Saved by the bell: End of Legislature ends merit pay push for this year.
The governor’s attempt to begin reforming how Georgia teachers are evaluated as a means of ultimately changing how they are paid never came to a vote Thursday in the final session of the General Assembly. (I watched the session until 11:45 p.m. and then went to sleep, figuring there was no way lawmakers would tackle that issue in 15 minutes.
But my colleague Kristina Torres made it to the midnight hour and filed this report:
By taking no action, lawmakers rebuff Perdue on his biggest education initiative this year. Their lack of action also came despite attempts by Perdue and supporters to soften the bill’s language as a concession to critics.
A try Thursday evening by the bill’s original sponsor in the Senate, Sen. Dan Weber (R-Dunwoody), to find another bill in which to add the same language was unsuccessful, denying new life in the waning hours of this year’s legislative session.
In the House, Rep. Brooks Coleman (R-Duluth), chairman of the House Education Committee, said the bill, with its current language, had only a “very slim” chance of being called for a vote Thursday, the last day of this year’s session.
Because the evaluation language was added as an amendment to a different bill — SB 521 — passage by the House would not have been enough for final approval. The amended bill still would have required an OK by the Senate by midnight. It never came.
The bill in its original form would have provided more support for students who are dually enrolled in college. Coleman supported that but said he was uncomfortable with the amended language that included the evaluations mandate.
Perdue’s push was widely seen as an attempt to demonstrate Georgia’s commitment to school reform at a time when federal officials are offering billions of dollars to states that embrace it. But members of the state’s two largest teacher groups, which together total more than 118,000 members, spent the week lobbying to kill the bill, discrediting it as an end run toward a merit pay system.
The question now is how much this lack of legislative action handicaps Georgia’s effort to win a Race to the Top grant. I don’t think it does, as few states have merit pay in place or even a solid blueprint to move toward it. And we are not the only state facing teacher dissent over RTTT.
I think, however, the state has to show more buy-in from districts as a whole for its ambitious Race to the Top application, which several folks lately have derided to me as a fairytale, alleging that the application exaggerates the progress of education reform in Georgia. (I would not say it exaggerates as much as puts on the best face possible, which is what everyone does in grant applications. I think evaluators know that.)
What will be more relevant to the RTTT evaluators is how, if Georgia gets a grant, faithfully and enthusiastically a new administration in the Gold Dome will embrace the reforms proposed in our application. We will definitely have a new governor and possibly a new school superintendent, although unseating an incumbent is not easy and, despite her critics here on the blog, Kathy Cox has a lot of supporters throughout the state.
So, we have finished with the Legislature. Now, we have to move into the governor’s race. I think the next governor will have a great impact on education in this state.
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192 comments Add your comment
ScienceTeacher671
May 1st, 2010
10:58 am
@Attentive Parent, there is a Georgia-specific report here:
http://www.nctq.org/stpy09/reports/stpy_georgia.pdf
Increasing the quality of ed school programs would most likely require raising the admission standards. The question is whether or not this would result in a shortage of teachers?
The least-qualified teachers at our school are still teaching on provisional certificates because they’ve been unable to pass the GACE – which begs the question of how they managed to receive bachelors or in some cases masters degrees without basic skills.
I also have to wonder why Georgia dropped the nationally-used Praxis tests in favor of the state-specific GACE, and which testing company profited from that decision?
Attentive Parent
May 1st, 2010
11:17 am
Thanks ST-
There was a time when USG was offering some type of program where you could take courses free if you failed Praxis until you could pass it.
I think Sandra Stotsky has done some reports that Praxis 2 is still too low a threshold for licensing and that a big part of what Massachusetts did to turn itself around was less about the standards than the changes in teacher training and making the licensing test more arduous.
For someone who likes history, the Pulitzer winning biography Titan of John D Rockefeller details how he funded Johns Hopkins med school to be an entirely new model of how doctors were to be trained and why. It gradually became the model we know today and the status of doctors as a genuine profession really comes out of that change in training model.
I cannot think of anything quite as tragic though as thinking you are training yourself adequately for a desired profession and only finding out at the end or in the classroom that you didn’t get the knowledge or skills you and your students need.
With respect to GACE there was something I’ve seen in the last few days that talked about considerable grade inflation in too many ed programs nationally. It gave UWisc- Madison as an example with an average GPA of 3.91.
Again finding out what you don’t know after your degree program is over benefits no one but whomever received the tuition.
ga
May 1st, 2010
11:40 am
@V – it certainly doesn’t include arresting 10 year olds!
Why????
