 am
I hope my previous comment got there — I was bumped out and can’t find it. I have no time to redo it now.
MLM
January 20th, 2010
10:28 am
I teach with Jordan. She’s a rock-star, and right, as usual.
Lee, your response that teacher complaints of underprepared students somehow disproves Jordan’s assertion that “A Nation At Risk” was a seriously flawed report is a good example of fallacious reasoning. It reminds me of people who say, “We just had an ice storm, so clearly global warming isn’t real.” Such reductive thinking curtails real debate. I read this blog and I know you’re better than that.
Chris, your observation about illiterate athletes, while relevant, also misconstrues the point of the argument. “A Nation At Risk,” as suggested in tbe title, made sweeping statements about public education as institution. The suggestion that the report overstates the problem is not disproved by a handful of higly particular anecdotes.
Anyway, I think it is clear that this is a complex, nuanced issue and, as such, has very little chance of being addressed effectively by politicians. So a question for you, the thougtful education-minded community: what do we do about it?
Education in America????
January 20th, 2010
10:34 am
Folks the merit pay has nothing to do with paying good teachers more and bad teachers less. The Governor and indeed the General Assembly really does not care or more correctly…care far less about merit teaching than they do about lowering the budget for education. The state is short on funding because the general assembly and the Governor kept spending during the good years and now that we are in crisis they are attempting to balance the budget by slashing spending for educators. If you only pay those with great scores say a $4000 bonus….that is far less than paying roughly $5000 for teachers that have increased their education through Master’s or higher degrees. A teacher with say a doctorate degree receive about $15000 more than one with a B.S. degree. Thus, the proposed Merit pay is simply a way to shrink the education budget by lowering the average teacher pay. It’s all about the money!!!
teach1
January 20th, 2010
10:45 am
One other thing to consider would be class size. Even within our county there are several regular ed classroom teachers with only 14 students while others are at 23 (first grade). How can you fairly judge the growth when teacher 1 has so much more time per student than teacher 2? Even if you find an adequete test to measure growth, how can it be fair to the teacher of 23 who would have to work so much harder to keep up?
what's right for kids???
January 20th, 2010
11:22 am
As a teacher here early to give extra help (no one showed up), I can honestly say that I make plenty of money. I have been doing this for 17 years, and I have two advance degrees. The furlough days hurt, but they are not the end of the world financially (I am taking approximately an 1800.00 cut this year with the six days).
WHAT??? NOT THE MONEY? No, it’s not the money.
It’s the insult. It is insulting that the government, the media (movies, television, news reports, etc), many of the state’s population think that taking away money from our schools will not have any impact on our students. They can’t read, they can’t write, and they don’t care. I teach in a trailer and hand out novels that have to be clipped together with binder clips for my students. What the Governor and his posse are saying is that children are not important; they are saying that our future doesn’t matter; they are saying that children count less than other people. What they are saying and have been saying breeds contempt and apathy in our population. Kids don’t care because they know that their government doesn’t care.
After assigning two chapters of Of Mice and Men, and GOING OVER setting, major characters, and background of not only the book, but also the author, one of my glorious students wrote down that the setting was…ready? Scotland. Another said that it was taking place in the Dust Bowl. Another said that it takes place in the south. Again, I had them read, work in groups, I went over the study questions (read: gave them the answers), and then had them turn in their chapter questions for what I thought would be a “courtesy grade”. How does a teacher deal with that type of apathy? And their answers were nothing like the ones that I GAVE THEM!!!!!!!! Scotland…Yep. If we gave a crap about our students and their education, if we respected our teachers and what they do, then maybe teachers wouldn’t see such apathy in the classrooms or entitlement from the parents.
Ready for another little tidbit? I will have parents emailing me about their children’s grades, saying that they tried, so they should get a good grade.
Kids know that teachers are discouraged from failing too many of them. They know that if an entire class doesn’t turn in an assignment, the teacher will feel pressure not to make it count as a grade. They may extend the deadline to turn it in. Few teachers, if any, will hold the kids accountable. Why should they? Their parents don’t, the administration doesn’t, and the government could give a crap.
