The Memphis public schools are about to merge with the Shelby County schools into a single district.
The guiding document was written by a 21-member Transition Planning Commission.
The director of the TPC happens to work for the reform group Stand for Children, now best known among educators for its efforts to crush the Chicago Teachers Union.
Several articles about Memphis have appeared on this blog. The TPC proposed, for example, that the proportion of students in charter schools increase from 4 percent to 19 percent by 2016, even though it is by now clear that charter schools don’t get better results than public schools.
The TPC decided that teachers should have merit pay, despite the fact that merit pay has never been successful in producing anything but demoralization.
The TPC decided that teachers’ education and experience will not count.
This high school teacher says they are wrong.
He writes, “the TPC recommends teachers no longer be paid more for their advanced degrees. They claim master’s degrees and doctorates are irrelevant in the classroom. This is a terrible insult. To assert that education is the cornerstone of success for everyone in our community except teachers disrespects the professionals who teach and care for our children each day. It belittles the years of study and the large sums of money teachers invest in their careers, and it will ultimately run the best and brightest teachers out of our classrooms and into jobs that offer higher compensation and less degradation.”
Why does one teacher know more than a commission of 21 people?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Because he’s in there…in the trenches, so they say!
Is it possible that a new teacher could be as effective as a seasoned one? Yes. The reality is that neither experience nor education necessarily make a better teacher. I can tell you from personal experience that my Masters Degree was a joke and many educators will echo the sentiment that education preparation programs are notoriously poor. That’s not to say this panel’s suggestions are good but this writer’s arguments have some holes.
I once worked at long term residential treatment facility for profoundly impaired and medically high risk people which was a 24/7 12 month facility. Because we worked shoulder to shoulder with medical personnel in maintaining quality of life conditions for this vulnerable and very dependant population, all instructional plans had to be designed as a behavioral interventions and measured via data collection and recorded on data charts daily. Imagine the data chart for a behavior intervention ongoing for 15 months; it might be 8 ft long!. No decision was made without supporting data and statistical analysis. Every change in a client’s program had to pass the scrutiny of Human Rights Review Committee and Medical Review Boards approval. Something as simple as teaching someone to wipe their mouth during meals had to gain approval before implimentation. The challenge for greater and greater levels of accountability was painstaking yet it was important. It did protect our clients from frivilous interventions, unnecessary intrusions, rogue science and disruptions into their privacy. The question which would stop any frivilous self-serving interest was a blunt direct demand that separated those who actually knew what we were doing and could prove it from those who were simply full of hot air. The challenge of “Where’s your data?” would shut downn the charlatans everytime. We teachers and parents need to use it more often to separate the Reformers (billionaire know-nothings) from the REAL Reformers. We need to start bravely protecting American Public Education and our kids from all this wild experimentation and exploitation. When a reformer makes a spurious claim, we need to firmly shoot back …”WHERE’S YOUR DATA?”
One more time.Repeat after me,
“WHERE’S YOUR DATA?”
PS. At our annual end-of-the-year party, I was surprised with an award. I was officially named the “All Time ‘Where’s Your Data?’ Queen” for having the most instructional behavior interventions pass board review during the year. I had my data! Lots of it.
While I like the logic of this statement and it’s nice rhetorical turn about I have to say that I don’t believe in the value of advanced degrees as a basis of teacher compensation where it is compulsory. I can think of no better way to devalue the graduate school experience than to force people to participate. It makes the teacher feel out upon and it makes the institutions of higher learning lazy.
I speak from experience. Apart from getting my administrative license my graduate degree did nothing to improve my performance as a teacher. The running joke with my students during my time in graduate school was to ask them if they noticed me getting $20,000 better today.
Certainly if a teacher decides a graduate degree is something that will help their practice and they choose an institution based on the quality of the program rather than the expedience and low cost then I am sure it will help. That being said a compulsory policy sucks the value out of the endeavor and makes it another expensive T to cross in an ever increasing string of policy that erects barriers to the profession.