May 1st, 2010
12:13 pm
RE: Charter Schools
Charter schools do take any student who wants to attend. However, there is an automatic filtering of students. Parents who are unmotivated or unconcerned about their child’s education, don’t take advantage of these programs. The children least likely to succeed don’t participate. I will take an at-risk student who is willing to try any day. That child comes to school prepared. That includes getting enough sleep, attempting to complete the homework, even if unsuccessful, and has a parent who will work with me on any problems we encounter.
ga is a troll
May 1st, 2010
12:41 pm
i wonder if a student assaulted ga at a WalMart, would ga’ first reaction be that it was ga’s fault for not handling the situation appropriately?
bootney farnsworth
May 1st, 2010
1:19 pm
the best carpenter can only do so much with bad wood.
we are limited by the tools and materials we’re given.
overindulged, self absorbed, volitile kids who’ve never had
a serious consequence to their actions. why? all too often
mommy and daddy come whining about how mean we are to demand
things from their children.
little trivial things like respect, effort, self disiplince,
doing their assignements on time… ya know, small things.
yup, we’re evil nasty people for expecting these things from
students.
bootney farnsworth
May 1st, 2010
1:23 pm
I have zero problem with blaming students for bad grades and bad
behaviors.
zero.
and even less problem with focusing the light exactly on the cause
- which most often is mommy and daddy.
no matter how hard folks try to spin it, at the end of the day it
is the responsibility of
ready now?
the STUDENT to his/her work. and in the case of K-12, the PARENTS
to make sure it’s done.
ga is a troll
May 1st, 2010
1:23 pm
Isn’t it funny that people will try all sorts of interventions and modifications that the student laughs off, but when you give them a real consequence, the student inevitably cries “Ok! I’m sorry!”?
bootney farnsworth
May 1st, 2010
1:24 pm
BTW: if a ten year old merits arresting, it sure as hell does.
bootney farnsworth
May 1st, 2010
1:26 pm
@ ga/troll
whats worse is when mommy and daddy come in to rescue their
little “angel”
bootney farnsworth
May 1st, 2010
1:29 pm
where I work, we had a student attack a staff member with a fire
extinguisher. we were about to boot the little monster til mommy
and daddy came charging in.
end result? no consequences for the alleged student at all, and the
staffer in question was told to never discuss the event
bootney farnsworth
May 1st, 2010
1:31 pm
y’all want to see some change? improved results and test scores?
then how about letting us throw out kids who are disruptive and
violent?
let them faces consequences instead of parental rescue – for a change.
Tim
May 1st, 2010
1:36 pm
Too bad no one actually read the bill. This is one of the worst jobs of telling the truth about legislation I have ever seen. For those who are interested, here is the actual text from the bill that describes teacher evaluation criteria. Notice point A says: “academic gains” and not general test scores. Also it is but one of 7 criteria used.
Judging by the horrible attitude and lack of knowledge expressed by the teachers in this post, it is no wonder that our schools are in trouble.
Annual teacher evaluations shall at a minimum take into consideration the following:
(A) The role of the teacher in meeting the school’s student achievement goals, including the academic gains of students assigned to the teacher;
(B) Observations of the teacher by the principal and assistant principals during the delivery of instruction and at other times as appropriate;
(C) Participation in professional development opportunities and the application ofoncepts learned to classroom and school activities;
(D) Communication and interpersonal skills as they relate to interaction with students, parents, other teachers, administrators, and other school personnel;
(E) Timeliness and attendance for assigned responsibilities;
(F) Adherence to school and local school system procedures and rules; and
(G) Personal conduct while in performance of school duties.
bootney farnsworth
May 1st, 2010
1:40 pm
“having served in the military for many years.. my pay was based on my performance as well as the performance of those I grew to command as I progressed through the ranks”
here’s the problem.
our pay is based on what the state decides to pay us.
how often is military pay frozen or reduced?
mine has been for over a decade.
you get paid for merit – we don’t.
you actually got to work with folks who willing
and thoughtfully wanted to be there. folks who
understand their actions will have consequences.
we don’t.
bootney farnsworth
May 1st, 2010
1:43 pm
Tim, please feel free to join us anytime and put your
future where your keyboard is.
Maureen Downey
May 1st, 2010
1:47 pm
Tim, I think what concerned teachers was the amendment added to that language, which is in the current version of the bill on the state Legislature site. During the House hearing in which the amendment was added, the governor’s rep said test scores would be means to measure “the student academic growth as defined by the State Board of Education” as cited below.
Maureen
This subsection shall apply to performance evaluations conducted for teachers, assistant principals, and principals by a local unit of administration prior to July 1, 2011.