That’s what’s insulting about the furlough days: Perdue’s blatant message that education is not the “favored son or daughter” but rather the redheaded stepchild.
what's right for kids???
January 20th, 2010
11:43 am
And another thing:
Why is there no absolute public outcry about legislators not paying their taxes?????
They say there is no money because they can’t collect taxes. Let’s start with the legislation.
Hick from the sticks
January 20th, 2010
11:51 am
What’s right–
Perhaps you could impress upon the little ones that they may be headed the way of the workers in Of Mice and Men, as far as the government is concerned.
Remind them to feed alfalfa to the rabbits.
LGL
January 20th, 2010
12:01 pm
JK and MLM–
I’m so happy we work on the same team.
KenFromCalifornia
January 20th, 2010
12:13 pm
the author acknowledges that new, less-experienced teachers are more likely to be placed into lower-performing classrooms. in most private sectors, the most-experienced, skilled people are assigned to the lowest-performing departments/divisions/projects, all to make sure that it gets the best chance of turning around. how seriously does one want to solve a problem when those best to work on it are never tasked to fix it?
some collective bargaining agreements stipulate that teachers with a certain number of years can chose to be permanently “promoted” to better schools. any district that tries to reassign them afterward to a lower-performing school (where such teachers could do a greater good) would meet with resistance, and possibly a grievance filed with their union.
curiously, when parents at that lower-performing school realize that the good teachers don’t want to come there, and these parents then try to transfer their kids to a better school (or lobby for school choice programs), some of these same teachers accuse THE PARENTS of abandoning the school. that’s some real chutzpah>
in 2009, detroit public schools scored the worst on the national test in the test’s 40-year history. some may argue the reliability of such tests, but it is hard to explain how 80% of the 8th graders in detroit couldn’t solve “137 – 23 = ?” on that test. these are kids who are 14 years old, nearly old enough to drive a car, yet can’t do 2nd grade arithmetic. 8 out of 10 kids.
i agree that not even merit pay will help detroit. that district obviously has institutional failings that no amount of money can solve.
but for districts that aren’t as far gone, merit pay can be a help. a teacher who fears failing the merit pay because of the school (and students) she’s been assigned to, that teacher might actually be inspired to determine what is needed to succeed. the district should be accountable to provide it.
and those kids who don’t want to learn? the ones who can mess up the merit pay for the teachers that are struggling to put something inside their thick heads? those who have parents that are willfully uninvolved?
move them away from the outdated “we sink or swim together” policy and put them into a school tasked with a sole mission of remedial learning. certainly, schools are obligated to teach all kids. but there isn’t an obligation to teach all kids TOGETHER in the same school. be a bit more savvy to raise the bar for the motivated kids and their parents, not lower that bar for the knucklehead kids to drag everyone down to.
those teachers in the remedial schools would be the ones recruited with substantial merit pay bonuses. teachers with less than a certain number of years’ experience would be ineligible to teach in the remedial schools. true, they then won’t qualify for the big merit pay, but as the author pointed out, they’d just get chewed up and quit the profession anyway. put these jobs as a promotion for the new teachers to strive for.
the teachers in the other schools could then no longer use the “slow” kids as an excuse. everybody who is there is there to learn. no more babysitting. and those teachers can then promote them to the next grade with a straight face, proudly knowing that she’s prepared them for the next level.
that’s gotta be better than disparaging tests and using a kid’s income as an excuse.
V for Vendetta
January 20th, 2010
12:33 pm
Here’s the truth for all of the legislators up there in the golden-domed capitol building:
Merit pay for teachers might very well be impossible. For a long time I’ve said that I really don’t think there is an equitable way to evaluate teacher performance based on student performance. I really believe that.
Instead of beating a dead horse, perhaps someone should come up with a way that IS equitable. (I don’t think the current system is perfect, but I think it is far better than any merit pay system could ever be.)
Merit pay rewards good test scores, not good teachers | Get Schooled | RewardInn.Com
January 20th, 2010
2:06 pm
[...] Excerpt from: Merit pay rewards good test scores, not good teachers | Get Schooled [...]