(c)(1) No later than July 1, 2011, the State Board of Education, in consultation with the Office of Student Achievement, shall establish state-wide common evaluation instruments that take student achievement into consideration when assessing teachers, assistant principals, and principals. The state board may take into consideration one or more of the factors enumerated in paragraph (2) of subsection (b) of this Code section and may consider any other factors such as peer review, student academic growth as defined by the State Board of Education, and parental input that it deems relevant, when establishing the evaluation instruments.
check and balance
May 1st, 2010
1:53 pm
Want to really fix this? Well of course we don’t! But if we really wanted to, we’d offer the appropriate check and balance of having an administrator’s evaluation based in part on what the professionals that administrator leads think about the administrator.
No good administrator should fear that, because if they are doing their jobs properly, the majority of professional staff they lead will acknowledge it.
check and balance
May 1st, 2010
1:55 pm
And why do we need this check and balance. It introduces a measure of accountability to the administrator to use the evaluation instrument in a fair and equitable manner.
Of course no good administrator should fear having some accountability for using the evaluation instrument in a fair and equitable manner.
bootney farnsworth
May 1st, 2010
2:02 pm
point by point
A: how long is a piece of rope, Tim?
we can lead students to knowledge all day, but
we can’t make them think. or study. or give
a damn.
I’ve met damn few administrators who are willing to
say the kids, action, attitudes, and behavior might
have factored in to their actual educational expereince.
here’s one for you Tim.
A couple years ago at Crews Middle in Gwinnett they had a
principal who was younger than most of the faculty.
meaning he had spent his professional time sitting in class,
not teaching it.
he decided he wanted Crews Probe student percentage to go up.
so he called a meeting of Probe parents and announced he wanted
all the kids who could be in Proble 100% should be in Probe 100%.
note the difference here – not who should be, who could be. it is
entirely possible, in fact common, for kids to be gifted in math but
barely scrape by in language arts.
in this meeting Opie, boy principal, droned on and on about the %’s
and how much they could go up. the faculty sitting behind him looked
like they were gonna be ill. they knew, if he didn’t that there was a
reason kids who were not fully in Probe were that way for a good reason.
they weren’t ready yet for that kind of a challenge.
but Opie boy princial played to the vanity of the parents and got
the numbers he wanted. and left one year later.
no matter how dumb you think we are, we can spot someone building
a resume on the backs of faculty a mile off.
and we’re supposed to happily let these tools set our standards?
not hardly.
bootney farnsworth
May 1st, 2010
2:06 pm
point by point
B:
education administrators have little teaching experence.
get us some admins who have actually logged signifigant class
time and we’ll talk.
Timmy: do you like being evaluated by political appointees who
have little if any actual practical knowledge of what you do?
check and balance
May 1st, 2010
2:12 pm
No good administrator should fear being evaluated by the professionals in the building. If the administrator is doing their job, they will be evaluated properly. And they have the built in advantage that teachers don’t have; if one or two are out to get them, it will be greatly outweighed by the other professionals.
Good administrators should embrace this, as should the legislature as it’s what’s best for Georgia’s students, and no one can make the case that it isn’t.
bootney farnsworth
May 1st, 2010
2:16 pm
point by point:
C) not a bad idea, but we’re sorta busy spending 10 months a
year babysitting your children. and we teach a bit too when
we get the chance.
and there’s the clubs we sponsor, the students we tutor, the hours
we spend outside the school doing the 1000s of little things the
Tim’s of the world have no idea we do – for free, or out of our own
pockets, BTW.
but lets not forget the heat we often take for having the nerve to
actually take a day or two during the school year to do professional
development.
problem is, we’re not principals/presidents. folks depend on us to
be there daily. if we’re not there things don’t get done.
and gosh darn it: in our long, lazy, unpaid summers (shrinking steadily) conferences aren’t often scheduled to our personal convenience
Where are GAE and PAGE?
May 1st, 2010
2:17 pm
Will GAE and PAGE embrace teachers evaluating administrators, thereby bringing the very check and balance this great nation was founded on into the educational system?
Or are GAE and PAGE more interested in protecting their abusive administrators than holding them accountable with a fair and equitable evaluation tool?
ga
May 1st, 2010
2:24 pm
Arresting a 10 year old takes important resources away from the police where they should be fighting real crime. The 10 year old in the story alluded to something she was afraid of. If a child is afraid of something, they will defend themselves. Now I don’t know the details obviously, but the attitudes of educators that arresting a 10 year old is a reasonable solution is a bit daft. I would like to know if there were antecendents to this outburst and what were they. Was the child identified under 504 or an IEP? Further was an FBA done and a B.I.P. implemented . The new way of handling a lot of kids who need help is just have them arrested because you all know you can’t change placement under IDEA unless the team all agrees. That’s why you see all these false arrests of children from schools and the problem of the school to jail pipeline. Years ago, an outburst of a child would be dealt with by immediately calling the parent, immediately having a meeting and immediately troubleshooting the issue. Not anymore apparently
bootney farnsworth
May 1st, 2010
2:24 pm
point by point:
D)
care to guess how many different languages are spoken in
our public school? dialects? accents?
its not like folks are compelled to speak proper english.
make an issue of it, in fact, and you’re on a one way trip
to the Ombudsman about your racist attitude.
or even worse, the I’m Mr. Badass parents who are much more
concerned in apperances than their kids education. and you’d
be amazed how many of their kids are problem children in class
-jackass see, jackass do.
ever heard teenagers talk?
give us the ability to toss the jackasses out, refuse admittance
to kids or to hire folks who have limited english skills, make it
so we can speak without having to filter everything thru a PC
screener….
then maybe you’re on to something
bootney farnsworth
May 1st, 2010
2:29 pm
“Years ago, an outburst of a child would be dealt with by immediately calling the parent, immediately having a meeting and immediately troubleshooting the issue. Not anymore apparently”
nope not anymore.
we’ve grown tired of parents who make excuses for their little “angel”,
insist Jr is entitled to a seperate set of rules, and threaten to sue
us, the system, and anyone in six blocks of the playground.
its just safer for us to call the cops and let them handle things.
parents actually still sorta take cops seriously.
sorry, this is the system YOU created. if you think it sux,
complain to the person in your mirror. that’s where the
responsible party is.
ga
May 1st, 2010
2:29 pm
@Veteran Teacher 2 and others that hold your opinion – There is no evidence whatsoever that kids are worse today than any other generation. Especially if you look at simple facts – Teen Pregnancy Down from 10 years ago, and Illicit Drug use is on the decline. Kids are kids are kids, and if you can’t handle the heat, get out of the kitchen
bootney farnsworth
May 1st, 2010
2:31 pm
point by point:
E) Sophie’s choice. we can stay behind to work with students, or
we can blow them off for yet another senseless committee meeting
or useless seminar.
y’all pick. we just want it in writing
ga
May 1st, 2010
2:31 pm
Actually I believe it’s the attitude of some educators that are far worse than the kids.
bootney farnsworth
May 1st, 2010
2:33 pm
point by point:
F) see A).
great idea in principal, provided the folks setting those
polices know their head from a hole in the ground.
ga
May 1st, 2010
2:33 pm
@bootney – I know a lot of families that have special needs children, and they dn’t make excuses for their kids. They are some of the hardest working, diligent, caring people I know. They face challenges everyday and make lemonade out of lemons. And when they encounter discriminatory attitudes by those in Charge, they fight on as well they should
bootney farnsworth
May 1st, 2010
2:36 pm
point by point:
G) only one concern here
lets see them in writing
define personal conduct in specific ways which apply to everyone.
not just faculty, not just staff, not just an individual school.
bootney farnsworth
May 1st, 2010
2:36 pm
wonder where F got off to?
Tim
May 1st, 2010
2:37 pm
You can’t make them think – really? Is that your argument. What do teachers go to school for and get degrees in education if not to learn how to make people think and to make them care about the subjects they teach.
I am sure all teachers work hard. Further I know you have an uphill battle dealing with small minded bureaucrats who have no idea about education. But if you think the grass is greener in the private sector, we all have to be accountable for things outside our control. A sales person can’t force people to buy his product, nor does he have control over the quality of the product. Yet successful salespeople sell on commission and want to sell on commission because they realize that they do matter and their skills are valuable. I just wish more of our teachers felt the same way.
facts wrong
May 1st, 2010
2:37 pm
As John Rosemond has pointed out many times, by every measure of childhood health and well being, children are worse off than they were 40 years ago.