Value added system
January 20th, 2010
3:12 pm
The value added system is a system in which students achievement at the end of a grade is predicted using their past data. Then, compare the actual result to the predicted achievement, and the difference is “value added” by the teacher. Clearly, there are technical issues involved in this system, but such a system seems to be a reasonable way to quantify a teacher’s effectiveness. If students don’t care about learning, their past data should show that. If they were doing fine but then decided they don’t care anymore while they are in a particular teacher’s class, maybe there is something about the teacher there, too. If you are in a “low performing” school, it really doesn’t matter – you are measured against the predicted achievements.
If it is possible to measure students’ learning – otherwise I have no idea what “grades” mean – then it should be possible to use those measurements to measure teacher effectiveness – if we assume a teacher’s job is to help students learn.
Dan
January 20th, 2010
3:18 pm
“Whats right for kids”
I am asking a couple of questions not starting a fight
You complain you teach in a trailer and have to clip together novels fair enough (tho I may have had 1 or 2 new text books in elhi) would spending money for a new school and text books help the apathy of the kids? I suppose some could say they would be more excited in a new room but some may be distracted as well. As for the parents wanting their kids to have good grades for effort, I agree wholeheartedly.. big problem, but one caused by schools teaching that over the last 20 years, changing grades so their are no F’s, not correcting in red pen because it is a harsh demeaning color. Aren’t these parents the ones taught that in the public schools?
Tony
January 20th, 2010
3:48 pm
A Nation at Risk was a political report designed to set the stage for the current show-down we are facing regarding public education. A report that provided a very balanced view of educational performance that came on the scene at the very same time is commonly referred to as “The Sandia Report”. The Dept of Ed was infuriated at this report’s findings and tried to bury it with eternal peer review. The report ultimately surfaced and is available via Internet by goggling for it. The bottom line for that report was that education in the US was not as dire as the top politicians and business leaders were claiming.
Now regarding “merit pay”. It will never be fair because there are too many opportunities for favoritism. Rosters can be stacked to favor certain teachers. There is not a fair assessment that can show how much a student has learned in a year. These kinds of tests are way too expensive for government to fund.
It is another smoke screen to divert funding away from education into private corporations. Some people somewhere need to be a little more realisitic about things like this. But politicians only have to generate perceptions.
Dan
January 20th, 2010
4:21 pm
Tony I am not naive enough to think some private corps are benefiting But it is hard to argue that public dollars are not being spent efficiently as far as education is concerned. All we hear is they need more money, over the last decade they have close to doubled the federal money they recieve, (still a small % as it should be) with little result, it is never a good idea to throw money at a problem unless there is a cogent plan to spend it. There needs to be some measurement system in place. Teaching is a noble profession, but not all teachers are noble, an across the board pay increase without some kind of measurement would incent the wrong behavior (as it would in any organization)
Value added system
January 20th, 2010
4:25 pm
Tony,
Can you tell me why the value added system is not fair?
Georgia Teacher
January 20th, 2010
5:46 pm
The problem with education funding is a problem with leadership.
“It’s not reality unless it’s shared.” -Pete Blaber
The leadership, both in the school and above, sees nothing but numbers. The leadership does not see the impact teachers have on their students, both good and bad.
Why?
It is because they don’t share the reality of being in the classroom… neither does the school board nor the General Assembly.
“Always listen to the guy on the ground.” -Pete Blaber
Echo
January 20th, 2010
6:09 pm
Dan…one of the reasons more money is needed is because of the HUGE increase in tests given. New positions are created to do crap the politicians keep forcing schools to do in order to keep their funding. We have ended up with a moneypit of bloated county (and state) offices and endless paperwork. I agree that putting more money in wouldn’t solve our problems…getting the stupid politicians out of education would!
Dave
January 20th, 2010
9:41 pm
Be sure to check out http://www.gaedalliance.org for facts with No bias!
A great website. Join the casue for FREE! ! ! ! !
Veteran teacher, 2
January 20th, 2010
10:18 pm
Thanks Tony for mentioning the Sandia report. I have not looked at that document for some time, though I have a copy in my files. The really interesting part of the report is that for the top 80% of the students who take the SAT, the scores have increased steadily since the SAT began to be required for admission to college. Only the bottom 20% has declined. Of course, one can reasonably be sure that the vast majority of students in the bottom 20% did NOT take a rigorous college prep curriculum. Imagine, a national report that shows that SAT scores have actually risen!! This report did not say what the Washington establishment wanted, so it was abandoned for “A Nation at Risk.” Don’t believe it? Look it up on the internet.
What about other tests like EOCT and CRCT? How do we know they measure what the testing company says they do? The released items for all the tests have been hotly debated in several settings. The state DOE and the testing companies guard test items like the gold at Fort Knox. The current situation forces all of us to accept testing as gospel. How do we know the tests measure what “they” say they are supposed to?
I can tell you unequivically that regardless of what any test says, the students I now teach know more and can do more than students that I taught 20 years ago. A poster a couple of weeks ago mentioned that there is no incentive for the testing companies to show that students do well on their tests. If students actually do well, there may no longer be a need for the tests. The more I think about that statement, the more I wonder. Does this statement bother anyone else??
SABBY
January 20th, 2010
11:59 pm
I listened to Bill Gates talk about high school visit he had conducted. He was very disappointed by what he observed. The schools are NOT preparing students to become a successful participant in a global economy. Mathematics, Science and technological instruction was lacking greatly. He has backed his concern by putting lots of money in support of various education initiatives. He has been very assertive by stating that within ten years if schools do not change they will not survive. I do not think it is to our advantage to ignore the successful, bright individuals who are making these type of profound statements. We need to step up and move education into a new era. The ability to change education is within us and a lack of funds can be the driving force to think about major system changes. Aim above the student achievement targets and we all will benefit.
ScienceTeacher671
January 21st, 2010
6:19 am
There’s the Sandia Report, and there are a number of Bracey Reports, including the final one published posthumously, that say that for many students, our educational system is working very well. Our district doesn’t always make AYP, but we have students each year accepted to prestigious colleges and/or the service academies — i.e., the education is there for students who take advantage of it. Not all do.
I still would like to know who is profiting from the testing in Georgia, and whether they are the same ones profiting from the new data collection systems all the schools were required to purchase and implement over the past year or two.
I’d still like to know if any incentive programs remain in the new budget, since Georgia “can’t afford” to pay NCBTs or the tuition programs to help teachers become certified in critical needs fields (and didn’t HOPE pay some of those? If the lottery people are getting huge bonuses shouldn’t that money still be there?) How about Georgia Master Teachers? What about the bonuses for new math & science teachers?
So many questions…
teacher/parent
January 21st, 2010
3:27 pm
You gotta love public education. Using the value added system, an entire class can fail a course, and the teacher is still effective. How? In order to pass a course (I’ll use Language Arts because that’s what I teach), a 9th grade student must master 9th grade standards. If all students come in below grade level, and each student makes significant gains but not up to the 9th grade level, the teacher has done his/her job according to the value added system. However, since the students still haven’t mastered 9th grade standars, all students will repeat. No commentary on it being right or wrong. I simply thought it was interesting.
ScienceTeacher671
January 21st, 2010
7:02 pm
Teacher/parent, since students can pass the 8th grade CRCT while reading and doing math at a 4th-5th grade level, and since many students who can’t pass the CRCT are promoted anyway, it’s not inconceivable that you would get such a class….
Getting the students up to a 7th grade level would be a pretty significant accomplishment, even if they didn’t master the 9th grade standards. It’s a bit reassuring to know that the value-added system would recognize that accomplishment.
I still haven’t found out whether the new budget, which doesn’t fund bonuses for NBCTs, would fund the bonuses for Georgia Master Teachers and/or new math and science teachers. The thing is, if the state “can’t afford” merit pay now, what makes us think they’ll pay it in 3-4 years?
Been there a while
January 21st, 2010
8:49 pm
Science Teacher…
“The thing is, if the state “can’t afford” merit pay now, what makes us think they’ll pay it in 3-4 years?”