About the same time we as a society started being the child’s friend, and not the child’s authority figure.
ga logic
May 1st, 2010
2:40 pm
Now the truth comes out. Teachers are subhuman in ga’s eyes, therefore assaulting a teacher isn’t a real crime.
bootney farnsworth
May 1st, 2010
2:40 pm
“You can’t make them think – really? Is that your argument.”
yup. Occams Razor in effect.
no matter how much we try, we can’t compell anyone to think.
look at yourself. facts after facts have been presented to you
which you refuse to acknowledge.
the best educators in existance can’t educate a closed mind.
ga logic
May 1st, 2010
2:41 pm
If a child has a 504, they can’t be guilty of a crime, only guilty of having poorly trained teachers.
ga logic
May 1st, 2010
2:43 pm
Notice how ga calls a violent physical assault on a school staff member an outburst instead of an assault?
bootney farnsworth
May 1st, 2010
2:44 pm
since it seems lost in the filter
point by point:
F) see A).
when the rules are universal and in effect for everyone
when they are clearly spelled out both in consequence and effect
when thet are made by folks who actually understand the situtions
they wish to control
then we got something
ga logic
May 1st, 2010
2:46 pm
So according to ga’s logic, there are antecedents that make a violent physical assault on a school staff member not a crime?
bootney farnsworth
May 1st, 2010
2:47 pm
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it yet again.
I’m not against Merit Pay in principal. I just flat don’t trust
the folks who advocate it. they have shown themselves to be
political whores for the most part.
if its such a good idea, why not invite us to the table to discuss
how to implement it? why try to sneak it past us under the cover
of darkness?
Ah but Tim
May 1st, 2010
2:49 pm
“A sales person can’t force people to buy his product, nor does he have control over the quality of the product”
Ah but Tim, the sales person is judged on THEIR efforts. And the sales manager has the authority to REMOVE disruptive sales team members who refuse to show up, refuse to sell and argue, curse or otherwise disrupt members of the sales team.
Give teachers that SAME authority, and they’ll JUMP on board for merit pay.
ga exposed
May 1st, 2010
2:57 pm
As soon as ga tried to minimize the violent, physical and illegal assault of an educator as a mere outburst, ga was thoroughly exposed as someone with an anti teacher agenda.
In other words, a troll.
Now that we’ve exposed the troll, let’s stop feeding the troll.
V for Vendetta
May 1st, 2010
3:02 pm
Tim,
We can’t MAKE anyone think. We attempt to teach them HOW to think. You’ll notice that the act of thinking is sort of a prerequisite.
ga,
I wonder where you would draw the line. Should a poor, innocent student who never had a fair chance in life be held accountable for beating up another kid? What about a teacher? What if he killed someone? Where do you draw the line? If he’s SPED should he be help accountable for anything? Or do ADA and IDEA prevent us from expecting anything reasonable from them?
You said if we can’t take the heat we should get out of the kitchen. I would love to see you step into my kitchen and handle the heat. You wouldn’t last a minute.
V for Vendetta
May 1st, 2010
3:03 pm
Oh, and Tim, I worked in sales before becoming a teacher. It is NOTHING like teaching. It’s a helluva lot easier. Trust me.
ga in the kitchen
May 1st, 2010
3:10 pm
I would love to see ga in the kitchen, but I can’t in good faith subject students to the sight of ga, cowering under the teacher’s desk, in a puddle of urine sobbing uncontrollably, “It really isn’t the teachers. It really is the discipline!”
hello.life
May 1st, 2010
3:36 pm
@ga
So maybe arresting the girl was a bad idea but there is not enough evidence in the article. What if the girl had a previous disciplinary record? Being scared is a logical explanation but why would she be scared? Also the excuse of wanting to see a family friend does nothing. I can’t just walk out of school because I feel like it. It doesn’t work. She is being punished for skipping class, insubordination, and violence.
Teacher&mom
May 1st, 2010
3:46 pm
@Tim and others who think teacher evaluations are lacking: Please take a few moments to read through the Class Keys.
http://www.gadoe.org/DMGetDocument.aspx/CK%20Standards%204-30-09.pdf?p=6CC6799F8C1371F60C8684DFDC96C1C9E173A927D7D04E1B1E862FC762CCF7F9&Type=D
Still convinced teacher evaluations are lacking?
Teacher/Learner
May 1st, 2010
4:05 pm
@Teacher&Mom, I think Class Keys is a VERY rigorous BUT TERRIBLY UNDEFINED instrument…could you please tell me how DEEP KNOWLEDGE will be defined for just Reading across K-5? now add mathematics, science, social studies…move on to high school where in order to evaluate teachers, a principal is going to have to possess “deep knowledge” of biology, english lit, trigonometry,….Class Keys is a class document, but GA is light years away from being ready to use it to evaluate teachers – the money and time required (3 years minimum for time) to engage teachers in professional learning and coaching are simply not gonna happen…
I asked our very, very capable, bright k-5 math coordinator to define “deep knowledge” in a discussion about Class Keys and she looked me straight in the eye, right in front of our entire faculty and said, “I can’t tell you…”
Class Keys is pretty rhetoric – have you got ANY information from the GA DOE on how it is to be thoughfully implemented across GA public schools…if so, please share.