EXACTLY!!!!!!
Saddened teacher
January 22nd, 2010
1:14 pm
I am a music teacher and I bust my butt and am often at work for longer hours than regular ed teachers. True, I have less paperwork and I do not teach a subject that is tested on the CRCT. But, should I be discriminated b/c of what I teach? I am still a teacher!! How would my effectiveness be evaluated?
What about teachers of special needs children. They work very hard and their children may not visually display growth.
If teachers teach children who refuse to work, are they going to get paid less b/c of the children they were assigned to teach?
Just a bunch of nonsense!!!!
Chellie
January 23rd, 2010
11:12 am
Why are teachers being singled out among state employees to be paid based on performance? Don’t all state employees have expected performance goals?
Educator
January 23rd, 2010
12:15 pm
I am a teacher and one who cares deeply about her students, as most teachers do. I work hard everyday to teach the Georgia Performance Standards. My merit can never be measured by students’ standardized test scores. I have friends who teach in schools with high ESOL populations (English Speakers of Other Languages), with high Special Ed populations, in schools that are highly transient, and they work hard to get their students to make progress.
Does the average citizen know that ESOL and Special Ed students take the same test with very few accommodations and are expected to score as well as the average native English speaking student? Do they know these scores count on a school making Adequate Yearly Progress? If Merit Pay is how a teacher is going to be paid then who is going to choose to work with them? They need the best, more driven, most dedicated teachers working with them, but do you really think those are the ones who will choose to work with them once it becomes a fiscal issue for their own families?
One year I had a Hispanic Special Ed student with diagnosed learning disabilities. His diagnosed disability was that he could barely read and comprehend on a first grade level. If he had things read to him he could do the work, so he could learn, just not in a traditional way. When it came time to take the CRCT in third grade, the pass/fail reading year, he was given these accommodations:
1. The questions were read to him but not the passages on the reading section
2. He had extended time periods to help him
He had the questions read to him but then had to look at pages of words on a level he could not read. He could not read the passages so based on the read to questions only he attempted to guess at the answers. His extended time accommodation would never help him to do what he simply could not do. He did not pass the test because he could not do it.
Is this reasonable? Does this assess his learning and his growth? Does this allow for his limitations? Does this assess the merit of all who worked so hard with him all year? Have we all lost our minds?
When the governor says that educators helped him with this Merit Pay idea then I would love to know how many of those so called educators are presently teaching in our school system. I do not believe that they are now in the trenches but rather think they are people who have moved out of the classroom and into more administrative positions. We have to deal with many of there “wonderful and innovative” ideas often. Those who love teaching remain in the classroom and most of us are never consulted and when consulted rarely listened to.
Below is an actual letter that I sent to a parent this past week. It is one of many sent to this family during this school year. It demonstrates the depth of a teacher’s dedication to her students. My merit and the merit of my fellow teachers can never be assessed through a one time standardized test.
Letter to Parent with name deleted:
I am very discouraged today about _______and his at home study habits. He came to me almost two grades behind where he needed to be at this stage academically. He came reading on a first grade level and showed limited ability in his writing and math skills. He has made quite a bit of progress since his arrival and that is to be commended.
It is not an easy road for him to bridge his gaps and gain ground, and he has had a great attitude this entire year which I find very commendable and amazing. He is a terrific kid. He has a positive attitude and has never given up in class in spite of this constant struggle to gain lost academic ground. He is respectful and kind at all times. He has the ability to learn and the ability to progress but with his lost ground he has to work harder than any other student and I do not find that I am getting the help I need for him in this area at home.
He desperately needs someone to take an interest in his school work at home. He needs to sit down each day in a quiet place and work for about 30 minutes on the homework packet and/or read/ and, or work on line on study island. He then needs an adult to look over his work and go over his mistakes and misconceptions at home so he can learn from his mistakes. This is how he will get the most benefit and the way he must work in order to bridge his gap academically.
I know that times are hard and everyone is overwhelmed in today’s economy. I know that time is a resource in short supply for us all. What I am asking of you is not easy, it will involve sacrifice and it will involve some creativity, but ________ is worth it. He has potential and I believe in him and what he can do. I really need someone at home to begin to work with me for his benefit.
I want to partner with you. I promise I am doing my best each day in class with him and so are the other resource people who are working with him. I know he is benefitting from tutoring also, but he needs even more help from you at home too. He has no choice if he is to begin to bridge this gap.
In one previous letter I mentioned my concerns for him and asked for you to begin to consider possible retention for him next year if we did not begin to see monumental gains and he did not pass the CRCT. You expressed to me the fact that you wanted to do all in your power to avoid this for him. I was excited about your desire to increase your work with him at home. However I am not seeing evidence of this in the work he brings me from home and the fact that in this entire school year he has only logged on to study island for two sessions and for a total of only 39 minutes. Some of that time was done in my own classroom at my insistence.
His homework today was all done in ink. It appeared to have been done all at one time and without much thought. It obviously had not been corrected and reviewed and had many, many errors. If you have lost the answer keys to the homework that I gave out at open house I am more than happy to send you another one, but it won’t do any good if you don’t take your own time to go over the work with____________.
I know you love ________ and want what is best for him. I truly believe this. I know you must be tired and overwhelmed yourself. I do not know your life but I know the times we live in and they are not easy for any of us. But we all have to dig deep and do whatever it takes so he can be the best he can be. He deserves it because he is fantastic.
I am writing this one more time to try and enlist you to help me help _________. Let me know how I can help you to help him. I am happy to help you in any way I can, in any way I am able. If nothing else I just want to encourage you to take a deep breath and rethink some things to see if you can restructure for his sake academically.
He needs to do a bit of homework each day. He needs someone to check it and go over it with him. He needs to log on to study island. He needs to learn his basic math facts. This is time consuming but there is no short cut for him to make up his lost ground.
Please let me know if I can help you or assist you.
Again __________ is a wonderful son and it is obvious you have raised him to be sweet, kind and respectful. This speaks to concerned parenting. He has the ability to learn and just needs so much work to get to where he needs to be.
I sincerely care about __________l. I want the best for him and am committed to do whatever it takes to accomplish that for him.
Sincerely,
Ole Guy
January 24th, 2010
6:13 pm
Teacher/Parent, your comment of the 21st reminds me of the bell curve employed by some of my college profs of yesteryear. If the high grade on a particular exam was less than…sometimes a whole lot less than…an A, then that high grade, in effect, became the class A for that exam. Therefore, people earning a “no-go” (no pass) generally squeaked by with an inglorious “gentleman’s C”. Sometimes I wonder how in the hell I ever graduated!
Roz Hunt
January 26th, 2010
11:25 am
That is so true. As a special education teacher, nothing could be more dreadful. If we all got assembly line products in our classrooms from the same environments…then maybe. It would foster a fight amongst faculty members for the “best kids/test takers.”
Paula Brock
January 26th, 2010
12:27 pm
Education will never change until parents assume the awesosme responsiblity of being a real parent. When parenting doesn’t take place, children begin school so far behind, and most stay behind. Most of a child’s intelligence is form before ages 2 to 3. When children are not provided positibve learning experiences, travel out of their town (city), and are not exposed to books or have books read to them, they are aleady set up for failure in school. Yes, I know there are students who do overcome these obstacles, but too many more never are able to overcome this learning/experience deficit. The parents do not value education, and these very parents do not care if their children do better in life than they have done. My parents always said to me, When you go to college…,” not, “If you go to college….” The expectation has to be there. Most people are not aware of the new requirements and rigor added to earn a high school diploma, in addition to passing the five state tests. Four years of math are now required, additional sciences have been added, etc. Most high schools only offer the college prep diploma, having done away with the gen. ed. and vocational endorsement diplomas. Not all students need to go to college. There has to be an educated populace, who can repair automobiles, applicances, cut and perm hair, pick up debris and garbage from our homes, and on and on. Will the “Powers at BE” ever wake up and realize everything begins at HOME with real PARENTS who CARE? If this ever happens, our wonderful USA will be the best educated country in the world.